Life Streams: the Cuban and American Art of Alberto Rey Lynette M

Introduction

Life Streams: The Cuban and American Art of Alberto Rey Lynette M. F. Bosch

his book is a collaborative project and Mark Denaci (St. Lawrence Univer- intended to provide an overview of sity, Department of Art and Art Histo- T the life and artistic career of Alberto ry), along with contributors Jorge Gracia Rey, a Distinguished Professor at the State (Samuel P. Capen Chair, SUNY Distin- University of New York at Fredonia. The guished Professor, University of Buffalo, catalyst for this volume is a projected Department of Philosophy and Depart- exhibition of Rey’s work at the Burchfield ment of Comparative Literature), Isabel Penney Center for the Arts in Buffalo, Alvarez Borland (Murray Professor in New York, titled Biological Regionalism: the Arts and Humanities, College of the Scajaquada Creek, Erie County, New Holy Cross, Spanish Department), John York, USA scheduled for March 14–June Orlock (Samuel and Virginia C. Knight 22, 2014. The art historians and curators Professor of Humanities, Case Western contributing chapter essays to this vol- Reserve University, English Department), ume are an interdisciplinary group com- Sandra Firmin (Curator, University of posed of the book’s editors, Lynette M. Buffalo Gallery), and Benjamin Hickey F. Bosch (State University of New York, (Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Geneseo, Department of Art History) Masur Museum). Each of the essays in

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this volume reflects an aspect of artistic, in the world of contemporary art. The literary, critical, or historical theory that exhibition at the Burchfield Penney Art addresses aspects of the complex artistic Center is a meaningful opportunity for trajectory that Alberto Rey has traveled Rey to bring his work to his home com- in his life and career. munity. Rey’s paintings are of fish and Rey’s work includes painting, sculp- landscapes that function as symbols and ture, video, and installation, and is cur- metaphors for the people he has met and rently focused on exploring issues of the places in which he has lived. The alle- ecological sustainability through imagery gorical possibilities thus created by this related to fish and fishing and the water- network of associations opens a space for ways in which fish live. Throughout his the spectator to engage with Rey and with career, Rey has focused on giving visual the cultural environments represented in form to his concerns with identity and his work. identities, an aspect of his work that Rey is an artist, a husband, father, son, springs from his hyphenated identity as brother, and active community activist a Cuban-born American. Rey is an inde- and conservationist, with strong memo- fatigable traveler, who has extensively ries of his late sister, and his home is in explored the United States, Cuba, Europe, Fredonia in Western New York State. He Latin America, the Caribbean, and Ice- is also a transnational Cubanborn Ameri- land, searching for ways in which he can can, who has lived his life in the United relate the individual human experience to States on the hyphen of two identities. the larger universal life of our world. As an Brought out of Cuba at the age of three, artist whose work is part of major nation- Rey went, with his parents and sister, first al and international museums and collec- to Mexico, then Miami, then Barnesboro, tions (Brooklyn Museum, Albright-Knox Pennsylvania, before settling in Fredonia, Gallery, Bronx Museum, Fort Lauderdale in 1989, to become a professor of draw- Museum of Art, Extremaduran and Latin ing and painting. Cultural diversity is part American Museum of Contemporary Art, of his identity, and a personal search for Badajoz Spain, and the Burchfield Pen- meaning has generated his desire to know ney Art Center, among others), Rey has and understand different people and cul- achieved a significant level of recognition tures. This desire stems from his identifi-

