In this essay, the Venezuelan poet and writer Eugenio Montejo (1938–2008) writes about Alirio Palacios (1944?2015), approaching the latter’s painting from a different perspective by comparing it to the work of Armando Reverón (1889–1954), who died when Palacios was in his teens. Montejo thus establishes similarities that go beyond the simple influence that Reverón’s work might have had on the young Palacios while he was at school at the EAPA (Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas) in Caracas. In this article, Montejo discusses the ideas he reviewed in the essay published the following year in the catalogue for Alirio Palacios. Xilografías y concretografías. Grabado 1994–1999 (Caracas: Museo de Bellas Artes, 1999). But he explores the comparison to Reverón in terms of landscape, painting, and printmaking in greater detail in this article. When comparing the two artists’ works, Montejo says that “we can see in Palacios that there is no longer a blind struggle when faced with the softening effect of white, but rather the opposite and very pronounced presence of black.” This would appear to be a key point in the matter, which suggests that Montejo is not looking for formal similarities, but for a certain overlapping in remote aspects of the visual arts: crossroads that send Reverón and Palacios in different directions but, according to the author, for similar reasons: encounters and disagreements with the Academia, landscape painting (the Orinoco River, the Macuto sea shore) as a motif, and the thoroughness of the two artists’ research.
[As complementary reading, see in the ICAA digital archive by Igor Molina “Alirio Palacios. El arte de la violencia” (doc. no. 1155701), that describes his training in printmaking in Poland and in China; the article by Lenelina Delgado “Alirio Palacios: El Estado tiene la responsabilidad del futuro del Centro de Diseño” (doc. no. 1155596); by Olga González “Regresa a sus país uno de los grabadores más importantes de América Latina” (doc. no. 1155203); the article in English by Julie Kruger “There’s another China” (doc. no. 1155219); by Yasmín Monsalve “Soy un gran aliado de mi país. Alirio Palacios expone xilografías en la Freites” (doc. no. 1155733); the review (unsigned) “La obra de Alirio Palacios llegó a Nuevo México: bajo el título de ‘Formas y espíritu’ expone 30 xilografías” (doc. no. 1155170); the article by M. A. “Los grabados chinos de Alirio Palacios” (doc. no. 1155187); Edith Guzmán’s interview, “Alirio Palacios se propone rescatar el grabado milenario de la China” (doc. no. 1155809); Pablo Villamizar’s interview, “Alirio Palacios: grabado más allá de la muerte” (doc. no. 1155754); and Montejo’s other essay, “Alirio Palacios: magia y maestría del grabado” (doc. no. 1154602)].
