Gustavo Acosta

Gustavo Acosta. La playa, 2010. Acrylic on canvas. 19 x 61 inches

New men arrived from other lands, having had a dream-like theirs, and in the city of Zobeide, they recognized something from the streets of the dream, and they changed the positions of arcades and stairways.

Italo Calvino, Invisible cities

Miami used to be the city where people came to spend their golden years, to retire from the huzzle and buzzle of big cities. That has been changing dramatically over the last decade, and although it is by far still a small city its image has changed, becoming a completely different destination. The face of the city also has been transformed almost overnight in what can be defined as construction frenzy in the last decade: many buildings have been demolished and new ones have been erected, empty lots are no longer barren and condominiums are filling up the horizon, defining a new visual profile for the city.

Gustavo Acosta has been living in Miami since 1994, and in all these years he has observed the rapid urban transformation. In the first years, he was more interested in representing his past as a way of reaffirmation. It took him a few years to start including fragments of the new city in his work. However, with this exhibition we can see how his interest has changed: now he is mapping Miami through its buildings. Fascinated with urban life in general this is a logical trend for Acosta, to register the new surroundings.

But not all is construction; there are also implosions in the city as part of its development. Old buildings are being destroyed to make space for new ones, a normal phase of development in any city. An implosion is like a death, there is something evocative about seen a building being imploded, vanishing forever. Borrando las huellas (Erasing footprints) is one of Acosta’s rendering of an implosion. He used graphite to make this image, recreating accurately the dust clouds that accompany destruction.

Gustavo Acosta. Borrando las huellas, 2009. Graphite on paper. 18 x 24 inches

All these construction and change also bring disruption to the daily life in the city, and while the process is going on the sight is not always pretty. But Acosta can see beyond the superficial disarray and find a new angle. That’s his challenge: to transform an unlikely sight into a striking ‘window’ to the city. A good example is Estampida (Stampede), a piece that shows a corner of Biscayne Boulevard looking towards the American Airlines Arena. He is taking a corner in one of the busiest intersections of the city, on a stoplight while there is a construction of a building going on. He even included a crane, so there is no mistake about the chaos going on. This is a daily scene in the city, and infuriating passage of urbanity: interrupted traffic due to construction. Nevertheless, Acosta manages to create a beautiful image of titillating lights out of an otherwise confusing and chaotic scene.

Gustavo Acosta. Estampida, 2010. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 24 inches

He is also registering the city at night and his nocturne views are like shadows defined by sparkling lights against the darkness. Empty parking lots and solitary metro mover stations became the object of his attention. In The Symbol, he chooses a metro rail station delineated by the blue light of the stairway. El Mundo de Dade (Dade’s world) is another fine example of this group of pieces. This is a view of an empty parking lot, the darkness of the night is the protagonist of the scene.

Gustavo Acosta. El mundo de Dade, 2010. Acrylic on canvas. 48 x 72 inches

There is always an emotional intensity behind Acosta’s artwork, partially reflected in the artist’s brushstrokes and partially in what the viewer ‘reads’ according to his own experiences. Acosta’s pieces have the power of inciting all kinds of thoughts perhaps because of their emptiness: the negative space works out as a positive one, and what is implicit becomes the most important part of the piece.

Miami has also become a hub of commercial exchange, a transit city in many ways: it is the bridge between North America and South, Central America and the Caribbean; it is the pathway to the United States, physically speaking. This transit is reflected also in the number of people who arrive daily, and all those who decide to make Miami their permanent home.

Part of all this movement is connected to the airport, which has been a source of inspiration for Acosta, fascinated by the movement of planes and people, day in and day out. The airport is the metaphor for movement par excellence and the Miami airport is one of the busiest in the country. One of these pieces is At the Door again, showing a fragment of the airport. One of the most interesting aspects of this piece is that if we don’t know that it is the Miami airport we wouldn’t be able to identify it. And that is precisely what Acosta is pointing out: there are almost no landmarks that can easily identify the city.

One day I found myself building a circus is a rendering of the new controversial baseball stadium under construction. The title is implying his view on this matter, comparing it to the old Roman popular strategy of ‘bread and circus as a way of keeping the population content and distracted. He sees it more as a political maneuver rather than a city development.

Formally there are some changes as well. He is more interested in a raw exposure of painting, leaving behind the juxtaposition of paint layers.  In these pieces we can see the structure emerging from under the paint, he is not interested in covering it to the extent of disguising it. It is a more visceral type of painting.

Acosta is an endogenous observer; he comes from inside the city, as an active participant in this transformation, recording his own views. For these works, he is using his own photographs, the ones he makes on his excursions throughout the city. He is taking these ‘snaps’ of Miami and giving them back to us as paintings. Again we look at one of these paintings and often we can easily recognize the places, others we marvel at inconsequential places that he manages to make stand.

Miami doesn’t have a particular kind of architecture like the cities he has previously portrayed. Its buildings are not extraordinarily beautiful or important in terms of architecture, with the exception of the Art Deco segment on Miami Beach. The rest is pretty much part of a homogeneous type of construction that extends throughout North America.  That’s why he is not selecting landmarks, intentionally, because Miami is a young city, still making them. It is an ebullient city in constant transformation, going through an urban expansion and reconfiguration, in the middle of a gentrification process.

Looking at Acosta’s trajectory we can see how he has been portraying the different cities where he has lived, sometimes while living there and others after moving out. In this exhibition we see Miami through his eyes, he is mapping out the city as he sees it through the places that he passes daily, places that make his life in Miami, and what makes it his hometown. He is actively participating, and getting engaged in city life. He is interested in its development and its politics; it is after all his city.

Here is Acosta’s tribute to Miami, what he loves, and what he detests, it is the visual evidence of his rooting in the city, his way of saying: I belong here.