Caio Fonseca Catalogue
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Transcript of Caio Fonseca Catalogue
C AIO FONSEC A20 may- 10 july 2011
TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY
62 SOUTH GLENWOOD ST PO BOX 1435
JACKSON WY 83001 TEL 307 733 0555
WWW.TAYLOEPIGGOTTGALLERY.COM
3
PREFACE
In the months leading up to this exhibition, I often vividly recalled the
first time I encountered Caio’s paintings in person. At the Corcoran
Museum of Art in 2004 during his first solo museum show, I stood in
front of a massive canvas, smiling in joy and awe at the audacity of
the work. Caio’s paintings command your attention and respect while
igniting your imagination. They leave you feeling like you have just
held an enlightening conversation with your most confident, witty, and
brilliant friend. The paintings invite you into their dynamic layers of
positive and negative space. Their shapes, whether they are small and
repetitive or large and sweeping, achieve both a quiet balance and a
rhythmic moving dance. I was then, and have been ever since, utterly
enchanted.
Imagine my excitement as I planned a visit in the winter of 2011 to
Caio’s Fifth Street studio. Joining Caio and his lovely assistant Margaret
in the perfectly imagined New York artist’s studio—bright, capacious,
creativity flowing through the air—I was taken to a place of peace.
The laughter and conversation flowed as my anticipation eased to
relaxation and opened the door for play, which was exactly what it felt
like to choose paintings for this show. I wish to thank Caio for making
me feel so at ease and welcome, and for sharing his extraordinary
vision and talent. I look forward to sharing the sense of awe and
discovery his paintings elicit with visitors to the gallery and viewers of
this catalogue, and also to continuing to be enchanted with Caio’s bold
and brilliant paintings for many years to come.
Tayloe Piggott
5
EXCERPT
My father [Uruguayan artist Gonzalo Fonseca] used to say: ‘Your
autobiography will be in your work.’ I think he’s right. In my work, I
have all my contradictions. I’m a hermit that can work a crowd.
I’m a humorous person but extremely ascetic as well. We all have
contradictions, mine show up in the miracle of colours housed in fierce
structure. My parents and siblings are all artists. My father was wise
enough not to become my teacher, so we didn’t confuse father-and-
son roles with master-and-pupil roles, but I saw what the life of an
artist can be from him. It’s a huge responsibility. My mother used to
joke that it wouldn’t kill the family to have one dentist, something
useful. But we ended up all being artists and she’s very proud of that.
I grew up in New York. I left school and went to Barcelona [Spain]
for five years to study under Augusto Torres, alongside my brother,
Bruno. That was a very intensive Socratic method of learning figurative
painting. For me, to become an artist was such an undertaking, in terms
of what I thought a painter was. My father is such a towering example
of integrity and excellence that, for me, it was like an Everest to climb
and master. College was great for other things but not for what I
wanted to learn. I was lucky to have a teacher I respected so much. My
teacher was friends with [Pablo] Picasso and knew [Piet] Mondrian, so
we heard all these stories. My father had studied with Augusto’s father
[Joaquin Torres- Garcia; the father of Constructive Universalism]. So
I feel I have several generations of mentorship behind me through a
connection to that long line of work. They gave me the underpinning
of a great education. There is no prescribed way to being an artist; I
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certainly wouldn’t prescribe my way to other people. Some people
burn out, others make that part of their education. Some people get
gallery representation straight out of art school; people today are
finding galleries while they are in art school. I ended up waiting 13 or
14 years before I had my first New York show – but from there, the Met
[the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] bought two paintings.
Maybe I was the tortoise, not the hare. The more I mature as an artist,
the more I am painting for myself. It’s great to get response from the
outside world – it’s always a minor miracle when someone is connected
to your work, or buys a painting; but I’d be painting even if no one did.
