Pablo Vargas-Lugo portrays moments of high
emotion with delicacy. Through attention to composition and the qualities inherent in the
materials used, the artist traces a connection between the hand and the mind. Akin to the
traditional Japanese cut-paper landscape, Vargas-Lugo's collages are fragile scenarios in
which each layer seems to float. Although hand-crafted, the collage series
“Golgotha” (2000) recalls the hard edge of the digital while alluding to the
foundational image of the Crucifixion. Vargas-Lugo (b. 1968, Mexico) lives and works
between Mexico City and New York.
Solo exhibitions and projects include “Strabic Vision,” Galeria OMR, Mexico City
(2001); “Pyramid Panoram,” Art + Idea, New York (2000); “Aeropuerta
99,” Mexico City subway stations (1999); “CongoBravo,” Museo Carrillo Gil,
Mexico City (1998); and “Rise and Fall,” Brasilica, Vienna (1998).
“Golgotha” is the name of the famous barren hill on which Christ was
crucified alongside tow thieves two thousand years ago. Ever since then, the image of a
crucifried man has embodied the transit from victimization to suffering to forgivenss to
death and final resurrction, its depiction usually stressing bloody lacerations, and
agonized gaze and the burden of the body’s weight. These drawings attempt to touch on
the image of such a foundational event; they are not a frontal, but a sideways glance into
the iconography of death and glory, transformed into an almost accidental layering of
starts, crosses and celestial bodies acting out parts in a variety of positions.
--Pablo Vargas-Lugo |