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Lot Essay
We are presented here with one of the great Yoruban myths. This myth has a logical language that stems from ethnic African Yoruban roots, which arrived in Cuba through la Trata. An important fragment of this culture, with its obsessions and desires, occupies a definitive place in Cuba. Manuel Mendive Hoyo (born in La Habana in 1944) mystic and mythic has a style that differs from his artistic roots. This originality is due to his desire to express himself with a significant system of symbols that he inherited from his ancestors. He never worried about breaking taboos or about exploring risky territory.
Tigre con guante (Unle Obbara in Yoruba) shows us the pleasure of occult wisdom through the symbol of diloggun (a method of Yoruban soothsaying) which has been guarded and transmitted in difficult conditions, by generations of men and women who vowed to defend its importance. As a contemporary artist, Mendive understood the importance of symbols, of representing ideas and of passionately manipulating the link between the past and the present. The metaphysical and surreal interaction between a globalized technocracy and his works can be understood in two ways. Firstly, it shows a transparent code only for those initiated in the Santería o Regla de Ocha (a Yoruban religious discipline). In this case, the character Unle Obbara comes in contact with a body in the image of a canvas. This is the character of tradition that guards against the sly enemy who pretends to be a friend.
The field of red tell us that there is a sign associated with the deity Changó and the Oriche Mayor that are syncretised with Santa Barbara and according to tradition announces the triumph of the warning. The priest who empties the contents of a form just like the Europeans did with their cult objects that they took to Africa and Polynesia, perceives the aesthetic enjoyment achieved in contemplating the exquisite manipulation of forms, the purified craft and the emotion of the creator that pervades our lives like a perfume that lasts for centuries.
In this work, Mendive validates the reality of a place and presents it as a field for research and as a permanent experiment (recalling his sculptures and performances). Tigre con guante (Unle Obbara) traces a parable from the philosophical universe to the popular Cuban wisdom of today. The color red defines not only the Oriche but also the artist. This color fascinated him since his accident of 1968 ("Seeing so much blood changed my concept of color"). Red against red signifies that something palpable is occurring on the surface of the canvas. The rest, a fine dust of African earth that perpetuates in Cuba and that covers us by blowing and surging to infinity.
We are grateful to Mr. Lazaro Castellaños for his assistance in writing the essay for the above lot.
Tigre con guante (Unle Obbara in Yoruba) shows us the pleasure of occult wisdom through the symbol of diloggun (a method of Yoruban soothsaying) which has been guarded and transmitted in difficult conditions, by generations of men and women who vowed to defend its importance. As a contemporary artist, Mendive understood the importance of symbols, of representing ideas and of passionately manipulating the link between the past and the present. The metaphysical and surreal interaction between a globalized technocracy and his works can be understood in two ways. Firstly, it shows a transparent code only for those initiated in the Santería o Regla de Ocha (a Yoruban religious discipline). In this case, the character Unle Obbara comes in contact with a body in the image of a canvas. This is the character of tradition that guards against the sly enemy who pretends to be a friend.
The field of red tell us that there is a sign associated with the deity Changó and the Oriche Mayor that are syncretised with Santa Barbara and according to tradition announces the triumph of the warning. The priest who empties the contents of a form just like the Europeans did with their cult objects that they took to Africa and Polynesia, perceives the aesthetic enjoyment achieved in contemplating the exquisite manipulation of forms, the purified craft and the emotion of the creator that pervades our lives like a perfume that lasts for centuries.
In this work, Mendive validates the reality of a place and presents it as a field for research and as a permanent experiment (recalling his sculptures and performances). Tigre con guante (Unle Obbara) traces a parable from the philosophical universe to the popular Cuban wisdom of today. The color red defines not only the Oriche but also the artist. This color fascinated him since his accident of 1968 ("Seeing so much blood changed my concept of color"). Red against red signifies that something palpable is occurring on the surface of the canvas. The rest, a fine dust of African earth that perpetuates in Cuba and that covers us by blowing and surging to infinity.
We are grateful to Mr. Lazaro Castellaños for his assistance in writing the essay for the above lot.