CURATOR'S COLUMN: Kurt Beers on the Enduring Spirit of Andrew Salgado
It could be argued that art has always been used as a means of therapy. It has recorded man’s own plight since the Caves of Lascaux, and is frequently used as a therapeutic tool for persons with mental illness. Even works by serial killers John Wayne Gacy and Charles Manson (there are plenty) fetch fair prices among certain collectors.
Art can – and is – used as a form of convalescence. But what is to be claimed of the artistic merit for that art? Do we want our artist’s to be tortured? Does it raise their value? Part of the Romantic beauty behind the apocryphal stories attributed to our favorite artist-legends is the grandiose sense of woe and misery that accompanies them. Van Gogh was haunted by the voices in his head (later we would accept his diagnosis as schizophrenia) that compelled him to cut off his ear and later commit suicide; as viewers, we relish stories about in his misery. Jackson Pollock was a severe alcoholic and manic-depressive, and who doesn’t love to hear the one about him taking a piss at a Peggy Guggenheim’s house – what sadistic joyous delight! Frida Kahlo made archives of work after being paralysed in a train-car wreck and we flock to her home in Coyoacan to gaze into the same mirror she herself looked into, hinged to the canopy above her bed. Tragic, weird, wacky, wonderful! Such stories continue to fuel the notion that only the ‘tortured genius’ – the artist so tormented by his psychological demons – can possibly make wonderful art.
But despite our macabre lust for schadefreude and the art it produces, I would also argue that trauma – be it physical, emotional, or psychological – can be stifling for a creative person. Stimulus can find itself through various channels, and artist’s will always tap into whatever personal source they need in order to be creative. Michelangelo was gay and felt he was haunted by demons, but in truth he simply wanted desperately to pull away from the creative shackles placed upon him by the Catholic Church.
I cannot speak in unequivocal terms, but I have worked with a young Canadian painter Andrew Salgado for nearly a decade. Andrew moved to London almost ten years ago after a cathartic moment in 2008; he was the victim of a hate crime that left him bloodied and toothless. This incident was somewhat sandwiched by bouts of severe anxiety and depression that formed the basis for his career as we now know it. Used now as an example: he is a textbook success story, emancipating himself from this personal pain, his work has found traction on both critical and commercial levels. He artist has spoken at length about how these events propelled him to engage with political concepts relating to his life and work, to bury the pain, and become one of the most-promising young figurative painters in London. Still, the questions people ask him today often revert to this painful event as though he pauses throughout his day in the studio to relive these moments in order to summon these creative demons.
Realistically, the work he produced during this period was a bit cringe-inducing: a plethora of red paint to suggest blood; perhaps a bit too much unnecessary nudity; a desire to (attempt to) shock the viewer instead of compel the viewer. I saw it then, I see it with other artist’s now. Now, older, wiser, calmer, with a bit more experience and distance, Salgado talks about these matters like ripples in a pond: where his art is related to that initial ‘rock-drop’ moment but no longer dependent upon it. The paintings in The Snake – an exhibition inspired by the tragedy that occurred this past June in Orlando in which 49 persons were murdered at a popular LGBT nightclub, manage to consider pain and tragedy without being melodramatic or indulgent. Here Salgado treats pain with respect, but also empathetic detachment. The installation even solicits a charitable donation from viewers – to support both victims of Orlando and a local LGBT charity in the UK. Salgado, it seems, has come out swinging and is encouraging others to do the same.
Kurt Beers
Andrew Salgado: The Snake runs until 17th December
Beers Gallery |1 Baldwin Street | London |EC1V 9NU
Enquiries: info@beerslondon.com
