Social Distancing 2: Eduardo Santiere

Eduardo Santiere. Social Distancing 2.

Eduardo Santiere
b. 1962, Argentina; lives and works in Buenos Aires

Social Distancing 2
colored pencil on paper
15 x 15 inches
2020

Reflections by Judith Hoos Fox, Pamela Allara and Mark Auslander

Overview:  A red-orange field has on its borders three black squares, framed in white, partially visible.

Artist’s statement: As the Wyoming nights gave rise to the Starry nights series, the texture of the Icelandic landscape originated my scratching technique, and the multitudinous protests from the last decade to the series Multitudes, the concept of social distancing inspired this new series of drawings.

In the history of my work, detail plays a critical role, as well as the automatism process for creation. The use of color was incorporated more intensely in my recent works. In this way, the absolute use of the color connected with my state of mind is a consequence of the pandemic--all gave place to these new drawings.

Perhaps, as in other occasions, the  Social distancing series will become a starting point for a new way of working. Or simply, it will be what it is, the necessity to reflect a moment.
May 2020


Background: Santiere earned his MFA at the University of Wisconsin in 2003 having earned a degree in computer science from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, a decade earlier.

His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, NY; Herlitzka + Faria, Buenos Aires; Haim Chanin Fine Arts, New York, NY; Wendy Cooper Gallery, Chicago, IL; Curator’s Office, Washington DC; and Listasafn Arnesinga Art Museum, Iceland. It has been included in group exhibitions at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Museum of Latino American Art of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Hafnarborg Museum, Iceland; Space! Sayago & Pardon, Los Angeles, CA, among others.

Judith Hoos Fox:  The current pandemic has precipitated a radical departure from Eduardo Santiere's habitual way of making drawings resulting in series that is entirely surprising. Eduardo Santiere has left behind the delicate, biomorphic universes he habitually conjures, abrading the paper and making delicate marks with graphite and colored pencil to create richly textured images that seem to have emerged from petri dishes, or from the Big Bang explosion. The paper now, instead of serving as deep space, is all claustrophobic surface, pressing forward, and fixed at some edges are portions of boxes within boxes. The restrictive and isolating nature of the conditions in which we are living is clearly depicted in these abstract geometric forms. In this, and its companion drawings, it is all about distance, without a nod to social.

When Eduardo emerges from his urban apartment, once we all begin to move about freely, will this quarantined experience continue to inform his work? And in what ways? This is part of the broader question: what will our post-pandemic world look like?


Judith Hoos Fox, with Ginger Gregg Duggan, works under the moniker c2-curatorsquared, organizing exhibitions of contemporary art and design. www.curatorsquared.com

Pam Allara:   When first looking at Santiere’s drawing, I was reminded of the history of abstract painting, from Kasimir Malevich’s founding work of Russian Constructivism, Black Square (1915), to Joseph Albers series “Homage to the Square,” begun in 1950 and Minimalist art from the 1960s.  The attention to surface dynamics and color contrast do initially appear to pay ‘homage’ to that art historical legacy. However, the handsome abstraction yields quite quickly to the image of a red wall, punctuated by three asymmetrical windows, each sliced in half by the frame. Because no actual building wall would be likely to have such an arrangement of windows, the moment of illusionism is undercut, and the viewer is placed in the position of interpreting this ambiguous image on her own.

As we were once told in our art history courses, titles are unimportant; an artwork’s content is to be found solely in its visual construction. But of course, titles have always been cues to content, and Santiere is unambiguous about how we are to interpret this work: it is his response to the social distancing required by the pandemic. In that light, the intense red ground may refer not only to the color of the coronavirus when illustrated, but also to the harshness of its effects. In turn, the windows can be seen to be slipping beyond the edge of the paper; while their black panes speak to withdrawal from the outside, public realm.

The black squares are especially resonant given the recent nation-wide Blackout Tuesday event on June 2, when in honor of those who have suffered and died, people covered their Instagram posts with black squares. Like many responses to the pandemic, the brief blacking out of one’s media feed could be easily understood as an empty gesture.  Santiere’s drawing asks us to examine our own responses to the pandemic; are we simply shutting ourselves off, or can we conceive of a way to work for real social change?

Mark Auslander:  One might read the image as an urban apartment building in which three apartment windows have drifted apart from one another, an external manifestation of the distancing required by individuals under conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown.  Each window is impenetrable, as if blocked by a blackout curtain, the darkness accentuated by light frames. In these circumstances we find ourselves knowing remarkably little of what lurks in our neighbors' hearts, or even, perhaps, in our own hearts and minds. We had become, during the pandemic, strangers to one another and perhaps to ourselves, fearful of the virus and of what the future might bring.  We might even read the dark squares as the private computer and television screens that have so dominated our lives for many weeks now. Anxiety born of the plague is emphasized by the brilliant reddish hue of the building's surface, which has relegated each window, and each invisible occupant, to the furthest possible distance from one another, half-escaping even the frame of the drawing itself.

It is particularly appropriate that an Argentinian artist, conscious of the shadow of fear and the Dirty War should be alert to the dangers of social isolation and the unraveling of civil society. Democracy requires spaces of co-participation, of vibrant interaction, of dialogue and debate, of social solidarity--all impossible when we retreat to the far corners of our environs.

So what a miracle it is that,  viewed through the backdrop of early June 2020 in the United States, we may read this drawing as anticipating the very opposite of social isolation.  We now find much of the nation emerging unexpectedly out of this lockdown, called forth by shared outrage over the police-committed murder of George Floyd ten days ago, which has come to stand for a long history of violent over-policing. Untold thousands of protesters, at considerable risk to their own health, have come out of their apartments and dwellings, to reclaim the streets at a time when the public square and the essence of democracy are under the gravest of threats.  Having been so isolated from one another, we have perhaps had more time to ponder the horrific videos of the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of the policeman's knee on the victim's neck, and come to reflect intensely on our ultimate values.  And then, still wearing masks, thousands have taken to the street to demand justice, even in the face of militarized law enforcement.

The future of this mass movement and of democracy itself remains deeply uncertain.  Yet we have seen that the profound social distancing chronicled in this striking drawing can, paradoxically, catalyze social solidarity and ethical commitment in the face of outrageous violations of human rights. When we least expect it, the lights in the darkened windows may turn on, and after a prolonged uneasy slumber, awaken our better angels.

Photo credit: Eduardo Santiere
Drawing courtesy of the artist
http://www.henriquefaria.com/artist-works?id=104
http://herlitzkafaria.com/es/artistas/eduardo-santiere/obras
@eduardosantiere