As part of the sale devoted to Modern and Contemporary Art ,Thursday 09 July 2020, PIASA auction house is pleased to offer for sale 14 pieces by Cuban sculptor Agustín Cárdenas, 7 sculptures and 7 drawings.
"This silent art speaks for me, for you. If I say that it is legendary, it is in the African breath, yes; but even more by the quiet challenge to the time that is pressing, by the unfailing presence and by the shadow under the branches. Consider his slow progress since the first night, see how he denies crumbling and completion. See how he assembles the memory of the future".
Edouard Glissant
Born in 1927 in Matanzas, a small sugar port a few kilometres from the Cuban capital, Agustín Cárdenas - like other of his compatriots including Joachin Ferrer (born in 1929), Fayad Jamis (1930-1988) and Roberto Altmann (born in 1942) - spent the first part of his career in France. At the National School of Fine Arts in Havana, he was introduced to the different techniques of sculpture and followed the teaching of Juan José Sicre (1898-1974). The latter, who was greatly influenced by the work of French artists Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) and Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), taught him the modelling and direct carving that he would develop during his career. Graduated in 1949, Agustín Cardenás experimented by gradually emancipating himself from the acquired teaching.
With artists such as Hans Arp (1886-1966), Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) and Henri Moore (1898-1986), contemporary sculpture deeply inscribed its seal on his aesthetic. Born to parents who were descendants of slaves, the young man was also greatly influenced by Negro art, which at the beginning of the twentieth century revealed the radicality of its modernity.
He freed himself from the figurative straitjacket and carved monumental silhouettes directly in wood, whose forms and expressive power are reminiscent of the totems of Dogon culture. He left his native island in 1955 for France where the leader of the Surrealists, André Breton, gave him a warm welcome. In the heart of the Montparnasse district, the artist took root in the cultural soil of Paris and took part in the great exhibitions of the group in the 1960s.
Between zoomorphism and anthropomorphism, his work revolves around the notion of hybridity. It reveals itself as a perpetual search for the eternal principles of masculine and feminine.
Agustín Cárdenas (1927-2001)
Plantes antillaises, 1960
Gold patinated bronze
Cast in the artist's lifetime
Signed and numbered on the foot : "HC 1/3" and bears the foundry's stamp "Fondera Tesconi Pietrasanta"
H : 213 x 8 x 17 cm
Among the pieces offered for sale on Thursday, July 9, 2020, is Plantes antillaises, created during these first years in Paris. Made of bronze and cast during the artist's lifetime, this piece is estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000 euros.
Agustín Cárdenas (1927-2001)
Untitled, 1961
Palm wood, direct carving
Monogrammed and dated beneath the foot
Unique piece
26 x 19 x 12 cm
Provenance :
- Collection Monsieur and Madame Cesare Peverelli, Paris
- Private collection, Paris
Conceived one year later, Sans titre illustrates the quality with which Agustín Cardenás worked with wood. On the borderline of abstraction, a silhouette appears. His estimate was between 20,000 and 25,000 euros.
Agustín Cárdenas (1927-2001)
Gouache, India ink, collage and pencil on paper
Signed and dated on the bottom right
67 x 49 cm
In addition to his three-dimensional pieces, the sculptor is the author of a large number of drawings and gouaches like this one, estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 euros. In 1994, the artist returned to Cuba where he died in 2001 in Havana. The sculptures of Agustín Cardenás are exhibited in many museums as well as in several schools and universities, following the commissions the artist received as part of the artistic one percent.
