Photo: José Bedia, First Hand exhibition works in progress

© Fredric Snitzer Gallery-with permission

José Bedia: First Hand

December 7 – January 5, 2008
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2247 NW 1 PL
Miami, FL 33127
305.448.8976
info@snitzer.com

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José Bedia: First Hand

The title chosen by the artist for this exhibition suggests his interest in “firsthand” or direct interaction with “things original” and his fascination with “unmediated” sources and experiences. “First hand” also plays with the idea of the primordial and the tactility—one direct form of perception—of initial artistic conception that Bedia clearly associates with
indigenous peoples from around the world. As the artist explains, “they still create art not as a trivial pursuit but within religious, spiritual, or philosophical contexts.” An approximation to such an original experience is what the artist seeks.

The African works of art featured in the exhibition belong (for the most part) to the artist; those he created are the result of his interactions with the individual objects. Most of the African objects were field collected by Bedia during (2004 and 2006) visits to northwestern Zambia. There, he sought to learn about the meaning and nature of ancestral masks and figures by talking directly to the people that create and use them and by participating in different rituals and ceremonies to witness, “the bigger picture” or contextual background.

In keeping with the firsthand spirit of this project, excerpts from a conversation with the artist follow, to highlight his own perspective on the theme of the exhibition:

“The firsthand idea matches my interest and motivation with objects that I study deeply and directly. My work has to do with a direct form of experience, and that is absolutely vital to what I do—that is what I have always done. This type of approximation to a source may be called inspiration but that would not be accurate. It is more knowledge-based; driven by affinities and perceived philosophical tendencies and synchronizations, not by a superficially formal or mere aesthetic exchange. The firsthand source for me may be an object but it often is a practice [as in a performance or ceremony.] In the exchange there is stylistic recognition but representing a philosophical whole, including the moral, physical, and cultural is more in tune with my intention. These are things that are missed when objects are in museum displays. The objects to me are physical proofs of a form of “synchronicity;” more than a mask, the object comes to me as information, opening a world of relations and interrelations, that’s what I see. This may approximate something anthropological but I am not interested in the systematic; I rather engage in sensibilities and that involves direct participation. Trying to figure out these sensibilities may take years. That is the case right now as some of the pieces in this show were collected 3 years ago and only now I am beginning to digest the whole thing in my work.”

Regarding art objects that were not field collected the artist adds, “I am not sure I can fully explain those but to me they are also paradigmatic and archetypal beyond the formal… I see a vital energy that is still latent in them and I have to pull it out, that’s what I do. I can get this feeling even from an old photograph. I do that if I feel that connection, but to understand, you have to experience something firsthand. You must maintain a relationship with the place and the people and you have to be a witness to things as they happen and as they change in time. That’s why I went to Zambia twice and that is also why I continue to go to Mexico, Peru, and other places. On return trips there are no real surprises but you are able to reestablish your link with objects, people, and places and get a better understanding of things that were intangible or unclear at first. I am not interested in artists inventing things and I am reassured in that what I create is part of an experience and a reality elsewhere, outside my studio.”

When asked about what he expects from those who visit the exhibition the artist says, “I hope that visitors look at the objects in relation to one another, to try to understand the connections and links that I see and communicate but also to consider the objects much further, in their potentiality, beyond what is suggested. This potential may be evident in how an African object of modest size generates a monumental painting from me. That’s how I see it and that is the power latent in this type of art and experience.”

Manuel Jordán and José Bedia
November 2007, Miami