The North American professor Donald Kuspit discusses the work of Jacobo Borges in terms of its creation of “potential spaces,” referring to the concept used in the jargon of psychoanalysis. In a potential space—defined as an area midway between the intimate reality of the psyche and objective reality—time and space are experienced simultaneously. In Kuspit’s opinion, these concepts are best reflected in the Venezuelan artist’s paintings of water. The author believes that the creation of “potential spaces” is one of the most important contributions that Borges has made to modern pictorial art, and is a direct challenge to conventional ideas about reality.

The North American art critic, poet, and professor Donald Kuspit (b. 1935) uses terms and concepts appropriated from the jargon of psychoanalysis and philosophy to review the work of the Venezuelan painter Jacobo Borges (b. 1931). Kuspit considers Borges to be, essentially, a creator of spaces, and this is the area he focuses on in his review. In fact, the concept of “potential space” (from the psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott) and the idea of “specious present” (coined by the philosopher E. R. Clay [the pseudonym used by E. Robert Kelly] and developed by William James), are the paradigms established by Kuspit in his analysis. As he applies these terms, Kuspit delves into and interprets Borges’ psychological motivations and his relationship with certain symbols and images. Kuspit concludes that Borges went farther than André Breton’s Surrealist poem in his contempt for the ordinary sense of reality when he denies it and experiences it as a ‘surreal reality,” that is, as “a unit of unconscious projection and conscious recognition.” Kuspit’s essay was published in the catalogue Jacobo Borges. Pittura, XLIII Biennale di Venezia (1988), in a bilingual (English/Italian) edition, together with Wieland Schmied’s essay, “La pintura, una cuestión existencial para Jacobo Borges,” ibidem. 

Regarding the work of Jacobo Borges, see the article by Perán Erminy “Una exposición de obras de Jacobo Borges” [doc. no. 1060424]; the newspaper review by Elizabeth Pérez Luna “Jacobo Borges: La pasión de la identidad” [doc. no. 1063714]; the article by the critic Inocente Palacios “Jacobo Borges” [doc. no. 1060361]; the essay by the historian Berta Taracena “Jacobo Borges en México” [doc. no. 1063795]; the article by the critic Roberto Guevara “Sin título. [Un día el poeta sentó la belleza en sus rodillas…]” [doc. no. 1060477]; the interviews by Lenelina Delgado [doc. no. 1063831]; by Armando J. Flórez and Aliana González “El artista debe superar las limitaciones de las ideologías: Jacobo Borges en Nueva York” [doc. no. 1065435]; and by José Luis Colin “Entre la acción colectiva y la búsqueda individual: Jacobo Borges” [doc. no. 1063769].