by Kathy Rodriguez via neworleansartreview.org
CHRISTOPHER SAUCEDO
“Neapolitan”
Arthur Roger Gallery
New Orleans, LA
ACCORDING TO THE Oxford English Dictionary, initial references to Neapolitan ice cream in 1868 remark upon a desire to surpass the fineness of its flavor, though no indication is given of success in that endeavor. It’s the peacemaker of frozen desserts, a triad of tastes that when eaten together celebrate a commingled diversity of flavors, and when sampled separately offer their distinct, individualized characteristics despite being nestled in the same container.
For Christopher Saucedo’s exhibition at Arthur Roger, “Neapolitan (Comic Book Diplomacy, Go Cups and Water Bottle Buoys),” a digital print picturing three cups of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla colored drinks serves as the visual metaphor that the title indicates. Saucedo says he made this piece to try to encapsulate the whole three-part show. According to his research, after Italians brought gelato to America, the three most popular flavors were vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. In turn, three distinct bodies of work join in the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
The cups in the print are emblazoned with deteriorating images of three super heroes: The Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man. The scuffed cups remind of beloved childhood drinking vessels washed and handled so many times that the images wore off. In fact, these are images of the cups that Saucedo’s family uses to drink milk and juice.
That tender connection to personal history is embedded with other iconographic imagery. Within the print is a subtle, out-of-focus reproduction of Jamaica Bay, part of Saucedo’s New York landscape, where he works and lives with his family. The cups themselves are filled halfway with drink, a reference to an earlier installation titled with the adage about optimism versus pessimism. While that sentiment is evident throughout the work, the superheroes reveal themselves as keenly important iconography in the rest of the exhibition.
Saucedo’s devotion to this kind of imagery is vastly apparent in a wall covered with plastic-bagged comic book covers, which he scanned in high resolution at larger scale then reprinted. He remarks that he started collecting these comics, which he found in international markets during travel, for a few reasons. First, they reminded him of the comics he read as a child, perhaps while drinking from an iconic cup. Second, it felt like a sociological experiment to collect these ephemera that presented familiar comic icons with different typography and design. Third, it made a connection with the boys and girls who read these comics in other countries. He says, “The personalizing and awkward signature on the cover of Orumcek Adam (Spiderman) by the prior teenaged owner who signed his first name, Yusuf, was welcome, as that ordinary Turkish kid became my international equivalent and suddenly the planet felt smaller.”
Saucedo gently dissects each cover by branding with a large circle or concentric circles, and then replaces the central area with an image from another nation’s version of the comic book character depicted in the larger picture plane. In this way Saucedo makes a delicate connection between different countries over pop culture references visibly similar through imagery – it’s a testament to the power of the picture. There is tension between the “super heavy handed imagery of comic books,” in the artist’s words, and the delicacy of the burned mark making, itself individualized and unique; Saucedo never uses another method besides unpredictable burning to cut the paper. The interrelation between the pieces of paper, and the imagery and the process, conceptualize the balance inherent in political interrelations.
In smaller scale works, Saucedo then embroiders the image of a compass over some of the brands, tilting the northern point of the rose slightly askew. The thread becomes stained in the process, joining the materials at a molecular level. The process holds the vulnerable materials together and speaks of the fragility of the relationship between the two geographical areas.
The turning of the circle within the picture plane – whether for formal or conceptual means – and the presence of the compass rose both point to an attempt to align disparate points of view through American pop culture references. Saucedo remarks that there is only the Superman of the United States present in the comic books, and there seem to be no superheroes indigenous to other countries. While this is a sign of American imperialism, it is also a suggestion about the desire to fight for truth and justice, purportedly the “American” way. They posit whether it is possible to share a love for a particular culture and maintain peace through that affection despite differences.
Larger comic book covers employ larger branded circles that are further burned with maps emptied of information about the countries they represent. These are placeholders for eastern and western hemispheres, and signifiers of emptied territorial and political areas. The maps create content about a global dialogue through comic books. Much like three disparate ice creams from a country across the globe together created palatable pleasure in an unfamiliar nation, the evidence of comic books in other languages suggests an American crossover to the rest of the world.
Some of the imagery is only formally arranged, but Saucedo does make conscious pairings to evoke socio-political content. The repetition of a handcuffed Superman recalls the notion that the United States sits in a complex position of power and control, and this must be structured with respect. There is tension between being in the position of peacekeeper, and one of potential hostility. Both brown and pink hands may hold Superman’s white fists as they are chained, suggesting the push and pull of political relationships – and recalling the ice cream.
Images of women in bikinis, otherwise scantily clad, or openly within their skimpy superhero costumes often appear in the centers of Arabic comics. These placements are efforts to conceptually liberate the female form from cultural restrictions of dress with tongue-in-cheek references to the way comics historically objectify women’s bodies. Saucedo aims for a sense of balance and equality throughout much of his work; it is a recurring theme, and requires either a conceptual or physical distribution of weight of various parts. In this sense, the work asks questions about social, political, and cultural issues rather than provides answers in a propagandistic sense.
The emptied maps that represent a space for this kind of consideration are absent of water, an element contrary to the fire of the branding and implicit in the making of the paper. Both have been destructive and devastating forces in Saucedo’s life at various points, and both have led to the creative production of work. Again, the tension of differences and the possibility of marrying divergent forces speak to a delicacy of balance.
Branded images of cups and water bottles on handmade paper, iconic in Saucedo’s work, are arranged in two installations in the third gallery of the space. The go-cups in particular are a reference to New Orleans, Saucedo’s other home, but both vessels represent volumes – each is a unique image, and each represents a space taken by a figure. The water bottle reappears as a larger-scale buoy made of Styrofoam – a permanent sculptural material in the age of overwhelming plastics – anchored with a stone. Though Saucedo moves back and forth across the country between New York and New Orleans, both places serve as anchors for him.
The buoys also reference the lobster and crab traps that provide a living for fishermen in both areas. The color codes on these traps indicate ownership, and to violate that sanctity by disturbing another’s traps is a high offense. Saucedo colored his buoy in a particular way, referencing the conduct code inherent in the hues. The colors within the handmade paper used to create the branded cups serve a similar purpose. The coloration makes reference to territorial dispute, and a means of avoiding hostile interaction with clear (and visual) communication.
Saucedo recently posted online an image of a GIF of 137 plastic cup works, rapidly firing in repetition. The flashing colors begin to optically mix, and the multitude of images recalls not only Saucedo’s prolific practice but also the repetition of prints that spread throughout the world in the form of comics, in so many different contexts. If Saucedo’s work is primarily about tension and balance in a search for equality, whether through geometry or the bombastic formal language of comics, then this image in motion is a kind of kinetic version of that search. The delicacy of the fired brands is present within the water-like fluidity of the movement of the images, which pass like so much melting ice cream. The divergent images meld into one, balanced, cohesive, whole.