Introduction
Neil C. Trager
The
conceptual underpinnings that guide the programming of contemporary
art at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (SDMA) are rooted in explorations
of artists who find common ground between quality technique and challenging
content. This work invariably emanates from an incisive personal perspective,
integrating confident and masterful methods with imagery that is evocative
and, at times, unsettling. Often, as is the case with Rimer Cardillo,
the work speaks of the human condition, directly and metaphorically.
The exhibition that this catalogue accompanies, surveys almost four
decades of Cardillo’s formidable and prolific accomplishments as
a printmaker. As the first comprehensive retrospective of his career,
this exhibition traces the artist’s intellectual, political, spiritual,
and aesthetic approaches to his work, revealing a single-minded concern
for content and expression that becomes significantly more complex as
his work evolves. Reaching a pinnacle of complexity in the 1990s, the
prints address what for the artist is the inextricable relationship
between what is “spiritual, political, and eternal.”
I first encountered Rimer Cardillo in 1992 while organizing the exhibition
Uncommon Ground: 23 Latin American Artists. The exhibition set a benchmark
at the museum, defining an ongoing commitment to investigating issues
about identity and displacement — physical and psychological —
and the collision of cultures that defines human experience. My introduction
to Cardillo’s work was ironically through a video of one of his
many trips through Latin America. As I watched, it soon became clear
to me that the artist I was about to meet would define what was uncommon
not only in Latin American art, but also in contemporary art practice.
Classically trained in Germany and his native Uruguay, Cardillo expertly
employs the most sophisticated printmaking techniques — often in
a single print — to create images that are layered in meaning,
and visually compelling. I have encountered few artists whose reverence
for craft is employed as skillfully as Cardillo’s, and few who
so effectively weave together beautiful imagery with content that can
be at the same time, serene, disquieting, and challenging. In the catalogue
that accompanied Cardillo’s 1998 exhibition at the Bronx Museum,
curator Marysol Nieves cogently defined what is essential to understanding
the essence of Cardillo’s work:
“Ultimately, Cardillo’s artistic practice represents a
poignant desire to preserve and (re)establish the sacred bonds with
nature as the final vestige of individual and collective histories and
as a source of life and hope for recoding the future. Thus, his work
is tantamount to a symbolic recuperation of nature as an agent of cultural
spiritual, and ecological healing — a potent combination for an
aesthetic of reclamation and renewal.”
I am profoundly grateful to Rimer Cardillo for his friendship, his support
of the SDMA, and for his personal assistance with the production of
every aspect of this exhibition and catalogue design. Special thanks
to Dr. Karl Emil Willers, Curator of Exhibitions at the SDMA, for his
tireless efforts on behalf of the project, his curatorial vision, and
in particular for his incisive essay which appears in this publication.
I also am grateful to Professor Arnd Schneider for his insightful interview
with the artist, and to Professor Carlos S. Carbonell for his intimate
perspective on Cardillo’s long-term engagement with insect imagery;
and James Shine for his assistance with the translation of essays. Thanks
to Bob Capozzi for his assistance during the organization of the exhibition,
and for producing the accompanying website. For her advice and suggestions
about the catalogue and organizational aspects of the project, I extend
my thanks and gratitude to Laurie Greenberg.
At the SDMA and SUNY New Paltz, I am especially grateful to Amy Pickering
for her assistance with the proofreading of the catalogue; Wayne Lempka
for managing the myriad administrative details associated with the project;
Cynthia Dill and Owen Harvey for the preparation of objects and their
installation, and Judi Esmond for the events and interpretive programs
developed to enhance the project. I am most grateful to Mary Kastner
and Jan Harrison for the elegant design of the catalogue, and to Christine
DeLape and Patricia Phillips for the editorial assistance they provided.
Heartfelt thanks to Steven Poskanzer, President of SUNY New Paltz; David
Lavalle, Provost; Kurt Daw, Dean of the School of Fine and Performing
Arts; and David Dorsky, Chair of the SUNY New Paltz Foundation, for
their encouragement and unwavering support of the museum.
Neil Trager is the Director of the Samuel Dorsky Museum
of Art.
