Victor Cúnsolo, born in Vittoria, Italy, arrived in Argentina in 1913 and became one of the most important painters of La Boca, a popular neighbourhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires inhabited mostly by working class immigrants, bohemian artists, and prostitutes. In the early 1930s, due to severe health complications, Cúnsolo had to migrate to La Rioja, a province in northern Argentina. There he continued his characteristic style of refined forms, austere details, and geometric spaces seen in his portrayal of La Boca, which reflected the resonances of the Metaphysical painting of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. In Paisaje de La Rioja (1937), one of his last paintings, Cúnsolo expanded those structured landscapes marked by the absence of human figures in a rural setting with closed doors, darkened windows, and shuttered bars followed by a colourful sequence of historic buildings that contrast with the shadow of the mountains. In the foreground, graffiti promoting an upcoming Creole circus accentuates Cúnsolo’s ability to work with the ambivalence between the beauty of a humble scenario and the desolation of an unreal atmosphere in which culture seems out of time.
This is the first time the work of Victor Cúnsolo is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Nicolas Cuello
