art alejandro cardenas

INTERVIEW BY BILL POWERS

PORTRAIT BY CAMERON MCCOOL

ALL ARTWORK BY ALEJANDRO CARDENAS, COPYRIGHT THE perched on a rock looking ARTIST at the sea or trapped inside four walls, all one needs is an exit door, or a morphological, metaphysical change of id e ntity.

ALEJANDRO CARDENAS, IF ANYTHING COULD BE LEARNED, 2020, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 48 X 65 INCHES, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ALMINE RECH GALLERY ALEJANDRO CARDENAS, LEVANT SENTRY, 2020, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 40 X 32 INCHES, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND HARPER’S BOOKS BILL POWERS — In one of your perhaps it’s laced with some new paintings, there’s a of my frustration in general figure standing on a veran- right now — not just that da overlooking the water. Do we’re cut off socially, but you imagine that creature is how we’re not taking care on vacation? of the planet. I practical- ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — I see ly stopped eating meat and it as living in its own avoid buying certain prod- world, a parallel world to ucts, but, beyond that, what ours. It’s funny because can we really do? I’m frus- I’ve always wanted to paint trated living in a country figuratively, but I never where the politics are not wanted to paint people. When particularly humanistic. Now you look at a painting of that I’m a parent, you can a person, you look at the multiply my frustration by person, as opposed to the however many kids I have. entire painting. I wanted to skirt that impulse, so the BILL POWERS — As we look at figures and the environ- your source imagery, one ments are more integrated. cartoon shows a man slumped I wanted there to be a har- over in a tuxedo, and the mony in the composition. speech bubble reads, “Still I mustn’t let it get me BILL POWERS — I remember down.” Then, in your ver- Jeff Koons once saying that, sion, the text is removed. in portraiture, one of the ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — My fo- first segregators as a view- cus is on the composition er is gender. We ask our- and the gesture of the body. selves whether we’re looking I try to stay true to the at a male or a female. context and the mood of Union in the late ’90s, ev- ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — Origi- ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — My fig- what’s happening. eryone thought painting was nally, I created their logo, ures are purposefully ambig- a waste of time, a dead me- all the branding, and show uous in that regard. It was BILL POWERS — Do you feel a dium. The head professor invitations, etc. And for the another element I tried to connection to Max Ernst or was Hans Haacke. If you made first 10 years, I also de- remove. If you can combine Salvador Dalí? figurative paintings — un- signed every custom textile ambiguity with specific- ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — A few less they were ugly and bru- and every print. I worked ity, that’s a really intense people have labeled my work tal — they were written off very closely with Jack McCol- mixture. I grew up reading as new Surrealism, which as decorative. lough and Lazaro Hernandez. Gabriel García Márquez, who I’m not sure I agree with. was a master at that. But I will say: I think a BILL POWERS — Is that why BILL POWERS — Didn’t you hallmark of Dalí or Ernst you abandoned art to go show at Rivington Arms be- BILL POWERS — We all live was this absolute trust in work at Proenza Schouler for fore going into ? three lives: our public life, their imagination. That as- 11 years? ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — In 2001, our private life, and our pect does resonate with me. ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — If my friends and I started an secret life. Throughout history, there I wanted to stay in New art collective/band called ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — I think have been painters that go York after graduating, then Lansing-Dreiden. We were ac- my paintings are a combina- deep into the imagination, I needed to get a job, and tually in the first show ever tion of all three. There’s a like Bosch. My imagination I was really interested in at the gallery. We wanted to private aspect to the cre- and my mind are equally as fashion. Designers like create our own context, and ation of the work, as it’s much of a reality as the Helmut Lang, Martin Margie- we had rules that applied to just me alone in the stu- physical world. la, and were almost everything. dio. The secret part is in redefining fashion. One of terms of where the images BILL POWERS — In another my seminal aesthetic experi- BILL POWERS — Tell me some originate from. Finally, the painting of a figure sit- ences was seeing one of the of the rules. paintings will be shown in ting on a window ledge, the green Prada stores for the ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — Every­ public and live their own subject almost looks Native first time. I was dumbfound- thing was in black-and- lives. American. ed. It was in Bal Harbour in white. Also, we wouldn’t use ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — Yeah, Miami. All the other stores proper nouns in our songs BILL POWERS — When you paint it’s a reanimated Peruvian were brown with brass ac- or writing. We published a figure sitting on a gi- mummy called Rascar Capac cents. The Prada store felt so a newspaper called Death ant rock in the ocean, do from the Tintin story The earnestly futuristic. I was Notice and got so much shit you imagine that creature is Seven Crystal Balls, one of super into the campaigns for being pretentious, but stranded there or reveling my favorites. they did, too. I remember we were young and didn’t in their isolation? seeing the Glen Luchford im- care. ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — The big BILL POWERS — So, are they ages with in cliché in art is that it’s escaping their circum- the woods. The ambiguity in- END a mirror to where you’re stances or at a window in a herent in those pictures was at in life, right? If you Shakespearean way, about to really powerful. And the way feel stuck, then you will break into verse? they created a consistent probably project that per- ALEJANDRO CARDENAS — I love visual narrative between spective onto my painting. the narrative depth and pos- the campaigns, clothes, and However, to me, the fig- sibility in every painting. stores was really new and ure is perching on a rock I always imagined I would inspiring. I ended up get- in the same way a sea lion end up an animation direc- ting an internship at Prada would. Maybe, a moment lat- tor because I love art forms in . er, it might jump off and where you get to build a swim away. I did make this whole universe. When I was BILL POWERS — And what did work during the pandemic, so at art school at Cooper you actually do at Proenza? OPPOSITE PAGE: ALEJANDRO CARDENAS, CREEPING CONSEQUENCES, 2020, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 40 X 32 INCHES, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND STEMS GALLERY

283