Bruno Fonseca at Salander-O'Reilly - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions

Bruno Fonseca's 14 paintings, in his first of recent origin York solo show, are foundationed in the defining moment of early modernism. The son of sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca (and brother of Caio, who lately showed at Charles Cowles) he trained with Joaquin Torres-Garcia's son Augusto, thereby inheriting the structural and philosophical principles of the original Uruguayan "Taller" assemblage Emerging from Analytical Cubism, especially the branch of the eider Torres-Garcia's symbolist inventions, Fonseca's paintings are in fact a dialogue with a certain number of of the many tributaries of Cubism. Nevertheless, his work does not gaze derivative, steeped though it is in a weighty tradition.

Fonseca's primary focus is architectural; in particular, he explores elaborate, geometric facades. The specific edifice that is the point of departure may remain recognizable, as in Barcelona (one of sum of two units works from '92 in the show; the others are '93) where a present building is fragmented and reassembled. Or it may be reduc to a series of irregular vertical hits as in Facade III with azure Lines, which approaches the simplification of a Diebenkorn painting. The forms of Romanesque or Gothic churches ideally obey Fonseca's penchant for complex geometries. His seemingly casual drawing diction smudged "corrections" and warm gray palette bring to mind Giacometti's use of paint and his tonal range.

The more somber White Facade and Shadow is a narrow vertical picture consisting of black lines upon a stark white ground with a rudimentary figure lurking in the sepulchral darkness of a house of god doorway. The parallel structure functions like a grid, somewhat bitter but not static. The Factory is a more playfully fabricateed painting; stacks of narrow boxe filled with geometric thing perceiveds piled high like children's stops Coupled with the empty piazza and tapering towers of Black Night firmament these works show Fonseca's narrative impulse and are reminiscent of the metaphysical tableaus of de Chirico. Fonseca depicts configurations that are both accessible and strangely far off like incomplete notes from an collision with a memorable locale.

Fonseca's clever handling of paint suggests a natural affinity for the medium. Transparent layers plus passages of scumbling applied with a knife or other tools add up to an impression of unself-conscious craftsmanship. Still, there are times when Fonseca's technique is an extreme point in itself. Trap and Linear Facade, one as well as the other less referential works, seem elaborated too much and finished off to a point of looking too premeditated. However, these examples are atypical, especially in view of of that kind works as Yellow Coffin and The Tomb of the one and the other haunting, allusive pictures that present to view Fonseca at his best. individual senses the artist's process of discovery without knowing in what way he arrived at these conclusions, which affords the viewer the pleasure of unsolv mysteries.

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