I have an interesting double life; I spend six months a year in New York
and six months in a very small town in Italy, called Pietrasanta, near
the coast. I’ve been doing it for 25 years. The knowledge that I won’t
be interrupted, not just for days but months, is a tremendous boon to
my development. Every year I try to surpass myself and make sure I
am not producing ‘Caio Fonseca paintings’ but something new that I
believe in and that is at the forefront of my research. Everyone who has
lived in a foreign country knows that being away from your language,
your familiar reference points does aid the wonderful isolation that an
artist feels. It’s an added purity to your days. I go to Italy to discover
new ideas – those are the hardest to find in New York, or anywhere
where you are diluted in your concentration. As for confidence – if you
don’t have it, you have to fake it. You have to go down into the studio
every day, even if you don’t feel you can paint. In New York, my studio
work would be at 60 per cent capacity of what I’m able to achieve in
Italy. But after six months of such intensity, New York is the perfect
antidote to that kind of isolation.
7
Music is one of my biggest influences. I’ve played classical piano all my
life and, for the past two years, I have been studying, rather seriously,
composition with a professor in New York. That has really gotten into
my painting. It’s not so much the rhythm of music or the shapes of
instruments, but the inner workings, the counterpoints, how intervals
resolve themselves, how the architecture of melody might translate. I
do not listen to music when I paint. If I put on great music, it becomes
a distraction. If I put on horrible music, it’s a nightmare. And everything
else in the middle is an ode to mediocrity. I do play piano for a few
hours in the morning and that does set the day in an abstract mode.
When I paint, I need silence. It’s not just for concentration; it’s also that
I have a strange connection between sound and space so much so that
a yellow might have a higher pitch to me than another, and I need that
sound-spatial quality when I work.
This is not the kind of work that needs wall text or written explanations.
What it needs is for people to spend the first minute or two just
looking. Human beings can decipher these paintings without the use
of language. They want to explain themselves. Everything within the
work is interrelated. If you ‘travel’ through the painting, you’ll find that
there is spontaneity and structure, interplay between the two is what
I believe gives it the enduring value – which you can keep looking at,
which will keep revealing things about themselves over time.
Excerpted from a 2010 Interview with Caio Fonseca
PAINTING
10
Pietrasanta C10.6, 2010
mixed media on canvas
50 x 72 inches
12
Pietrasanta C08.36, 2008
mixed media on canvas
42 x 62 inches
14
Pietrasanta P05.28, 2005
gouache on paper
30 x 42 inches
16
Pietrasanta C10.7, 2010
mixed media on canvas
72 x 52 inches
18
Pietrasanta P05.29, 2005
gouache on paper
30 x 42 inches
20
Pietrasanta P07.43, 2007
gouache on paper
30 x 42 inches
22
Fifth Street C05.48, 2005
mixed media on canvas
52 x 37 inches
24
Pietrasanta C09.18, 2009
mixed media on canvas
42 x 62 inches
26
Pietrasanta P09.27, 2009
gouache on paper
30 x 42 inches
28
Fifth Street C05.9, 2005
mixed media on canvas
65 x 84 inches
30
Pietrasanta C10.34, 2010
mixed media on canvas
37 x 52 inches
32
Pietrasanta P10.16, 2010
gouache on paper
23 x 30 inches
34
Pietrasanta P06.27, 2006
gouache on paper
30 x 42 inches
36
Pietrasanta P10.15, 2010
gouache on paper
23 x 30 inches
39
CAIO FONSECA
Caio Fonseca, American, born 1959, was raised in New York City. In 1978 he went
to Barcelona where he studied and painted until 1983. He moved to Pietrasanta
(Lucca) in 1985 where he worked until 1989. After two years in Paris, he returned to
New York and now divides his time between Pietrasanta and his studio in Manhattan
on East Fifth Street. His works are held in numerous public and private collections in
Europe and the United States.
ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2011 Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY
The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY
2010 Ben Brown Fine Arts, Hong Kong
Kayne Exhibition Space, Los Angeles, CA
Victoria Munroe Fine Art, Boston, MA
2009 Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, UK
2008 The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY
2007 Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO
2005 Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, UK
2004 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
2003 Institut Valenciá de Arte Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain
David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO
Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA
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2002 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA
2000 Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, St. Louis, MO
David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO
1999 Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY
University Art Gallery, University of California at San Diego, CA
Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC
1998 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Knoedler & Co., New York, NY
1996 Knoedler & Co., New York, NY
Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY
Meredith Long & Co., Houston, TX
1995 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1994 Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY
1993 Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY
1991 Galeria Anna Ricart, Barcelona, Spain
1985 Villa D’elatre, Lucca, Italy
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2008 “Contemporary Watercolors,” The Harrison Gallery, Williamstown, MA
2008 “Ojo Latino, la Mirada de un continente,” Santiago de Chile
2007 “Solstice,” David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO
2006 “Sliding Scales,” Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, NY
“Black + White,” Nathan Bernstein & Co, Ltd., New York, NY
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2005 “Cross Section,” Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
“Fuori Tema/Italian Feeling,” XIV Quadriennale di Roma, Rome, Italy
2003 “Drawing Modern: Works from the Agnes Gund Collection”, Cleveland
Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
2002 “New York Renaissance: Selections from the Whitney Museum of
American Art,” Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy
“Abstraction,” Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA
2001 “Summer 2001,” Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
2000 “Painting,” Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
1999 “Processes,” Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton and Vancouver, Canada
“Acquisitions,” John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“Abstraction,” Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, MI
“Abstract Painting,” Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
1997 “Basically Black & White,” Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
“Purely Painting,” Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, NY
“Contemporary Masterworks,” Knoedler & Co., New York, NY
1996 “The New York Scene 1996,” Gotlands Konst Museum, Visby, Sweden
1995 “Under Glass,” Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY
“Essence & Persuasion: The Power of Black & White,” The Anderson
Gallery, Buffalo, NY
1994 “About Color,” Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY
1993 “Essentials,” Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY
“Summer Invitational,” David Beitzel Gallery, New York, NY
CATALOGS AND BOOKS
2010 Caio Fonseca, Paintings 2009-2010 (hardbound, 64 page exhibition
catalogue). Los Angeles: Kayne Exhibition Space.
42
2007 Caio Fonseca, Paintings 2006-2007 (hardbound, 72 page exhibition
catalogue). New York: Paul Kasmin Gallery.
2005 Caio Fonseca, New Paintings (hardbound, 71 page exhibition catalogue).
London: Ben Brown Fine Arts.
Inventions: Recent Paintings by Caio Fonseca (hardbound, 88 page book
accompanying museum exhibition). Washington D.C.: Corcoran Gallery
of Art.
2003 Kunitz, Daniel. Caio Fonseca: Paintings, (hardbound, 201 page book
accompanying museum exhibition). Valencia, Spain: IVAM.
2002 New York Renaissance: Highlights from the Whitney Museum of American
Art (exhibition catalogue). Milan, Italy: Palazzo Reale.
Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). New York, NY: Paul Kasmin Gallery.
Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). San Francisco, CA: John Berggruen
Gallery.
1999 Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). San Francisco, CA: John Berggruen
Gallery
1998 Di Piero, W.S. Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalog). New York, NY: Knoedler
& Co.
1996 The New York Scene 1996, Gotlands Konst Museum Catalog. 1996, Sweden.
Wilkin, Karen. Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). San Francisco, CA:
John Berggruen Gallery.
1994 Adams, Brooks. Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). New York, NY:
Charles Cowles Gallery.
Wilkin, Karen. Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). New York, NY: Charles
Cowles Gallery.
1991 Giralt-Miracle, Daniel. Caio Fonseca (exhibition catalogue). Barcelona,
Spain: Galeria Anna Ricart.
43
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina
The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
The United States Embassy, Vienna, Austria
Cesar Pelli, architect. Reagan National Airport Washington D.C., Mural commission.
Renzo Piano, architect. Bovis Lend Lease, Aurora Place, Sydney, Australia,
Mural commission.
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Art, Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco, California
Goldman Sachs, New York, New York
The Microsoft Collection, Seattle, Washington
IVAM, Valencia, Spain
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
C AIO FONSEC A20 may - 10 july 2011
Tayloe Piggott Gallery62 South Glenwood Street, PO Box 1435Jackson, Wyoming 83001Tel 307 733 0555www.tayloepiggottgallery.com
Catalog designed by Ali Scheier
Printed by Northern Printers
Interview by Yvonne LaiOriginally published in Hong Kong’s Post Magazine
October 31, 2010
Photographs by Alan Zindman, Stefano Baroni,
Ellen Page Wilson, Leslie Hassler
All rights reserved
Tayloe Piggott Gallery