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cation with different groups and cultures, comfort they had in Cuba, and with the from his Cuban origins to his present life same practical skills. Rey’s current life has in Western New York State. combined aspects of his family’s history. In Cuba, Rey’s family belonged to a He is a professor of art and a professional self-identified group of Cuban criollos, artist, the first in his family, and he lives in who had settled in the small, rural town the small, rural town of Fredonia, where of Agramonte, where they owned a small he continues to fish (although he releas- farm that they worked on themselves. es his catch), as part of the set of skills They were a diverse family of mixed eth- that his family traditionally possessed. As nic roots, who considered their home cul- a result of his experiences of assimilat- ture beyond Cuba to be Spain, because ing from a mulatto Cuban culture into a most of the family had come from Spain, mainstream American culture in Barnes- with a few coming to Cuba from the boro, Rey’s initial problematic encounters Canary Islands. Consistently, Rey’s fam- with early discrimination taught him to ily on all sides had always lived in small, accept difference in himself and others. rural villages. As a result, the family He also learned how to relate to different had practical skills that assisted them in cultures, being neither fully Cuban nor surviving and adapting in Cuba and in fully American or even Cuban American, the United States. Always, Rey’s family as he lacked a Latino community, while worked hard in both countries at a range growing up in Barnesboro. Presently, of manual jobs, from farming and small Rey has achieved a level of comfort with manufacture to small business, along with international culture that enables him to hunting and fishing as pastimes and to connect to different groups at every level supplement their diet. Rey’s father, who of society that he meets as he travels for had an exceptional talent for mathemat- his work. The desire to extend his under- ics, earned a PhD in education at the Uni- standing of people and cultures that he versity of Havana, which enabled him to learned from his personal experience of retrain in the United States as a teacher being outside both his home cultures has of Spanish. The family settled in Barnes- brought him, after a long trajectory, to boro, Pennsylvania, and slowly rebuilt the study of fish and their worlds. The their lives to the same modest level of path that led Rey to this juncture of his

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life started, in 2000, with a series titled Another part of Rey’s desired outcome is Trout Encounters and two other series, that, by seeing the streams, countries, and Biological Regionalism and The Aesthetics the biodiversity of trout, the active specta- of Death. The series were a way for Rey to tor can have a direct experience of nature address recent changes and losses in his akin to that which was Rey’s catalyst for life by connecting his life to the natural this series. Through Rey’s paintings, this environments we share with the animals exhibition, and this book, engaged spec- living alongside us. It is Biological Region- tators can learn about environments they alism that is the focus of the Burchfield might not otherwise see, and participate Penney Art Center exhibition. in experiences of nature they might oth- For Rey, trout have become a symbol erwise miss. of a variety of personal and global issues. One goal of this book, in conjunction For the directorial staff of the Burchfield with Rey’s past, current, and future exhi- Penney Art Center, and for the artist and bitions, is the establishment of a renewed the authors of this book, one major goal understanding of American cultural and of this exhibition and book is to com- environmental diversity in relation to the municate Rey’s intentions so that all can global; Rey’s desire is to connect specific understand the meaning of his images. A manifestations of these aspects of human secondary goal is to enable the spectator experience to the universal whole. The of this exhibition and the reader of this authors of this book have written a series book to relate their own life experience of essays that trace Rey’s trajectory so that and personal concerns about our place in his process and his artistic intentions can the natural world to the images Rey has be transmitted. Each of the essays form- created. Part of Rey’s intention is to pro- ing the book’s chapters was selected to vide a communicative structure in which contextualize a different and individu- participant spectators can increase their al aspect of Rey’s art and life, with the understanding of their lives by looking at goal of presenting a unified and cohesive Rey’s work. Hence, a meditative dimen- explanation of Rey’s work. sion is intended to bridge the solipsistic The first essay in this volume is Lynette gap that separates us from one another Bosch’s “Alberto Rey: Intersections,” by providing a link through his images. which provides a biographical overview

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of Rey’s life, his artistic concerns, and phy, Gracia employs authors as diverse as the different stages of his artistic career. St. Augustine and David Hume to expli- The essay presents Rey as an artist who cate the process of being and becoming connects his experience, observations, that is intrinsic to the definition of self. and research to the works of art that he Isabel Alvarez Borland brings her creates. Initially and primarily a painter, experience as a scholar of literature and Rey’s artistic repertoire expanded as he specifically of Cuban American literature explored different subjects and concerns, to bear on her exploration of meaning and Bosch’s essay traces how the changes for Alberto Rey’s works in her “Alberto in his artistic expression respond to the Rey’s Balsas Series in the Cuban Ameri- events of Rey’s life. can Imagination.” Alvarez Borland’s essay Jorge Gracia’s essay, “The Construc- follows a chronological and thematic pro- tion of Identity in Art: Alberto Rey’s gression as she relates Rey’s work to that Journey,” specifically addresses, from a of other Cuban American writers and philosophical perspective, the formation artists, thus contextualizing Rey within and definition of identity—national, cul- his peer group of Cuban Americans who tural, individual, or familial—in all of the employ art (literary and pictorial) to aspects conveyed by the word identity. address and communicate their experi- Gracia focuses on discussing the balance ence as bicultural Americans and trans- that hyphenated identity requires of an nationals. The essay focuses on the iconic individual who moves between two cul- use of rafts as metaphorical vehicles for tures as he describes how Rey has fused escape, transition, travel, exile, immigra- the different aspects of his identity into tion, danger, and expectation. For Cuban a cohesive body of work. Drawing from Americans, as for other groups (Haitians, philosophy, critical theory, and personal Laotians, Vietnamese), for whom rafts or experience as a Cuban-born American, balsas represented escape and a new life, Gracia addresses the subject of identity images or descriptions of rafts and voy- from a scholarly, yet personal, perspec- ages on rafts resonate as a major cultural tive, producing an essay that is layered markers of their Cuban identity. But Alva- with interpretive possibilities for individ- rez Borland’s essay does not confine itself ual works by Rey. As a scholar of philoso- to Rey’s Balsas series, as she addresses

