featured artist
Cesar Menéndez
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interview transcript
Date of Interview: Apr 10, 2002
Location: USA
Topic: Interview with Cesar Menéndez
Interviewer: LatinArt.com
LatinArt: What is your opinion with respect to present day Latin American art?
Cesar Menéndez : Referring to Latin American art and not to matters in connection with cultural disclosure or with its aesthetics, the problem of the market, the artist, the presence of important cultural museums, etc. In my opinion Latin American Art in itself is, at this time, a somatic problem. That is, there is a kind of globalization on a par with the political and economic phenomenon coinciding in all cultures, and more so for us who have no marked identity. This has been difficult for us to resolve, difficult for us to accept and, on many occasions, makes us ashamed of who we are because the phenomenon of the empire, is such, that it influences us every day. For example, if I live in Costa Rica, and I want to see painting I try to think of Costa Rican painters...but these days I only see installations. Well, within what parameters can we speak of the installation being a Latin American phenomenon? It is a universal, global phenomenon. That is, we are led to think that art has no country, that it is no longer a national phenomenon. For the fifties generation, in which I was born, it is hard to take the next step we need to make our work better known because we come up against a modern phenomenon in art, a contemporaneousness of modern art which is no longer painting but something else. And I, with my very profound concept of aesthetics, my philosophy, my thought and my formation, which was eminently academic, don’t fit into that conception...that is what museums and art magazines are promoting. One should meditate this. What is happening with Latin American painting? What is the real influence, and how much power does it have, to influence everything else?
LatinArt: Talking to contemporary artists from other places such as Mexico or Argentina, this movement is a smarter (re)form of internationalization. It’s interesting that what you’re asking is to ask ourselves: what is being lost? Or, what is happening?
Cesar Menéndez : Some years ago the art critic criticized technical quality, now he only questions the concept, the idea. Many artists enter the field of art without knowing much about what it is to draw, to paint. But neither do I want to take the stand that the artist must be predominantly academic, or a natural artist, but he must possess a basic know-how, the ’ABC’, just as a musician must know about notes in order to be able to compose. There are actors, writers, involved in art, because it is the concept that matters, not the form. In environments where in which the tradition of painting have always been landscapes, The Last Supper, certain of Salvador Dali’s pictures, etc. where generations of young artists grew-up thinking that this was painting, because it was Art. So imagine, if these people haven’t been capable of pulling back, concentrating and meditating on an abstract work of art, what are they going to do in an installation? It’s the aesthetics that count in painting. It speaks of your own ideas, your own identity as a person, that which retains your personal style. You can form the culture of a country through your painting. That is what art is for.
LatinArt: Following this same line of thought, reading a little about you, I realize that your first work had more political content, had more literal landscapes, and then you began to change your work, perhaps in a more personal, symbolic or mythological way. How did this change come about?
Cesar Menéndez : People believe that when one changes idea, one changes style and that isn’t so, since style is something one doesn’t negotiate with - that doesn’t change ever.
I began as an abstract painter because I loved it, but at the same time, I was also drawing...and really learning to draw. I gradually incorporated representation the more comfortable I felt with my drawing. I become representative without ceasing to be an abstract painter; it’s like preparing a room, a scene in the theater, and then suddenly the actors begin to come in. Many of these characters exist in the history of art, but they are my characters. And then there are very personal ideas...like railway stations. The railroad is where the history of my family began, remembering that my grandfather stole my grandmother at a railway station and took her to live in the village, there he founded the family. What I am trying to say by that is there is always a very human, very intimate frame of reference and to really understand a picture you have to live what the artist lives day by day, how he dreams, how he eats, how he makes love, how he falls in love, how he dies, this being a very lengthy process. I do not paint by series, fortunately I have not discovered a formula for painting.
LatinArt: We have already talked about the form of painting, could you tell us something about the technique of your works, how you paint, how you began?
Cesar Menéndez : I take the blank canvas and begin dabbing. At that moment I am only thinking of the idea. I use a broad brush, and those daubs work with me subconsciously. There are always things that can be rescued from them, and later I try to work with those. If at that moment one cannot continue you leave the canvas and go away. And that canvas (half daubed over) can stay there discarded for a month, while I do something else. After some time has passed I look at it again and it might say something to me. It’s like a dialogue, and I form ideas around it. The last part, the painting, is what I most enjoy. That’s when I forget to eat and to sleep, that’s why when I enter the studio I have to have everything in order, debts paid, emotional problems resolved, since I know that I am not going to come out for three months.
LatinArt: What else do you do?
Cesar Menéndez : I live in the country, I am a farmer, I sow my own beans, corn, and coffee. I also have horses, dogs, fighting cocks, landscapes. This is my world that I would not change for anything.
LatinArt: Which historical figures would you say have influenced your works?
Cesar Menéndez : There are two artists who have had an influence on me and on history. The first of these was Francis Bacon. I identify myself very much with him because of the strength, the vigor. Then I discovered Edward Munch, with his puberty, his death in his own room, the series on jealousy, themes of the generations, of maturity, of the intimate sensual search. This is the level of influence I find in those artists, it is not that I want to copy these people, but it is like a spiritual familiarity, and in that way one is very stimulated to work.
LatinArt: Who’s work do you like in El Salvador now?
Cesar Menéndez : At the present time there is a generation of very important young artists and this is giving fruit, since the majority of them, when taking part in Central American biennials, immediately return with awards. Many of them are involved in installations and very interesting things. We have very good painters in Walter Iraheta, José David Herrera, among others. But there is a very important phenomenon in that this is no longer national painting, but is now at another level. There is definitely quality and good perception. Although one must give a young artist twenty more years to expect concrete results.
LatinArt: What are you working on now? Do you have any works, any ideas in mind?
Cesar Menéndez : I have reached a moment in my work when it is hard for me to paint, although this seems paradoxical since a painter, at this stage, should be producing because he is selling. It is a good moment for the market. But in my opinion, that is dangerous. I am preoccupied about the contribution. I am preoccupied about the picture I am going to begin tomorrow or which I will finish within a month or a year, what its purpose is going to be, its destination in life, since each picture has its own personality, its own thought. I am also preoccupied that I’m not painting right now, but I will continue to live and when I start to paint it will all be on the canvas.
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