In Escapes Ricardo van Steen presents eight paintings in which he covers themes that encompass space, public space and perception. By confronting us with classic duels around nature and culture, he creates a timeless visuality. In a second clash the artist detaches himself from the machinic and the photographic, which become only starting points for the capture of places, people and spaces.
After photographic capture, for this series, the signifiers are treated by an operation that involves precise eye observation as well as drawing and painting skills. This ability to produce using technology and artisanal skills is a rarity in the art field today.
The language created by the artist in the Escapes series unveils a rare syntax, painted on paper with mastery. He applies and tensions the watercolour, until the technique has the effect of painting, by overlapping materials. In works whose scenes are reflected on glass, the artist opted to achieve reflections and transparencies through photographic shots, thinking of the pictorial layers that could be achieved. This implies he must have knowledge of the possibilities of the production process in relation to time, drying and medium reactions.
Ricardo does not have the issue of ecology on the tip of his tongue, as if he had stored an arsenal ready to trigger a “speech of the day” at any moment. On the contrary, in the set of this seemingly simple series, he creates decelerating landscapes that challenge the contemporary modus operandi of artistic operations.
But what is the contemporary? The philosopher Giorgio Agamben* begins by asking to whom or what are we contemporary? And he revisits Nietzsche, for whom the contemporary would be that which has a certain lag, because whoever truly belongs to this time does not perfectly coincide with it and does not adhere to its pretensions, hence becomes defined as “irrelevant”.
If we were to think like both philosophers, we would conclude that it is because of this supposed anachronism* that van Steen is even better able to perceive and understand his time. The dys-chrony* here does not mean that the artist lives in another chronology, “or is nostalgic, or does not recognize himself living in the time he lives,” according to Agamben.
Between us, the brave way van Steen confronts this series and puts his skill at the service of art is incredibly healthy. When he takes a breath – a step back from the exclusive use of machinic devices – Ricardo offers an alternative to today’s world and takes on an attitude that removes the contagion that comes from matrices moulded to homogeneous patterns.
The suspended temporalities in Escapes refer us again to the duel between the artisanal and the machinic. And although the artist has an important production in photography and cinema, in this series the artisanal wins. The resumption of the pictorial in a hazy present seems to prepare a becoming, in which subjective clashes could separate the dominant world from life. Everything indicates a gentle way of resisting, without splits or dissent.
By constructing a micro-space within the arts system, Ricardo van Steen escapes the commonplace through a temporal pause and perceptive sharpening. He creates this series of Escapes or places of flight as a way of reinserting an idyllic layer into the world and, who knows, perhaps reordering it.
Daniela Bousso
Reference
AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Qu’est-ce que le contemporain?. Payot & Rivages, Paris, 2008. Pages 7-10. The words anachronism and dys-chrony are terms coined by the author, who discusses and takes-in Nietzsche’s reflections in this essay.