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the symbolic, metaphorical and allegori- rent concerns with environmental issues cal aspects of each of Rey’s progressive and mortality. Denaci’s essay is a bridge groups of works that trace his patterns of for this book’s first three chapters to the thought. Thus, from an interdisciplinary remaining text, which is more focused on perspective, Alvarez Borland addresses Rey’s interest in painting fish, a project Rey’s artistic trajectory, employing a vari- that he began in 2000. ety of critical approaches. Lynette Bosch’s “Trout as Form and Mark Denaci’s essay, “Absent Pres- Symbol” initiates a concentrated empha- ences and the Living Dead: Alberto Rey’s sis on Rey’s three most recent series: Haunted Aesthetics,” contextualizes Rey Trout Encounters, Biological Regionalism, within the history of aesthetics and art and The Aesthetics of Death. To provide criticism as he analyzes Rey’s visual strat- an art historical context for Rey’s work, egies for creating meaning in his images. Bosch gives an overview of landscape Denaci places Rey within the parameters painting and the painting of fishing and of debates about art and representation in angling that includes consideration of six- which Clement Greenberg, the critic who teenth-century scientific naturalism and arguably reinvented painting, and Martin continues to contemporary painters of Heidegger, the controversial philosopher fish, who are Rey’s peer group. Bosch also who attempted to redefine art itself, play provides an analysis of how Rey’s recent crucial roles. Greenberg’s questioning of artistic focus on fish is connected to his the validity of thematic subject-oriented earlier series, making the argument that painting is well known, and Denaci’s anal- Rey’s path to his current work is continu- ysis of how Rey comments on, subverts, ous and cohesive with his personal and and moves beyond Greenberg’s strictures artistic accomplishments. Bosch’s essay provides an understanding of Rey’s subtle segues into John Orlock’s essay, which engagement with issues of presence and provides a very different approach to the absence in representing ideas and identi- subject of fish and the history of fishing ties. Denaci’s overview of Rey’s response from that taken by the other contributors to these aesthetic debates begins with to this book. Rey’s early series, which are directly John Orlock’s “Reading the Waters: about identity, and ends with Rey’s cur- Early Works of Influence on the Lit-

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erature of Fly-Fishing” is an essay that toward landscape, and environmental does not seek to directly address Alberto issues that are part of the literature of Rey’s work, but which concludes with a fishing. Therefore, this essay provides a “Postscript” from Rey that responds to window into the ideology of fishing that Orlock’s evocative essay. Orlock begins is the foundation for Rey’s personal and his discussion of the cultural significance professional exploration of this human of the literature on fly-fishing in Classi- endeavor. cal antiquity and concludes with Ernest Following Orlock’s essay, Rey provides Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories and an “Artist’s Statement” that addresses the Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through exhibition he has designed for the Burch- It. Sir Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler field Penney Art Center. In his Biologi- is central to Orlock’s discussion, as it is cal Regionalism: Scajaquada Creek, Erie the singule most important manual of County, New York, USA, Rey explains fishing that exists. First published in why he has focused on this particular 1653, The Compleat Angler was and is body of water and what it means to him the summation of knowledge about how as a member of its community and as an to fish and how to think about fishing. artist. For Rey, the Scajaquada is part of Orlock’s discussion emphasizes the philo- a globally connected system of waterways sophical and spiritual aspects of fishing close to his home. And in his “Artist’s and the role that these elements play in Statement,” Rey communicates his artis- both the culture of fishing and its litera- tic intentions, goals, and reasons for why ture. Thus, even though Orlock’s essay is his current work continues to follow the not about Rey’s work (because Rey has path on which he decided in 2000, when only rarely illustrated any literary work he began Trout Encounters. about fishing), Orlock provides a larger Sandra Firmin’s “Time Submersion: understanding of the nature of fishing A Portrait of Two Creeks” analyzes, and the literary contribution that helps describes, and interprets two of Rey’s us to understand why fishing became so exhibitions belonging to his Biological important for Rey. Orlock also touches Regionalism series. Firmin’s concentra- on concerns that parallel those of Rey in tion on Biological Regionalism: Ellicott the areas of resources, changing attitudes Creek, Amherst, New York, USA, 2010 and

