Horizons chauds 1968

Curator: This is Wifredo Lam’s "Horizons chauds," created in 1968 using acrylic on canvas. What strikes you first? Editor: Well, the angular forms certainly create a sense of disquiet, almost like architectural renderings gone askew. There's a curious tension between the hard lines and the somewhat muted palette. Curator: Lam was deeply invested in challenging the consumption of exoticism. How might that context influence our reading of the forms, their making, their presentation? Editor: The geometric shapes could be interpreted as symbolic of the structures of power and colonial influence. He's abstracting these concepts into visual language, it looks like. Curator: Exactly. And knowing his Afro-Cuban heritage, do you see connections to ritual objects and the commodification of culture in his labor here? Editor: There is an element here of transforming what is familiar and culturally expected into something…other. He seems to disrupt straightforward interpretation with these shapes that are so stylized but still hint at something recognizable. The lines create form and structure in abstract space. Curator: The "primitive" aesthetic appropriated by the Western gaze, reconsidered and transformed through Lam's lens of personal and collective memory. What does it do? Editor: The abstraction demands the viewer slow down, engaging more thoughtfully. Perhaps decoding or even struggling with the artist's intent leads to a greater reflection on that colonialist project you mention. Curator: It’s a dialogue across continents, between representation and abstraction, acrylics and the colonial machine, that I am thinking of now. Editor: An excellent observation. It certainly brings new layers of complexity to how one perceives the materials and construction choices, given this historical conversation you present to consider further.