This critical essay by curator Lourdes Blanco (n. 1941) on Venezuelan artist and graphic designer Sigfredo Chacón (n. 1950) possesses literary value. Using as a metaphor the legend told by Pliny the Elder regarding the rivalry between two painters (Apelles of Kos and Protogenes of Rhodes), the reader may see “line” and “painting” as archetypal forms; this facilitates a better understanding of his conceptual works, which may seem “unartistic” and “banal”; for Blanco, his form of expression suggests a “sober metaphysics of abstraction.” The text refers to a rational line (rather than a graphic line); this implies reflection on basic elements in painting (sketches, tracings, raw canvas, knots of canvas, etc.). The essay likewise evaluates Chacón’s career, which began in 1966 standing out in the art scene, and by the 1970s he had established himself. She emphasizes that his 1989 show was his “first major individual” [exhibition]; although it came late, this is proof that, like his contemporaries, his conceptual proposals developed on the margins of official museums.
Like other essays by Blanco on exhibitions by Venezuelan artists, “Sigfredo Chacón y el signo de Apeles de Cos”, contains valuable information and several interpretations of his development of techniques and concepts in painting and drawing, combined with contextualization within national and international art history. On the rectangular-vertical form of Chacón’s works, the author points to its relationship with the engravings of Jose Guillermo Castillo or with the Fresh Widow of Marcel Duchamp. She states that the works shown by Chacón develop variations on a theme; Blanco believes they are “culturally linked to Las Cafeteras of Alejando Otero, whose mastery of this nation’s pictorial language deserves more conscious supporters than he currently has.” With this statement, she affirms the importance of an artist such as Otero, and his undeniable influence on contemporary artists in Venezuela. The author concludes her essay with the same poetic flourish in which it began. She returns to the legend of Apelles to conclude that “the image of a solitary artist creating a primeval line is the first [image] that should be invoked when discussing the recent works of Sigfredo Chacón”.
This text was reproduced in the Guía Catálogo/Guía de Estudio No. 136. Exposición CCS-10. Arte venezolano actual [Catalogue/Study Guide No. 136. Exhibition CCS-10. Contemporary Venezuelan Art (Caracas: Fundación Galería de Arte Nacional, 1993).