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Biological Regionalism: Scajaquada Creek, Bayou Desiard, Monroe, Louisiana, USA, Erie County, New York, USA, 2013 enables from its inception to its enactment, and her to reach back to Classical literature, it traces Rey’s research process from his the literature of fishing, and the represen- asking for maps, objects of significant tational history of fishing contextualized local resonance, books, and images of within contemporary ecological concerns the area, to the many trips required for in a way that supplements previous con- his personal exploration of the environ- siderations of these topics by this vol- ment on which he will focus. Hickey ume’s other contributors. Firmin’s goal is also emphasizes Rey’s scientific interests to meticulously examine Rey’s working and his collaboration with local scientists process from idea to display. In so doing, and area organizations, populations, and she explains how Rey researches each area research resources. Hence, Hickey’s essay and each part of his ongoing series so that is a pragmatic portrait of how Rey enacts he can become a part of the community his work. Additionally, it contextualizes and the environment he has chosen for Rey’s imagery within the ongoing dialec- his next investigative and artistic journey. tic of “high” and “low” art. Firmin’s essay takes us directly into Rey’s This thematic subject category, where creative process and into the message he species of fish connect Rey to universal wishes to communicate to his audience. realizations about our place in the cosmos, Benjamin Hickey’s “Alberto Rey: has been the focus of Rey’s creative ener- Beneath the Surface” focuses on Rey’s gy since 2000, when he began the series project for the Masur Museum in Mon- Trout Encounters as an extension of his roe, Louisiana. Hickey begins his essay interest and developing skill as an angler. by contextualizing the Louisiana project Trout Encounters was also developed from in connection with the exhibition Bio- Rey’s desire to break out in new directions logical Regionalism: Largemouth Bass, as an artist. For Rey, the representations Ellicott Creek, Amherst, New York, USA of fish became a way whereby he could and the painting Biological Regionalism: address the different stages of life and a Brown Trout, Hosmer Creek, Hosmer, new visual medium in which he could New York, USA. The essay describes the think and communicate his personal life Louisiana project, Biological Regionalism: experience. As someone who always felt

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culturally “different” from others because fish. Trout Encounters led to the current he was Cuban in the United States, Rey series Biological Regionalism, in which has always been interested in cultural dif- Rey records his observations of fish pop- ference and the interaction between indi- ulations and their environments, as well viduals and their environment. Because as The Aesthetics of Death, which deals he grew up in Barnesboro, without either directly with evanescence and mortality. a Cuban American or a Latino group It is the Biological Realism series that pro- to ground him in his Hispanic identity, vides the works for the Burchfield Penney Rey learned to connect to the landscape exhibition. Through his renditions of fish around his home as a way of defining and their environments, Rey addresses himself. Early hostile encounters, as he the spectator on a variety of subjects, was learning English, that were the result such as personal identity, the trajectory of of how he looked and his different ethnic- life, death’s proximity, the impact that our ity, led him to appreciate building bridges actions and behavior have on our envi- between different cultures. In painting ronment, and how through the observa- fish, Rey transfers the skills he learned tion of one fish a universal connection to early into learning about a different cul- life’s significance can be understood. tural environment—the world of fish and In his work, Rey enables connections their surroundings linked to the local cul- and meaning for the images he creates, tures that share habitat with the fish he which are, first and foremost, works of studies. By incorporating the differences art of great aesthetic beauty, through his between humans and fish into his work, ability to represent the forms of the natural Rey addresses communal identity through world he has come to know as an angler that which is shared—life and death and a and fisherman. In Rey’s paintings, we see world of survival and adaptation. trout and other fish living within their Because the lives of fish are short, pre- natural environments. We experience their carious, and filled with danger, the vulner- perception of their world and we come face ability of these creatures brought Rey to to face with the realization of the value of confront his own mortality and that of his their existence for us. One need not ever close family, affected by illness and death have fished to understand the validity of during the years when he began to paint the lives presented by Rey or to connect to

