Weaving Music Into Art Alcuaz’s Tapestry of Harmony
Federico Aguilar Alcuaz’s tapestries are abstractions of a high and avant-garde order. In 1968, Alcuaz ventured into the art of tapestries, stimulated by his sojourn to Brno in the former Czechoslovakia. The city was the headquarters of the Wool Research Institute, where in the late 1950s, three Czech textile engineers—František Pohl, Václav Skála, and Ji?í Haluza—pioneered the Protis technology, which enabled woolen, loose fabric to be transformed into a joined two-layer, non-woven textile.
The innovation would further spill into the arts, giving rise to Art Protis, first fostered by prominent Czech textile artist Antonín Kybal. Art Protis would soon find itself in every corner possible, from hotels to residential interiors to public spaces. Says his wife, Ute, in the side notes of the artist’s chronology published in Alcuaz’s monograph written by Rod. Paras- Perez: “Fred was in Brno...beginning in 1968. This was during the Prague Spring Revolution—Art Protis. Fred went to Brno to make tapestries until the early 1980s. He was always making sure he had enough dollars, the only currency the factory accepted as payment for the finished tapestries. Fred enjoyed...engaging in the creative process of composing the tapestries. The people...adored him. Even the mayor would frequent the tapestry factory to visit him whenever he was in town.”
Alcuaz became enamored with this unique innovation and began incorporating it as his own. Alcuaz’s tapestry-making process is one of self-expression and self-dependence. "[Alcuaz does] away with preliminary sketches or designs," writes Rosalinda Orosa in the 16 July 1971 issue of The Manila Chronicle. "He came upon his technique all by himself…The advantage of Alcuaz’s tapestry is that for the first time, the artist is directly and totally involved in it—he needs no one’s help."
Using unwoven wool dyed in varying colors, he dismisses paint as a medium, cuts the textile into pieces, and skillfully heaps and interweaves them like a collage. After threading the work, he brings it to Art Protis in Brno, where Alcuaz uses their massive machines to press the tapestry into finality. Alcuaz would first debut his tapestries at a solo exhibition at the Luz Gallery in February 1969.
In the 20 July 1972 issue of the Manila Chronicle, art critic Alfredo Roces notes that Alcuaz’s tapestries were high in demand in Spain that the artist could not keep up. Whereas in his own country, the collectors were yet to keep up and discover this genius by the artist.
Eventually, Alcuaz would single handedly bring the art of the tapestry into a rousing commercial success in the Philippines.
The work at hand, titled Blues in the Night, was showcased at a much- p r a i s e d 1973 exhibition of Alcuaz’s tapestries at Netherland’s iconic Philips Ontspannings Centrum. The tapestry still bears the original label imprinted at its back, indicating that the work was completed in the Art Protis factory in Brno.
“Alcuaz was the first—so far, the only one—who, from a purely plastic point of view, undertakes the complete execution of the tapestry without assistance or intermediaries,” writes L. Muñoz Viñaras, a prominent member of the Spanish Association of Art Critics, in his commentary on the exhibition.
Blues in the Night is characterized by intersecting textiles that are dynamically rendered and collectively transformed into lines of varying degrees of sinuousness, like a river’s pristine waters delicately meandering through a lush forest. Alcuaz weaves his love for music into this work, as evident in its title referencing the popular music genre. Was Alcuaz listening to blues music while making this tapestry? Akin to a blues composition, Alcuaz uses somber colors to evoke emotional intensity and expressiveness rather than depict a physical subject. In doing so, Alcuaz highlights a kind of mystifying poetic lyricism that only reveals itself to the artist.
With the work’s slick instinctiveness, Alcuaz establishes a connection between his inner being and his art. Alcuaz’s appropriation of the qualities of music through a melodious and dynamic course that is spontaneous in form and enigmatic in essence gives prominence not to a material substance but to a part musical, part metaphysical sensibility so deeply ingrained in Alcuaz’s being. (Adrian Maranan)
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN
León Gallery wishes to thank Christian M. Aguilar for confirming the authenticity of this lot
Exhibited: Galerie De Zonnewijzer, Philips Ontspannings Centrum, Aguilar Alcuaz (One-Man Exhibition of Tapestries), Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 11 January - 11 February 1973
Literature: Aguilar Alcuaz: One-Man Exhibition of Tapestries (Exhibition Catalog). Eindhoven: Philips Ontspannings Centrum, 1973. Published on the occasion of Federico Aguilar-Alcuaz's Solo Exhibition of Tapestries at the Galerie De Zonnewijzer in 1973. Listed as "37. Blauw in de nacht" in the catalog insert specifying the artist's price list of the tapestries exhibited.