Acquisitions/
1998/
Guillermo Kuitca/
Untitled

Guillermo Kuitca was born and raised in Buenos Aires where he continues to live and work. In subtle but powerful ways, Kuitca's paintings speak to the recent history of Argentina, and, indeed, of many South and Central American nations.  Following a military coup in March 1976, Argentina was subjected to one of the most repressive and violent regimes in recent political history. Suspected of dissent, hundreds of thousands of individuals were made "to disappear" by government police. The long-neglected urban infrastructure of Buenos Aires was further haunted by the specter of the desaparecidos, the silent victims of what became known in Argentina as "the dirty war." On both metaphoric and literal levels, Kuitca's abandoned, anonymous interiors are evocative of this larger social trauma, reminding viewers of a time when sports stadiums were temporarily transformed into ad hoc prisons and, even, into cemeteries.

It is, however, important for the artist that his images of architectural plans function anonymously. Exploiting the iconic significance of a building type rather than the specific associations of a particular place, the artist prefers to use plans that have no particular associations or topical significance. Says Kuitca: "I project random choices, especially maps of places not familiar to me -- not where I work nor where the works will be shown. I prefer places that I don't even know what they look like." In the case of Untitled (1995) the theater depicted is The Coliseum in London.

Growing out of the artist's earlier concerns with cartography and topology, Guillermo Kuitca's recent paintings are based on selected floor plans or blueprints for large-scale institutional structures. Drawn to the regimented and anonymous aspects of contemporary urban life, Kuitca has focused on architectural renderings for apartment and office buildings, stadiums, hotels, theaters, schools, hospitals, cemeteries, and prisons. Devoid of any signs of human activity, Kuitca's empty labyrinths blur the distinction between public and private spaces. Within the context of the artist's visual vocabulary, bedrooms and office cubicles, classrooms and prison cells, theater seats and hospital beds are treated, in the artist's own words, simply as "silent theaters of human interaction." The results are often haunting evocations of alienation, separation, and loss.

Untitled belongs to the Puro Teatro series, a group of seventeen canvases from 1995 based upon theater interiors. Of all of his architectural sources, the theater motif is an especially significant one for Kuitca. As a young painter in Argentina, the artist first received critical recognition for a group of enigmatic narrative works inspired by his experiences working in dramatic theater.  To date, the artist has produced three distinct series of paintings based on architectural plans. Puro Teatro is situated between The Tablada Suite (1991-1993), and the Poemo Pedagógico series (1996).  This excellent representation of Kuitca's mature work joins a growing group of remarkable objects in the Art Institute's collection by such distinguished South American artists as Doris Salcedo, Ernesto Neto, and Alfredo Jaar.