WILLIAM VILLALONGO
Rhombus, 2010
Acrylic, paper, and velvet flocking on wood panel
75 x 58 x 2 in
Jubilee and Rhombus riff on late Baroque idylls with women at leisure; painting, bathing, and playing. Turnabout for Villalongo comes not only in the appropriation of the 18th century motif,...
Jubilee and Rhombus riff on late Baroque idylls with women at leisure; painting, bathing, and playing. Turnabout for Villalongo comes not only in the appropriation of the 18th century motif, but in the Modernists masks sported by many of the women. With a nod to the ladies of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Villalongo substitutes masks inspired by the work of Gene Davis, Robert Ryman, and Ad Reinhardt for the African masks that inspired Picasso and his peers. This turns the tables on the fraught history of Modernism and Primitivism, calling attention to their appropriation of African visual language, color, and geometry. The artist remixes Western notions of exoticism and abstraction. He says of this series, “my goal is to orchestrate a conversation between history and art which could give us the progressive discussions of the future.”
Exhibitions
"William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations," Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, IA, 26 January 2024 - 6 April 2024; traveled to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI, 4 May 2024 - 18 August 2024; Museum of Art, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 13 September - 21 December 2024; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 15 May 2025 - 31 August 2025.“Outside My Name or Through Other Eyes,” Contemporary Art Galleries, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 12 September 2017 - 1 November 2017.
"Bathing Nymph," Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC, 21 October 2010 - 4 December 2010.