Alejandro Arango

(Mexico City, 1950)

Los Dioses Europeos (The European Gods)

1996

oil on canvas

120 x 120 cm

Inv. no. CCB156

BBVA Collection Mexico



In this painting, The European Gods, Alejandro Arango in all likelihood recalls his journey to Europe in 1976. It was during the time he spent there, visiting museums, that he became convinced that he wanted to become a painter. One possible source of inspiration could have been a cruise through the Mediterranean he made one year before creating this work.

Here we are presented with a forceful parody of classical culture, generously seasoned with Pop garishness and steeped in a Baroque marinade. Arango synthetizes the ideal anatomy of ancient sculpture with coarse and rudimentary forms, robust contours and amusing touches (the curly beard, Apollo’s ripped six-pack), wittily rehashing the petrified silhouettes of the Olympus idols. The deliberately heavy-handed brushwork is paired with a saturated palette of opaque and brownish hues, referencing the nobility of marble, the stamp of divinity, which is transgressed by a covering of dry green pigment. The painting is shrouded in a nocturnal atmosphere, as if the image were a by-product of a dream played out in an empty gallery outside opening hours.