Wifredo Lam -Le Regard Vertical

Wifredo Lam -Le Regard Vertical -Les loa petro enfantent dans la danse, From the portfolio entitled Le Regard Vertical - "Les loa petro enfantent dans la danse". It was published by Editions Agori, La Mata, and printed by Atelier Guillard in Paris, France, in 1973, done on Arches paper. From the suite of 6 lithographs made to illustrate the poems of Dominique Agori. Signed and numbered 97/99 in pencil. 

In outstanding condition. We will offer a COA and will guarantee the authenticity. 

The Symbology of Wifredo Lam

By Mark Schneider

The artistry of Wifredo Lam, though appreciated and admired worldwide, on an iconographic level, is little understood. Much of this is due to the fact that, during the mid to late 30’s,  he transformed his work from one that was mannered primarily in the style of  Europe and the extraordinarily limiting Baroque influences of Cuba, at the time, to a completely new and unique style. Drawing on the radical heterogeneity and the ambivalence of power within the figurative tropes of women, the black world, and nature at work within French Modernism, Lam turned his work into a profound act of disruption. He subjected European culture to the ancestral spirits of the Afro Cuban world, and in the process disempowered it. It became Africanized. Hallucinating figures with the power to surprise, and disturb the dreams of the exploiters. Lam’s mimesis became a means of disrupting the aspirations of European representation and primitivism. He reached the limit point of Modernism, as an ideology of visuality, and moved into the sacred domain.

Only through images of metamorphosis, transformations, and correspondences could Lam both suggest a sphere of subterranean images that represent the ongoing mythic force of history, and struggle to create a sacred knowledge around which identity could be forged. 

For Lam, metamorphosis as possession was a central theme. Through this, Lam subjected European models to the ancestral spirits of Afro Cuban culture. He looked at the co-existence and interplay of different orders of reality, orders of reality governed by historical memory and perception, or experience and observation. The role of his art became the exploration of the significance of exchange between these orders, as the transmutation of sacred knowledge.

Lam’s images reject scrutiny. Enigma, as structure, endures by virtue of what it withholds, retains the attention it has caught, and acquires a political stamina. His task was to create a language of mythic forms, from the unconscious, where the human body shares a promiscuous linear flow with all created objects. This is the state in which all personal memory and desire are linked through myth, the unconscious, and the universe, in an intimate and organic spectacle.

The threat of the other is deeply tied to the dual effects of fascination with, and fear of a primitiveness that already exists within the individual body. Rather than seeking to civilize and colonize the body, Lam sought in his painting to display it’s power to fascinate, seduce, and disrupt our perception of the Afro- Cuban world. A hybrid body that straddles two worlds, but operates in disguise. His work demonstrates the perception or revelation of different orders of reality, within reality. 

It is believed, that the faiths that are practiced in Eastern Cuba, such as Palo Mayombe, and Santeria, were organized at the foot of the palm. Therefore, the palm, and sugar cane have a sacred connotation. In the Santeria writings it is said “Our religion was organized at the foot of the palm, and for this reason we offer it praise. For this is our emblem. In the palm was the apparition, the palm was witness to the mystery”.  La selva or el monte (that which exists at the foot of the sacred mountain) signify the places where the ancestral spirits and the deities (Orishas) live. 

These Orishas are portrayed in several ways, in the imagery of Wifredo Lam. They are shown as Ifa, who are divinities that complement one another in their roles as mediators between the spirit world, and the human world. The Ifa are portrayed as palm nuts, which are considered instruments of Divination, as are the sacred palms.

The Eshu are the messengers of the Gods. They are the conveyers of sacrifice, and the tricksters. The guardians of the crossroads and the sacred forests. They are also the guardians of each persons origins. “En ese palo nai yo”, or “in this palm I was born”. Each person has his own personal Eshu.  They watch over the spirits, and as mediators between the worlds they have characteristics of both worlds, and are strangers everywhere. They are portrayed as small horned faces.

Another  figure commonly founds in many of Lam’s paintings, and prints appears to be that of a bird. These long-beaked birds represent Ashe. When they appear on the head of an individual, it symbolizes the mind as the seat of power, and destiny. Ashe is the symbol of the Divine life force of the Orishas, and the spiritual power to make things happen.

Many of Lam’s figures appear to be feminine. He felt that women were guardians of a secret knowledge. Perhaps, it is felt that the ability to give birth entitles woman to this secret knowledge, or intuition. It is also the regenerative potential of the body as woman – a symbol of origin, and the foundation of art,  creativity, abundance and growth.  Some of these women are portrayed as horses. The femme cheval is perhaps one of Lam’s most significant icons. The woman becomes the horse, being possessed by spirits in a religious practice of healing. It becomes a symbol of the compromise between freedom and remembrance. It is also a metaphor of the Trojan horse, which contains a secret.

Much of Lam’s work also has an organic element, which can be understood in the context of the palm forest. Palm nuts, palm fronds, and sugar cane. The palm fronds also form a secondary context. Oftentimes they appear as a curtain. This curtain is symbolic of the edge of the western text. It represents a departure from the vocabulary of the west, and an entrance into the mystical theatre of Afro Cuban beliefs.  The transparency of the planes of the frond, becomes a means of registering an exchange between the human world and the spirit world. In this way, the palm frond stands for not only itself, but also for something not visible. The palm and the palm forest become emblematic of, and witness to the mystery of the apparition of the Orishas.

It is the beginning of the sacred, and the entrance of the past. It is the representation of Afro Cuban history and identity, projected into the present moment.