L´a nima non finita - Lidó Rico
This is the price we pay for achieving an identity […] We cannot stop being what others, together with us, have made us.
Carlos Castilla del Pino. Theory of the Character. 1989
From May 8 to 31, La Sala Alcalá 31 presented ‘L’anima non finita,’ an exhibition showcasing the career—spanning more than 40 years— of artist Lidó Rico. An exhibition that highlights the issue of identity.
When someone visits an exhibition, they can choose (we are always making decisions) to learn about it and even request a guided tour, or simply confront what is on display without any support or guidance.
Basically, I’m not interested in the artist’s intention or the opinion that the artist (or the critic) has about their work. My interest is focused solely on the sensations, emotions, and ideas that the artwork can evoke in me. With some effort—all communication requires effort—I sometimes manage to maintain an interesting dialogue with a creator’s work. This has happened to me recently with Lidó Rico.
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I walked into the gallery weighed down by a ton of doubt. I was pretty sure that what I was about to see wouldn’t offer me anything new.
However, as I walked through the exhibition, something changed. I found in it something of greater value than a mere imitation of the suffering images of Holy Week. It was a collection of works far richer and more interesting than a mere echo of Munch, Pollock, or Charcot.
The omnipresence of the human body, its central role transformed into a structure or vessel for emotions. The body transformed into a stage easily brought to mind contemporary dance.
At first glance, the emptiness, the gaps in the sculptures, the bodies and faces distorted by anguish, the bodies trapped behind bars, the faces covered by hands, or the mouths swallowing impossible objects—due to my professional background, these almost inevitably evoke melancholy and despair in me.
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However, the overall impression I get from what has been presented is quite different: that of being in the presence of a dynamic work, full of life. Not an idealized or simplistic life, but a real one, where the search, birth, death, and rebirth are fully present.
Images that first reminded me of the perinatal world. A tiny being, with an effort as boundless as its courage, makes its way through the narrow birth canal. At the end of the tunnel, not only does light await, but helplessness also awaits the certainty of its/our fragility.
Helpless, we seek solace from and within the community.
The exhibition is filled with faces covered by balaclavas, by masks. The masks remind me of our identity, of how we present ourselves in society. Even if this presentation is merely a masquerade.
Murcia, piel y memoria / Murcia, skin and memory
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In Greek theater, actors’ masks allowed them to change masks and thus gave them the freedom to portray different characters. Actors could even stop playing a character when they removed their mask.
The mask, which can be an instrument of freedom, can very easily become its opposite. The mask can become a prison, an unconscious prison formed by empty, repetitive habits. It is now, at this very moment, that Sartre demands our attention:
We do not become what we are except through the intimate and radical negation of what they have made of us.
In other words, we are free beings. We can choose between living our own life or the one designed for us. There are no excuses; we are responsible for what we become. We are born neither brave nor cowardly… it is our decisions and actions that transform us into brave or cowardly people.
F. Pearls reflected on how we inhabit the world suspended between impatience and fear. Impatient to be happy and afraid, for the pursuit of happiness has hurt us.
In the exhibition hall, walking among anguished faces, one can sense the tension between the old—that which resists dying—and the new—that which is about to be born. Tension between the longing to be recognized as a member of the group and, at the same time, the dread of being swallowed up by it.
In short, the tension that exists between suffering masked (being a character) and the fear of tearing off the mask that gives us refuge.
Fragments and Repetitions
In many of the works on display, one can perceive both the use of fragmentation and that of repetition. As in contemporary dance, one perceives organization and disorganization simultaneously—that is, life, movement, change, and structure.
The same pieces that, when viewed from a distance, appear to be composed of a repetition of identical parts, reveal upon closer inspection that each piece is actually different. No two are alike, even though they all form a unity, a structure.
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), Freud discovers that his patients repeat painful or traumatic experiences even though doing so causes them pain anew. They could not remember the traumatic scene, but they acted it out.
Although the trauma is not remembered, this does not prevent it from being repeated in the body and in action. For Freud, the repetition of trauma is an expression of Thanatos, the death instinct. The victims, like Sisyphus, are condemned to repeat the painful situation over and over again.
However, in Lidó Rico, Eros (the life instinct) is present. The work is not rigid; in some of the pieces, one can observe multiple alternatives occurring simultaneously.
There is no past or future, only many “here and now” moments, multiple possibilities, coexisting alongside the rigidity and weight of the past.
Achicadores de cielos / Ceiling shrinkers
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My journey through the exhibition brings to mind a quote from Descartes:
Conquer oneself rather than the world
Descartes
And although the author himself emphasizes the condemnation of every human being to unhappiness:
due to their insatiable need to accumulate despite knowing they are condemned to live in a sad demarcation marked by the eternal anguish of incompleteness.
I still see hope in his work.
Lidó Rico explains that no work of art is ever finished, among other reasons, because there is always the viewer’s interpretation, and each viewer will approach it with their own perspective.
