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Curators' Picks: March 5 Latin American Art Showcase Auction
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Frank's Pick
Frank Hettig | Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art
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In the works by José Ángel Toirac, "Che" and "Conversation Between Sartre and Che", revisit two figures central to Cuba’s revolutionary mythology (Jean-Paul Sartre met with both Castro and Che Guevara and wrote a series of essays about his experience, later published as Sartre on Cuba).
By depicting them in a blurry way, Che and Sartre become less heroic icons and more a reflection on how history is constructed and circulated. I like how Toirac’s blurry approach evokes the softness of dreams and the fading edges of memory.
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Walter's Picks
Walter Ramirez | Senior Consignment Director, Urban Art
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René Francisco Rodríguez (b. 1960, Holguín, Cuba) is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in contemporary Cuban art, both for his own practice and for his decades-long role as a professor at Havana’s Instituto Superior de Arte, where he mentored a generation of emerging artists. His work deftly merges conceptual inquiry with a commanding painterly sensibility, often addressing themes of collectivity, social structure, and the psychological dimensions of everyday life. In Mar de Gente, Rodríguez orchestrates a dynamic field of densely interwoven figures, creating a pulsating visual rhythm that evokes the tension between individuality and mass experience. The composition’s layered surface and fluid spatial construction exemplify
his ability to balance formal sophistication with social commentary, resulting in a work that is at once visually compelling and intellectually resonant.
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Jacobo Borges, hailing from Caracas, Venezuela, stands as a seminal figure in Latin American neo-figurative art, whose pioneering vision expanded the boundaries of mid-20th-century painting through an inventive interplay of form, narrative, and spatial complexity. Educated in Caracas and later in Paris, Borges developed a distinctive artistic language that bridges dreamlike imagery and social engagement, seeking to evoke a realm "between dreams and reality" where human experience unfolds in layered, poetic terms. His painting Guaicaipuro exemplifies this early exploration, capturing not just a historic figure from Indigenous Venezuelan legend but also articulating a broader expressive sensibility rooted in expressive figuration and psychological resonance. In this work,
Borges’s dynamic composition and thoughtful treatment of the human form signal his enduring commitment to art that is both visually compelling and intellectually rich, reflecting his influential role in the evolution of Venezuelan and Latin American modernism.
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Ezriel's Picks
Ezriel Wilson | Cataloguer, Fine Art
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Ruben Torres Llorca, Collection of the Artist (Work In Progress)
, is a captivating installation composed of sixty-six hand-carved and painted fetishes. Each figure bears its name in ink across its chest and is paired with a small chalkboard, all arranged in orderly rows. While staging the work behind the scenes with several colleagues—carefully pairing each figure with its corresponding chalkboard—we began to learn more about the characters Ruben Torres Llorca chose to integrate into the installation. Through this process, we reflected on how these figures may have impacted the artist's life, ultimately resulting in the creation of the work before us. In doing so, we filled the space with conversation rather than assumption. In his practice, rather than advancing a single, fixed statement, Torres Llorca prioritizes dialogue—both
within the installation itself and in the space surrounding it—allowing him to move freely between mediums without adherence to a single conventional approach. Discover this and other compelling pieces by Ruben Torres Llorca to add to your collection.
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Fernando Maza (1936–2017) was a graphic artist known for his intriguing watercolor and ink works, a selection of which we are pleased to feature in this auction. His compositions depict otherworldly planes that feel at once eerie and familiar, yet remain deeply rooted in symbolism. He often centers his scenes around architectural structures, surrounded by leaning or floating geometric forms and letters that interact dynamically within the space. These imagined environments evoke surreal worlds suspended in time, recalling Giorgio de Chirico or even the whimsical, Pepperland-like landscapes of Heinz Edelmann. By the early 2000s, Maza became known for fusing architecture, writing, and metaphysics at the crossroads of reality and symbolism. In my own practice, I have found
myself increasingly drawn to integrating shapes and forms that flow together and build upon one another—an approach that resonates strongly with Maza’s visual language. With such a compelling group of works on offer, it was impossible to select just one to highlight—each presents a distinctive opportunity to add a dynamic Maza to your collection.
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Carter's Pick
Carter Adcox | Consignment Coordinator, Fine & Decorative Arts
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Diego Singh’s untitled works (Smile and Smile II) fit into a grand tradition of vandalizing images of authority figures. Abstracting the stock imagery of military men with stern noses and bicorn hats, Singh fills in the blanks of their otherwise featureless faces with childishly scrawled smiles, both visually scratching into these busts with a darker line and overtaking their muted gray tones with a bright bile yellow. Speaking to the universality of these images, I want to project Washington’s portrait on the dollar bill- perhaps one of the most proliferated (and thus, doodled on) images in the world- onto Smile II
, the corners of the figure’s hat mirroring Washington’s haircut. These pieces also represent two of the more figural, but no less visually striking, works in Singh’s oeuvre to add to your collection.
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Frank Hettig
Vice President, Modern & Contemporary Art
FrankH@HA.com
(214) 409-1157
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Walter Ramirez
Senior Consignment Director,
Urban Art
WalterR@HA.com
(212) 486-3521
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Carter Adcox
Consignment Coordinator,
Fine & Decorative Arts
CarterA@HA.com
(214) 409-1136
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