Pedro Álvarez Castelló

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Pedro Álvarez Castelló
Born: 1967
Havana, Cuba
Died: February 12, 2004
Tempe, Arizona
Occupation: Painter

Pedro Álvarez Castelló (1967- February 12, 2004) was a Cuban artist who rose to prominence during Cuba's Special Period.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Álvarez was a native of Havana, Cuba. He studied art at the Acedemia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro from 1980-1985 and the Instituto Superior Pedagógico Enrique José Varona from 1986-1991. [1] [2] He was a member of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (Cuban Union of Writers and Artists).

He married a Cuban woman and had a child. When he wasn't travelling to promote his work, he divided his time between Málaga, Spain and Havana. [3] According to John Becker, the attorney designated by Arizona State University to help distribute Álvarez's work after his death, Álvarez and his wife later divorced, then they each married Spanish spouses with the intention of eventually divorcing their new spouses and remarrying each other.[4]

On February 12, 2004, Álvarez died after jumping out of the fifth-floor window of a hotel in Tempe, Arizona just five days after the beginning of a major solo exhibition of his work, "Landscape in the Fireplace," at the Arizona State University Art Museum. Police found no evidence of drug or alcohol use. [5] He didn't leave a suicide note, and his death was a shock to people who had spoken with him just hours before. [6]

[edit] Work

Al socialismo debemos hoy todo lo que somos
Enlarge
Al socialismo debemos hoy todo lo que somos
After Landaluze
Enlarge
After Landaluze

Álvarez's paintings are shown in museums around the world, including the Museo Nacional Palacio de Bellas Artes in Havana, the Museo Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain, the Arizona State University Museum of Art in Tempe, Arizona, the Museum of Art in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and the Museo de la Universidad de Alicante in Alicante, Spain. He produced more than eight personal exhibitions in Cuba and Spain and more than 40 collective exhibitions in Germany, Canada, Spain, England and the United States. [7]

ASU Art Museum director Marilyn Zeitlin said Álvarez's work “addresses questions of importance not only for Cubans and those interested in that work and place, but issues of perennial and global concern including colonialism and ways in which we perpetuate colonialism without even being aware of it.”[8][9]

Much of his work utilized a juxtaposition of pop culture references, such as clippings from The Simpsons comic books, against traditional Cuban images, such as 19th century peasants and troubadors. Describing his creative process, Álvarez said, "The iconography in my paintings is a collage of found images. Clips from art catalogues, magazines, books, old postcards, bank notes are intuitively collected and stocked for some time until they are used, in a more or less fragmentary way, as backgrounds, characters or plain referents. It is a process very close to the one described in Freud's studies on jokes. I have to be "half way through" those clips and into the realm of ideas, concerns and intuitions. From that tension, the new ideas are born. The execution phase has its own rhythm and tensions, but in a general sense, the majority of the important decisions has already been taken before painting starts." [10]

[edit] Related artists

[edit] Influneces

[edit] Peers

  • Antonio Eligio Fernandez
  • Saidel Brito
  • Sandra Ramos
  • Kcho
  • Carlos Estévez
  • Belkis Ayón
  • Luís Gómez
  • René Francisco
  • Abel Barroso
  • Fernando Rodríguez
  • Osvaldo Yero
  • Asterio Segura

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Martell, Marisol. Pedro Alvarez (1967-2004). ArtNexus. No. 53 Jul 2004
  2. ^ Sánchez, Suset. La historia como carambola. http://www.cubaencuentro.com/es/encuentro_en_la_red/entrevistas/historias_de_fondo/la_historia_como_carambola. 7 Apr 2006.
  3. ^ Pedro Alvarez (Obituaries). Art World. April 2004.
  4. ^ Saidi, Nicole. Deceased painter's art still without home. ASU State Press. 17 Sep 2004.
  5. ^ Saidi, Nicole. Artist committed suicide at hotel. ASU State Press. 18 Feb 2004.
  6. ^ Vanesian, Kathleen. Cuban Crisis. Phoenix New Times. 1 Apr 2004.
  7. ^ http://www.soflocubanart.com/artists.php
  8. ^ [Zeitlin, Marilyn. The Revolution Downstairs. Shade. Feb/Mar 2004.]
  9. ^ [1]
  10. ^ Zeitlin, Marilyn. The Revolution Downstairs. Shade. Feb/Mar 2004.

[edit] Links

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