When it comes to image-making, to introduce a kind of interruption to one’s creative output does not spring to mind as a typical objective. Ricardo Alcaide’s series Intrusions, however, has this ethos at its heart. The Venezuelan artist has created this series by placing brightly coloured angular shapes – though a couple of the ‘intrusions’ are made of cardboard and wood – over the top of photographs of modern mid-century structures and interiors rendered in black and white. While the sometimes-gargantuan shapes are certainly central to the images, they somehow do not feel too out of place, fostering an air of intrigue and imagination: the viewer is left desperate to see through the shapes, easily drifting into daydream to muse on what might be just behind them.
It’s also hard not to marvel at the architecture and interior design on show. A sweeping staircase defies gravity as it cascades into the room, while elsewhere marble floors form a perfect base for spaces which are ideally furnished with pieces that are elegant in their simplicity. The images are examples of iconic Latin American architecture, from Venezuela, Alcaide’s home country, and Brazil, where he now lives and works. Alcaide’s aim was to add a foreign element into the spaces through his thickly painted swathes of colour in order to create a new reality, one that exists as a simultaneously harmonious and jarring space.
Happy Monday! #AnOtherHappyMonday
Ricardo Alcaide’s latest work is at Von Bartha, Basel from January 13 until March 18, 2017.
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