HUMBERTO POIDOMANI: THE PREMONITORY ART FROM THE ARTISTC SUBCONCIOUS

In an extravagant gesture of invested visionary power the Argentinian artist Humberto Poidomani has created his latest works 2019-2020 recently exhibited in SCOPE NEW YORK on March of this year with a powerful connection to these troubled COVID-19 times and with the climactic tensions of our world.  The works aligned into different categories and compounds of paintings, sculptures and assemblages of disparate materials of unexpected blending, sharply propose a sequel of metaphors on the contemporary precarious civilization condition.

Poidomani’s creations are critical traces of the world in its ‘liquid times in an age of uncertainty’ (Zigmunt Bauman). It is a moment in which a huge rupture of social forms, habits, and behaviors is taking place and these notions are melting down into a volatile existential circumstance. Our until-now known world is being defied by forces that transcend our understanding.   

Premonitory art as anticipatory art in which artists prescient the development of an epoch, an event, an upcoming era, and as such they display it in their works, is a profound artistic faculty the French theorist Jean Duvignaud has pointed out is his Sociology of Art. Poidomani has prefigured and has anticipated incisive current events. From his subconscious self, from this elusive realm, the artist has pulled out the signs of our current society and civilization.

In the revelatory painting Apocalypse Nice (2019) Poidomani foreshadows the present moment of our chaotic world time. The scenario reveals a collapse of order by capital sins and apocalyptic narratives of death and punishment. On the left side, Poidomani outlines masses of faces in different expressions: cynical faces, mad faces, angry faces, laughing faces, fearful faces, as of a full range of humanity in its extreme obscure condition.  Over this on, it can read the potent word “Help”, outlined with igneous reds and oranges. As part of his artistic practice, Poidomani combines visual narratives with written phrases. In the painting, he adds up piercing philosophical quotes referencing the literature of the classics such as Shakespeare or Dante. Indistinctively, the artist cites them in English, Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew or Spanish, to enunciate the Apocalypse of Times in an universal scope:  “Estamos Hechos del Mismo Material que los Suenos” words by  Prospero in Shakespeare’s Tempest or “The Last Judgement”, Ultimi Judichi”, “Il Guiduzio”, “das letze ulteil” from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. All over the scene, the painting shows allusions of the Seven Capital Sins: human riders stand on their horses for Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Greed, Sloth, Lust, and Wrath. The work becomes a cataclysmic chronicle of humans and their demons.  The artists in an interview said: Apocalypse Nice that I painted in 2019, had an anticipatory effect in which as its title indicates, for this apocalyptic moment people just create an entertainment space watching Netflix, You Tube, Prime or any other powerful digital media.      

The work The Gatekeepers (2020) is an unexpected sculptural assemblage of mixed media materials portraying the heads  of polemic four leaders Trump (USA), Putin (Russia), Kim Jon-un (North Korea) and Xi Jinping (China), standing as a juggernaut of the global powers of the world. The grotesque four heads stand as a two-faced monster of hybrid evils, each head eloquently projecting its psychological harm and power of destruction. Half-bodied and covered with graffiti-like powerful phrases such as “razzle dazzle”, “pan y circo”, “pasen y piensen”, “nothing exists except atoms and space”, the work reveals its philosophical and political subtext. The monster stands over an old vintage suitcase covered with allegorical images of violence and brutality, symbolizing the translative supremacy, control and authority exerted by the rulers.   The hands of Xi Jinping and Kim Jon-un are of intense bloody red color perhaps as a metaphor for assassination and death. Cynically, a golden rat stands in Xi Jinping’s arm as a submissive pet possibly alluding to coercion and oppression. Poidomani exercises an acute criticism to our capitalistic and communist societies, spotlighting the dominating ideologies leading the world and the people’s lives and their subjugation to political forces.   

The painting Comedia Divina (2019) sets as an allegorical visual commentary of our current times through the visions of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Poidomani’s technique and approach is through simple outlined figures and contrasting colors on thick impasto. The painting shows a vast panoramic scene of the three-stages journey by Dante in his passages through the underworld. On the right side Poidomani represents Hell (Inferno) with the rings of punishments outlined in scribbling lines and gestural strokes, and where it reads “El Infierno es Un Lugar Elegido” and “Esperando a Godot” the latest as an allusion to Samuel Becket’s theater of the absurd play “Esperando a Godot” (Waiting for Godot”). The word “Rinascimiento” on the top creates hope and redemption. Immediately it follows a female long-gown dressed figure as Purgatorio (Purgatory) with the seven capital sins written in her dress. Beatrice, a Dante’s Divine Love in the novel, is a symbol of guidance and support.   From the center to the right side there is the representation of Paraiso (Paradise)  populated on the top by angels in white wings with trumpets, and the skyline of the main buildings of Florence. It proposes redemption and revitalization through culture and knowledge. The piece is potently visionary, and it is set as a visual plot evoking the fall and rise of civilization.

Trojan Horse (2020) is a ready-made sculpture of a vintage horse toy the artist repurposed and covered with allegorical names of Greek Hero Ulises and Prospero’s in Shakespeare’s Tempest. It is a metaphor for deception and strategy of devious plans and war applicable to contemporary political tensions and conflicts.

Dante’s Inferno (2019) is visually based on the Divine Comedy’s Canto III in the structuring of Hell.  Poidomani outlines the nine circles of hell and names them out in Spanish, English and Italian: Satan,Minotauro, Judas, are part of the escatological names. The piece is an expansive and detailed depiction of all depravities, immoralities, debaucheries attributed to humans in their lowest morality.  As a place of degraded entities, the works serves as a satirical reflection of us.     

Lady Luck (2020) is a repurposed statue of the Virgin Mary as a visual message for deliverance in a lay perspective. The sculpture is standing on a pop lid pedestal and is covered with roughly finished women figures and scribbling lines.  As the artists says: “One of the ingredients for succeeding is luck.” It is a hopeful exit to human ordeals.

Poidomani artistic voice conveys a sharp cultural enunciation of our epoch.

Milagros Bello, PHD

Curator