Julio Anaya Casbanding, known for his site-specific desert installations, is showcasing his work in the exhibit “Past and Present” at MOAH:CEDAR through Sept. 16.
Known for his recreations of historical art masterpieces on dilapidated architecture and found materials, Anaya Cabanding demystifies prestigious artworks by taking famous imagery out of the museum and relocating them to places that are unexpected, urban, or even hidden.
The artist refers to these relocations as “interventions” — a way of disrupting the relationship between iconic art and the museums and institutions they are associated with by bringing the art into the public sphere.
According to Anaya Cabanding, the final step in creating his “interventions” is the documentation of these exposed and ephemeral works using photography.
“Past and Present,” Anaya Cabanding’s metaphorical timeline of a human life, will be on display in the north and south gallery spaces. The first gallery consists of four pre-Modernism pictorial interventions representing religion, mythology, and the Creation. These works reference familiar masterpieces by Tintoretto, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, as well as the goddess Aphrodite. They are a representation of humankind’s shared history.
The second gallery consists of seven consecutive landscapes, quiet and untouched, before the introduction of a human figure portrayed by Caspar David Friedrich’s WandererAbove the Sea of Fog. Friedrich’s work in this series represents the human figure and displays a metaphorical portrait of humanity facing-off with the strength of sublime nature.
Additional pictorial interventions from René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Edward Hopper, and others complete Anaya Cabanding’s poetic representation of life in the present global pandemic.
Past and Present is curated by Andrew Hosner and is the latest collaborative exhibition between the Lancaster Museum of Art & History and Thinkspace Projects.
MOAH:CEDAR, located at 44857 Cedar Ave., is open from 2 to 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. For more information visit www.moahcedar.org.