Here I left my perspective, a perspective on a creation composed of three elements: structure, time, and conflict (and a bias: psychotherapy).
Secadero de pensamientos / Drying rack for thoughts
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I hope you liked this post.
Thank you for joining me here.
Banner edited with Canva pro and cropped with ezgif.com.
Avatar created with IA Ideogram.
Translated into English from my native language Spanish with Google Translator.
All photographs are my own.
Sentí que el artista desenterraba osamentas y sueños confusos. Las máscaras no me agradan, aunque cada rostro lo sea.
Algunas imágenes me recordaron los cimientos de cráneos y osamentas de las pirámides aztecas. Luego me quedé mirando si el artista narraba un partido del Atleti o se comía a tu equipo.
Te imagino interrogando al artista mientras está recostado en el diván.
¿Alguna pregunta puntual? Estimado @enraizar.
😅 ninguna pregunta... Sobre el Atleti... Probablemente el artista sea colchonero... Así siento al equipo muchas veces... Cómo algo que se atraganta.
La exposición tiene muchas explicaciones del propio artista
... Aunque la mirada siempre es personal.
Muchas gracias por el comentario, mi estimado amigo @felixmarranz.
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Wow, I think it evokes a little bit of fear for me, so many strange pieces together. How odd.
Posted via First Context
Buenos días @angeluxx, muy buena apreciacion la del miedo. Yo no sentí lo mismo... Pero si que noté la extrañeza de la exposición... Es peculiar y no deja indiferente.
Muchas gracias por la visita, te deseo un gran fin de semana.
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This art exhibition is impressive, and in my personal opinion, I don’t think it has anything to do with Holy Week, or at least that’s not what struck me when I saw it. Just as you mentioned, it alludes to the inner self, to real life, to suffering, but not in relation to external events, rather it stems from that internal struggle to be who we truly are. Your analysis is spot on, and there isn’t much to add.
But I do want to highlight the perfection of the faces in conveying that anguish, pain, and sorrow, like an internal tear caused by wanting to break free from what others expect of us or from those masks they put on us or we impose on ourselves, and to be truly free. Lidó Rico has created incredible works, and this is a spectacular exhibition!!! I loved it, thank you so much, and a big hug!!🤗
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I’m usually very sceptical about contemporary art; I think there’s often a lot of hype and not much art. However, I really enjoyed this exhibition.
I very much agree with your observations… especially how well the work captures that inner struggle between external demands and our inner desires.
As always, muxgss, thanks for your support and, above all, for your comments.
I hope you have a great weekend
It was great to see such a unique art exhibition—it was really, really good!! Thanks to you, and have a great weekend!!
Thanks again... I've got a few more that I think you'll find interesting...
They'll be coming soon.
Have a great Saturday 🤗👋
Then it'll be great to see you all!!! Have a great Saturday!!🤗👋
🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗👋
😆👋
👋
Hello, Mr. @enraizar.
It's wonderful that you attended this exhibition; it was quite unique, by the way. I love seeing how hands played such a prominent role in it.
Beautiful photographs.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Good morning @miprimerconcurso, you’re very, very observant. Hands play a key role in the exhibition; they feature in many of the pieces on display.
I’m really glad you enjoyed it and I’m very grateful for your visit.
I hope you have a lovely day
Good morning, dear friend @enraizar.
A beautiful exhibition honoring the artist's nearly half-century career.
Whenever I visit an exhibition, I try to learn, since I know nothing about art. And I like to do it on my own, consulting everything online.
A truly fascinating exhibition, open to many interpretations.
Thank you so much for sharing this experience.
Have a great day.
We appreciate your work and your publication has been hand selected by the geography curation team on behalf of the Amazing Nature AN Community. Keep up the good work!
This mystery of the spider, sometimes appearing alone and at other times accompanied, you’ll have to reveal to me one day. 😁
As for this exhibition, I get the feeling that everything is unfinished, yet at the same time it’s clear that hard work went into it, which in fact doesn’t matter, effort is not directly proportional to the result.
I listened to the author, who spoke of a love–hate relationship with the material chosen to present his art, and I think that in all this discourse—about nakedness, masks, what we decide to be through conditioning rather than what we feel… in being itself—I also perceive a love–hate relationship 😂. But what new thing could I possibly add, when you’ve already made it clear with your reflections? Structure, time and conflict, and the mass takes on its ‘more or less’ definitive or balanced form… or neither. Hence L’anima non finita. 😃
I know what I mean… 😂
A hug, a great post, and thank you for sharing Lidó Rico’s work.
It’s a very good point that everything is left half-finished… On the one hand, the artist himself gave the exhibition that title: the unfinished soul already speaks to this. It’s a very personal view, but for me it’s one of the exhibition’s strengths—showing that life is something incomplete… A quest.
As for the spiders, there’s nothing to say…
A big hug, @nanixxx. 🤗
These photographs are truly amazing. I perceive them as a desperate cry of not belonging to anything or anyone. Wow, what a tremendous art exhibition. It's even a little scary.
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