Eduardo Arroyo

The Spanish artist Eduardo Arroyo (b. 1937) creates narrative pictures which could be said to be influenced by his educational background in journalism and his unceasing interest in social and political issues. In 1959 he left a Spain ravaged by the Franco regime (he has never stopped criticizing it), moved to Paris and began painting. The self-taught Arroyo aligns himself with artists who oppose French abstract painting.

His predilection for storytelling and his ability to translate stories into pictures link him with artistic currents such as Figuration Narrative, Nouvelle Figuration and Pop Art (see Andy Warhol). His motifs derive from the world of newscasting and advertising and feature famous people and political events. Arroyo’s pictures are marked by personal involvement. For instance, some works disparage the power of the Catholic Church or criticize dictatorial regimes through satirical portraits of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. Other portraits are more ironic, e.g., those of Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró, and divulge his opinions about his contemporary art scene.

Like Gerhard Richter, Arroyo often uses photographs as starting points for his pictures. He manipulates the motifs by changing and adding details. Stylistically speaking, his figures are cartoon-like characters with clearly defined contours. He avoids visual depth and flattens perspective.

The painting Gilles Aillaud Looking at Reality through a Hole Next to an Indifferent Colleague (1973) is based on Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph The Spectator-Voyeurs – Brussels (1932). Cartier-Bresson’s black-and-white photo shows two men standing next to a canvas barrier with their backs turned towards the viewer. One man peeps through a hole in the canvas to watch a sporting event on the other side.

Arroyo uses this photo as raw material for telling his own story. The motif can be understood as a metaphor for the struggle between figurative and abstract painting. Even the beige barrier, which constitutes almost the entire pictorial background, can be interpreted as an empty canvas, an essential medium for many painters. The men standing before it could represent those who stand on either side of the figuration/abstraction conflict.

The background figure personifies the French artist Gilles Aillaud, Arroyo’s friend and collaborator. Representing figuration, Aillaud wears a long white frock (an artist’s smock?). He stands near the canvas and peeps through the presumed pinhole. According to the ironic title, Aillaud looks at reality. What do we think he sees?

The second figure – Arroyo sarcastically calls him 'an indifferent colleague' – can represent the defenders of abstraction. He wears an elegant brown jacket and a grey hat. His face is missing; instead the face’s space is filled with irregular strokes of varied colour. The contrast between the realistically depicted body and the abstract pictorial plane is unexpected, almost shocking.

We face a scene in which two artists stand before a canvas. Arroyo suggests who he considers to be the real artist. We can choose either side, or we can simply enjoy Arroyo’s satirical tale translated into metaphorical imagery.

PT