Gijón Cafe 2015

Curator: Looking at Consuelo Hernández's "Gijón Cafe," created in 2015, I immediately feel like I've stumbled onto a perfectly captured, quiet moment. Editor: It’s got a stillness to it, despite depicting a busy, contemporary scene. All that glass and stone, though... what's the weight of that facade doing to the sidewalk, the unseen pipes below? Curator: Well, Hernández brings together impressionistic strokes and realistic rendering to depict this urban tableau. You've got a cafe facade, a young woman on her phone, and a slightly scraggly dog, all bathed in the warm afternoon light. The café interior reflects back at us like a ghost. It’s really about fleeting moments, the poignancy of modern life brushing up against the classical solidity of a European city. Editor: It's a solid, classical facade to be sure, but the awning seems like such an impermanent material addition in contrast, just stretched taut fabric affixed to sturdy construction materials. Curator: Exactly! That tension is palpable, isn't it? Like the tension between tradition and modernity itself, symbolized by the old cafe versus the girl glued to her device. Maybe I'm overthinking it but to me it feels nostalgic and futuristic at the same time. Editor: No, no, I think you're spot on, really. The question that haunts me, I suppose, is what resources—concrete, glass, labor, design, transit—facilitate this type of fleeting interaction? That café window may be sheltering people but it takes a ton of hidden resources to maintain. Curator: So you're saying the romance has a high carbon footprint? That's such a great point! These sorts of "realist" portrayals are also always products of complex invisible apparatuses. It pushes us to consider art making itself as a "material reality". Editor: It does! All those brushes and paint—just where did they all come from? That sidewalk that bears that young woman’s footsteps - who made it and how much did they get paid for their labour? Curator: Hernández seems to invite all these reflections. It is a painting with real weight and a touch of dreaminess. Thanks for getting me thinking of all this! Editor: My pleasure! A wonderful piece, demanding of slow, material contemplation.