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the experience of being in these landscapes were recording. Even as Audubon created and streams. The encounter with the vari- his series, he understood that he was pre- eties of trout and other fish represented by serving them at the peak of their already Rey reminds us that we are part of a larger threatened abundance. biosphere and that what happens in each Rey’s paintings evoke the varieties of its parts affects the whole. of life experience that we share with all Rey’s paintings of fish are also about other species: the desire to survive, hun- memory, time, and a reminder that what ger, reproduction, existence, being in is here now may be gone. In the evanes- the moment, and the tension that exists cent, transitory, and diminishing popula- between competing drives. It is the com- tions of fish, there is a reminder of the petition between the human need for food plenitude that once existed. In painting and the fish’s instinct for survival that is these fish, Rey paints an America of the the crux of fishing. This contest is the cata- past, and brings us back to a time when lyst for Rey’s observations about the envi- the national identity was based on a con- ronments in which these contests unfold, cept of never-ending bounty—a message which he explores in his work and in this that was clear in the paintings of Ameri- exhibition. At this point in his career as a can artists such as Thomas Doughty guide and naturalist, Rey knows that the or John James Audubon. Rey’s fishing scarcity and vulnerability of trout means grounds cover territory once fished by that wild trout should not be harvested, Native Americans, who fished for sub- as each death depletes the population. In sistence. These populations became dis- some cases, such as that of the Scajaquada placed as European settlers took over the Creek, the depletion is critical, as trout sel- territories, and subsistence fishing became dom swim there. For Rey, fishing is now sports fishing in the European traditions, concentrated in the process of angling and as industrialization and leisure changed not in the taking or eating of fish. Thus, the nature of the activity. Yet, even these Rey continues to fish because, for him, it early artists, who worked when the land- provides a level of spiritual satisfaction that scape was relatively untouched and the enables him to make sense of his life’s tra- birds and animals were plentiful, were jectory and its complicated essence. This aware of the vanishing resources they exhibition is Rey’s way of communicat-

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ing what he has learned as an artist who logical Regionalism is about life and death, observes and records, and as someone the personal and the universal, and the who lives in present-day realities that have complex ways in which we either engage developed from his and our collective and with or destroy our natural environment. historical past. Such connections are also a reflection of As Rey has worked on this series, he how we relate to ourselves and the people has developed his interest as an angler who form our lives and with whom our and guide into concerns about the envi- destinies are linked. ronments in which trout live and the Each of the authors of the articles erosion of these environments result- found in this book understands the con- ing from global pollution and unregu- nections between Rey’s life and his work lated urbanization. Rey’s intention in the as an artist. It has been our goal to bring creation and presentation of this series, to the reader of this book and the par- whenever and wherever it is exhibited, is ticipants in Rey’s ongoing body of work to draw attention to the natural environ- an understanding of Rey’s life, his inten- ment that is being slowly but inexorably tions, and his goals. Rey represents the compromised and to create a record of citizen-artist who chronicles his life as what we now have that might someday he observes and explains our world, as a disappear. member of the global and local academic, Biological Regionalism varies in locale artistic, and conservation communities; a and has become global in localization of citizen of this country; and someone who the specific diverse species and landscapes lives and works in Western New York Rey represents. The nature of the images State with his wife, Janeil, and their chil- Rey has created has changed over time, as dren, Graciela and Diego. Rey is an artist the main theme has expanded to address who is engaged in making a record of the Rey’s life, his identity as a Cuban Ameri- time in which he lives so that future gen- can artist, the illness and death of mem- erations can connect to our experience bers of his family, and his concern that and understand how we became them in the increase in environmental destruction the same way that Rey seeks to explain that is happening will cause the loss of through his art how the past became our our connection to nature. In essence, Bio- present, as “they” became “us.”

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