Charles Juhasz

Artist Satement

 

The idea behind the construction of the pieces in aluminum is closely related to the eagerness of drawing with freedom in the tridimensional space. The aluminum rod suggests the similar stroke of a pencil, but very peculiar in the sense that it “stroke of light” in that this material reflects and takes in the traveling light. Besides these facts, I think the aluminum sweetly expresses modernity for many reasons that range from the historic and poetic, to its practicality when working with it at the workshop. This metal has excellent characteristics, including resistance to corrosion, stable, light weight and truly malleable. These characteristics allow me to work complex forms, like the horses, with much ease making them able to exhibit in an exterior space.

 

A few years ago while I was studying in Rome, I had an intense experience in the Galeria Borghese before Bernini’s sculpture, Pluto and Persephone. Standing before this impressive sculpture in marble I saw the figure of a dog with three heads, which I was unaware that such animal existed in the Greco-Roman mythology. What I felt upon seeing it was that by carving the three heads Bernini expressed the fury of the cyclonic movement, which characterizes the work itself. I marveled thinking of the novelty of the resource while I read the museums description that this was the representation of Cerbero. In that moment I felt a definitive connection with the complexities of the tridimensional forms and the valuable and inevitable of the multiplicity of interpretations. When I build works like the horses at the Hotel I am interested in exploring issues of simultaneity and complexity of character that a form can generate while moving in the spaces that our bodies configure between instincts, conscience and imagination.

 

The material for the giraffes are a very particular case, they are linked to a project where I elaborated numerous objects with materials used in the construction of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Puerto Rico. The giraffes are made of tubes and accessories for electric constructions. It’s a project that includes a narrative component which I titled "Aquí se construye el Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; el cometen nos hará mierda".

 

About the Artist

 

Puerto Rican, born during the Vitnam war on the Clark military base in Philippines, 1965. Sculpture and interdisciplinary artists, Juhasz studied at Yale University in New Haven CT from 1984-88 and his graduate studies were also completed at Yale University School of Art 1992-94.

 

Currently a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Puerto Rico and co director of the cultural space La Casa de los Contrafuertes in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Some of his solo exhibitions are: Exit Art Nueva York (2009); El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (2008); The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2002), PA; Fusebox  Gallery in Washington DC (2004); and in the Luigi Marozzinni  Galery (1998) in San Juan, PR.

 

Group shows, events and Bienales which he has participated are: 30 Bienial de Artes Gráficas en Ljubljana, Slovenia (2013); ‘Medios y Ambientes’ en el Museo del Chopo UAM, Mexico, DF (2012); Trienal Poligráfica de San Juan (2012); ‘Caribbean: Crossroads of the World’ en Queens Museum, NY (2012); Trienal de Arte del Caribe, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, RD (2010); ‘We are your future’, Bienal de Moscú, Federacion Rusa; ‘Belief’, Bienial de Singapore, (2006); Neo-Barrocos: El infierno de lo bello, Museo Domus, Salamanca, España; II Bienal de Praga, Praga,  Republica Checa; ‘Island Nations’, Museo del Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (2004); ‘None of the Above’, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; Octava Bienal de La Habana,  La Habana, Cuba (2003) and Iconografías Metropolitanas en XXV Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brasil (2002)

 

 

Book:

Charles Juhasz-Alvarado: agudas. llanas, esdrújulas y sobreesdrújulas (varios episodios y otras ingenierías).  San Juan, PR.  Publicado por Mad-Era. 2009.  ISBN 978-1-81723-02-8