everywhere,”15 carrying a heavy baggage of preconceived notions about who we are, more present than those which we have of ourselves –that self definition through the eye of the ‘other’–, all these notions are more than evident in this ice cream made of something as warm, dynamic and salty as the Caribbean Sea. Odette Goico’s Pa’l mar de amores also offers a moment frozen in memory, the malecon of Santo Domingo as a paradigm of border and place of interaction is shown in this image as a space anachronistically numb, static and regulated, where our memories and affections reside. Memory also plays a part in Maritza Álvarez’ Recuerdo de Infancia: Desde la casa ella puede ver el jardín. This work, which combines drawing with collage, is a very intimate approach to the processes of memory construction occurring from the images of childhood and in the growth processes. Recuerdo de Infancia is an interesting metaphor related to these strategies of remembrance and the structuring of remembrance in adulthood. Raúl Recio, the Shampoo collective and Raquel Paiewonsky indicate other access routes to identity and the formation of a varied and multiple ideas about who we are. Recio, in his drawing Ella, evaluates the stereotypical elements making up the idea of the contemporary Dominican. Migration, corruption, new standards of living as a consequence of this expansion of borders, are reflected in a sarcastic manner by the author. The central character, Ella, is surrounded by symbols of status of a corrupt and confused society. Weapons, drugs, vices and sensual pleasures are combined in an almost laughably cartoonish image representing the aspirations of Dominicans today. The Shampoo collective “catches” in amber a Yamaha 70 motorcycle, considered by its members as the contemporary mosquito. Two interesting elements come to light in this massive piece: first, the myths and legends we have built around Amber as a container for an unknown past, and second, the possibility of constructing real life stories from fictions long ago maintained and disseminated. The possibility of creating an archaeological object as justification for an incomprehensible history is the task to which these artists dedicated themselves, resulting in a reflective and crucial piece, with a high content of humor. The piece Sin titulo (2004) by Raquel Paiewonsky speaks of another type of stereotyping and classification. 15 Virgilio Piñera ‘La Isla en peso’, compilation and prologue by Antón Arrufat, La Habana,1999 and Barcelona: Tusquets editores 2000.
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This work, which combined performance with sculpture and photography, points to the ideas we have about us as an ethnic and cultural conglomerate. Photographed characters are covered in a nylon stocking and band-aids points, so their skin tones of and particular physical characteristics are highlighted. The artist poses that this succession of images refers to the social and racial distinctions that exist in our society and the unwritten rules that define and differentiate people. One of the fundamental issues where the studies of social indicators and contemporary art coincide is on the approach to the conditions of modern life, the processes of marginalization and impoverishment of cities and Dominican communities. José Sejo and Ernesto Rodríguez evaluate, each from his own perspective and technique, poverty and the overcrowding of contemporary life. In Como sardinas en lata (1998), Sejo visually explores the overcrowding and precarious conditions of life in the urban contemporary scenario. Also does Ernesto Rodríguez, from the language of ceramics, in his work Mantenga fuera del alcance de los niños. His personal style of working combines the imagery of objects and everyday items with great humor. The sculpture represents a two story house with windows, rooms in different sizes and a tin roof. The open rooms can be appreciated equally from all four sides. In them we had: carafe, staircase, aircraft, jars, musical instruments, bottles, religious images, animals and inscriptions among other elements. Ernesto allows us through the proliferation of objects, chromaticism and irony to reflect on the living conditions forced by poverty. About these extreme levels of miserable existence Tony Chaplain speaks to us in his work Vidas Tercer Mundo. In it, the artist explores through found objects a double dose of extreme situations, that of people and of the environment. Installation is a language that Capellán adopted and represents him since the 1990s, starting with his recovery of flip flops on the banks of the Ozama River and lacing them with barbed wire as a comment on the martyrology of contemporary third-world life. Migration is also a common theme in the contemporary production of the Dominican Republic. This phenomenon is approached from its multiple edges, from those concerning the vicissitudes of the journey up to the conditions that occur and are also generated by such migrations. Genaro Reyes (Cayuco), in his 1998 sculpture Indocumentados,
reproduced from recycled pieces of scrap a boat with people who, we assume, are on their way to Puerto Rico. In addition to the drama in the story of the thousands of Dominicans who lose their lives traveling illegally, is the precariousness of the materials. These auto mechanic parts also show the dramatic gears of illegal migration. Also interesting are the works that refer to another migration, that which occurs from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. Jorge Pineda’s Bozales para cruzar la frontera (2002) is a set of 12 drawings which represent dogs of various breeds and wearing muzzles, transformed through limiting and confining drawing lines. It is necessary to mention that more than the author’s own intention we see an interesting link between the drawing and its fundamental element, the line, in the way it recalls the popular name given to the border between Dominican Republic and Haiti –the line–. This series of drawings alluding to the tragedy of human trafficking, to the abuse those who dare to cross are subjected to and the silencing around this appalling reality.
In addition, Fausto Ortiz in Ciudad de sombras, refers to the social invisibility processes in which the Haitian migrants are immersed in Dominican society once they cross the border. The photographic sequence that picks up the transit of a shadow in a street is a reference to this situation of imperceptibility these citizens acquire forcibly by migrating illegally and that leaves them helpless. The possibilities of analysis and reading of the Dominican artistic contemporaneity are multiple. The edges for this analysis are as varied as spectators may exist to consume these visual works. It is a set of sui generis works in constant growth that allows their observation from multiple perspectives. The conditions and characteristics of its growth and the very fact of being “works in process” gives them richness and countless possibilities of approach. Their knowledge and study raises several reflections on the paths of national artistic creation, the contexts that generated these particular plastic responses and all the men and women who generated these languages and discourses.
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