Trending topic in the contemporary painting

Havana, Sunday, July 24, 2016 – The researcher in charge of the project “Fidel Micó Catalogue Raisonnée” (FMCR) is pleased to announce the return of the contemporary Cuban painter Fidel Micó (b. 1962) to trending topics after more than 10 years painting landscapes. Although well-known in this genre, some of his best pieces deal with trending topics. The paintings “Otra oportunidad” (100 x 120 cm, oil on canvas, 2003, collection of the artist), and “El poder de la naturaleza” (150 x 100 cm, oil on canvas, 2005, USA private collection) are stupendous samples of his interest in representing educational and civilizing messages (Art Documentation, 2015, 34 (2): 349-353). Fidel Micó has been gathering opinions from these paintings before starting his next conceptual work, but the result has been a message deeper than expected on a subject that he never mentioned during 5 years of research and interviews for compiling the FMCR.

Obviously, Micó had never before represented the subject of the painting “Marihuana” (72 x 100 cm, oil on canvas, 2016, collection of the artist), nor from the conceptual neither from the formal point of view, which evidences a dramatic turning point far beyond his career, because this trending topic have not been treated by any other contemporary Cuban painter. Two details may be relevant for scholars studying the contemporary Cuban art. First, Micó has easily decided introducing a dark background in this artwork, 36 years after painting “Bailarina Española” (70 x 53 cm, oil on canvas, 1980, collection of the artist), portrait of an unknown but beautiful woman in the dark. Second, the entangled transition from the natural backgrounds of the paintings “Espíritus del Arrecife” (74 x 100 cm, oil on canvas, 2015, Mexican private collection), and “Muerte y Renacimiento” (86 x 116 cm, oil on canvas, 2015, Mexican private collection) to an artificial dark background (“Marihuana”) was like a flash (December 2015 – January 2016), leaving no doubt on his total domain of the pictorial art. This sudden transition from enlighten to dark background in a few days is a plausible demonstration that Fidel Micó is naturally connected to visual arts. Third, the price of the painting “Marihuana” suggests that Micó has been able to find the fair market value of his work in the primary market.

If appraisers were asked on the market of Micó’s paintings, probably they would say “there is not market for him at auction sales”, but something else should be taken into account. According to estimates of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Economia, 4 (2): 1-35), the overall mean annual real return of Latin American Fine Art is 9%, there is a positive relationship between mean return and risk, it has had a relatively high rate of return, and adding Latin American art to an international portfolio reduces overall risk. The Latin American Art Index Price has been growing from 1985, larger returns are found with longer auction intervals and lower priced pieces. Two excellent examples of these results are the Cuban landscape painters Tomás Sánchez (b. 1948), and Ernesto Estévez García (b. 1967). The first one has built a solid international market for landscape paintings from the 90s, and the second one has reached significant prices after an exhibition of a landscape in Mónaco, although there is not well-documented Catalogue Raisonnée, nor peer-review publications on their careers.

Direct examination of the oil on canvas “Marihuana” at the artist’s studio was even more interesting. The visual impact of this artwork invites the viewer to a closer approach to the beautiful complexity of a unique compositional element. The high level of development in every pictorial detail also deserves a deeper analysis. The influence of light, subject, line, form and colour on the visual impact reinforces the artistic message: the painter wants to focus the viewer’s attention on a plant. Light is a predominant protagonist, dancing inside an extensive dark space to define the third dimension from the middle ground, which could be a “Russian roulette” for any contemporary painter. The absence of compositional elements in the background adds a high level of difficulty that had not been faced by Micó since 1980.

Finally, the subject of the painting “Marihuana” is not addictions, as could be imagined. This plant in the dark is a message, a visual representation of an issue that is the matter of concern in every country. It is something coming from the darkness with its own light. There is not a dominant feeling in this artwork, but mostly an invitation to open mind for everything we don’t know entirely. The colour scheme seems to be suitable for representing the subject: the sharp transition from the background to the middle ground suggests abrupt changes of thought and feeling to participate in scientific, sociologic, and legal debates on this species.

The Fidel Mico Catalogue Raisonne is a research Project on the career of the contemporary Cuban painter Fidel Mico. It include the entire career and work of the artista.

José A. Buxadó, MSc.
Researcher in charge of the project
“The Fidel Micó Catalogue Raisonnée” (FMCR).
Rodríguez Nº 14, entre Maboa y Rabí, apto 1,
Rpto. Santos Suárez, Municipio 10 de Octubre,
La Habana, Cuba.

This release was published on openPR.