| When
Manuel Pardo left his native homeland of Cuba as a child after Fidel
Castro came into power, all he took with him were bitter-sweet memories
of the Caribbean isle of paradise. In his series of paintings titled
“The Motherland” (1997-98), Pardo has transformed these memories into
a symbolic landscape of palm trees and mountains. These dream-like
landscapes are thus heartfelt tribute to the artist’s homeland, as
well as stylized renditions of personal recollection, as a post-modern
archaeology of remembrance. Solitary palm trees stand tall and proud
and unwavering in a desert-like landscapes. In the background, smooth
conical mountains are watched over by pairs of clouds in the form
of almond-shaped eyes. |
| Each
form, every object, is laden with symbolic meaning – from the palm
trees, whose trunks are reminiscent of thin paintbrushes, to the stylized
mountains which recall the pert, nipples-less falsies of the artist’s
earlier portraits of transvestite majas. In several compositions,
one or more young women, each dressed in the same style of 1950’s
Cuba fashion victims, seem to pose for an unseen photographer eager
to catch the moment for a family album or to record a visit to some
nondescript historic site. These generic women are, in fact, a link
to Pardo’s previous series of paintings grouped together under the
common title “Mother and I” (1995-1996), a tribute to the artist’s
own mother, who sacrificed everything to see her children safely escape
from Castro dictatorship. Hidden beneath the surfaces of each of the
Motherland paintings is yet another autonomous painting. |
| The
eye-like clouds hint to the fact that many of these painted-over images
might indeed be portrait’s of the artist’s mother, watching over him
from a distance. Only rarely are the contours of these underlying
images so prominent that a vague deciphering of the imagery can be
undertaken. In most cases, they remain mysterious and indecipherable,
like a ghost in a closet or a dream only partially remembered the
morning after. Like the “Mother and I” series, “The Motherland” signifies
the unique bond between two kindred souls, between a creator and her
creation, between the past and the future. It is a “labor of love”,
so to speak, a monument to the warmth and security of motherly love
and the soil of the homeland. In all of Pardo’s work, however, there
are two sides to the story. Whereas these series pay homage to Cuba
and the artist’s own mother, they also reveal an even more personal
(and highly political) side of Pardo’s biography. These garish, Technicolor
images might even be interpreted as revealing some of the artist’s
deepest erotic fantasies. |
| For
depicted in these portraits is, in the end, not really the mother
artist at all, but rather self-portraits of the artist himself, dressed
in the mother’s fashionable, late 50’s Cuban dresses. Mother and son
are thus united in one image – reunified, so to speak, as one soul.
Seen in the context of his entire oeuvre, Manuel Pardo’s transvestite
self-portraits make a clear and distinct statement about the lifestyle
of homosexuals in contemporary society and the way this lifestyle
is viewed (and judged) by others. An earlier series of works presents
the viewer with “Scenes from the Closet” (1994), that is to say, with
the secret accessories of a particular sub-group of homosexuals which
embraces the feminine side of male nature. We see the frilly dresses
and high-heeled pumps, the handbags and jewelry, and even the “pansy”
wallpaper that covers the walls of the “closet”. Thus, it would appear
that all of Pardo’s works are actually concerned with breaking down
stereotypes and prejudices by confronting them dead-on. By laughing
not at but with those who judge him, Pardo reverses the insult so
that we as viewers are finally forced to reconsider our own ways of
thinking about categorizing others. Indeed, questioning the way we
think is one of Pardo’s most favored weapons. |
| This
is perhaps best exemplified in “Trust” (1992) – a provocative Neo-Pop
painting which bears the subtitle “In dedication to housewives everywhere
at the mercy of their husbands’ fidelity” – Pardo points to the well-known,
although frequently ignored fact that all members of the society,
not just homosexuals and junkies, are potential victims of AIDS. We
are all in danger and no amount of love or trust is going to change
this brutal fact of life. But rather than playing the grim reaper,
Pardo chooses instead to show us just how much sex can be! His “Designer
Dildos” (1996), “Tabletop Condoms” (1992) and “Do and Don’t Blow-Jobs”
(1991) do not simply promote the use of sexuality in the age of safer
sex. For Pardo, AIDS has not destroyed sex, but rather forced us into
exploring new possibilities of erotic pleasure. . |
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