Guillermo Kuitca
Argentinean, born 1961
Untitled (Full Moon), 2008
Oil on linen
Chairs overturned, tables and beds askew, flames licking the darkness, a smoky haze rising—and all of it still and silent, reflected in black water. What has happened here? The artist does not answer that question. Instead, he invites each of us to imagine the pain of disaster and dislocation together with the strange and haunting beauty of the calm that follows.
Kuitca lived in a state of psychological uncertainty in the 1970s, when over 30,000 of his fellow Argentineans “disappeared” during a series of brutal military dictatorships. His identification with the courageously vulnerable dance of Pina Bausch and the explosive final moments of Michaelangelo Antonioni’s film Zabriskie’s Point can be felt in this painting.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation—Commerce Bank, Trustee, 2012.12
