EC20-E1 2020

Curator: Here we have Thiago Boecan’s “EC20-E1,” an acrylic on canvas completed in 2020. It’s an intriguing example of hard-edge painting and color field sensibilities. What’s your immediate take? Editor: Austere and unsettling, I find. The blocks of deep red and muted ochre feel dense, like repressed anger. Is this about spatial relationships or something more charged? Curator: The tension definitely exists. It is fascinating how Boecan balances a flat picture plane with the illusion of depth through color interaction. Consider the red rectangle bisected by that pale ochre line – the strategic use of color to activate pictorial space is quite clever. Editor: I agree, and yet the palette—these somber, earthy tones—feels freighted with unspoken histories. Knowing Boecan’s background, could this be interpreted as a visual reckoning with Brazil’s complex colonial past? These rigid geometric forms contrast so sharply with the fluidity of lived experience. Curator: While I respect your contextual interpretation, the success of “EC20-E1” hinges more on its internal compositional elements. Look at how the smaller squares offset the larger rectangular forms. This tension is vital to understanding the work on its own formal terms. The cool detachment enhances this aesthetic exercise, no? Editor: Detachment is a luxury many can't afford, and one I hesitate to embrace in art. These color choices feel deliberately limited, stifling even. It makes me wonder what voices or histories are being excluded by this formal restraint? Curator: I see it as refinement and exactitude, hallmarks of geometric abstraction. Each line, each color plane, exists in a perfect state of calculated interdependence. Editor: Interdependence, maybe. But what about access? The language of abstraction, however beautiful, can feel inaccessible to audiences without specialized training. Curator: Perhaps. Yet the reduction to basic forms also opens up the work to wider interpretations, focusing on primal perception and immediate feeling rather than the weight of academic artifice. Editor: In a way, both readings are valuable—finding beauty in structure, yet questioning its underlying ideologies. Thanks, that was fascinating! Curator: Likewise, the pleasure lies in seeing a work unlock multifaceted dialogues.