AFTER-DINNER MASQUERADE: Tribute to an Uncomfortable Silence Between Ensor and Solana
May 8 – June 16, 2025
In the imaginary world of contemporary artist José Luis Serzo, Solana and Ensor meet and share a banquet in the installation Tabletop Masquerade. A baroque theatrical scene is envisioned, in which the two artists sit – without chairs – at opposite ends of a long table. What conversation will they have? Will the younger Solana express his admiration for Master Ensor? Will they share secrets of their craft? Serzo has laid out an exquisite still life of masks to be savored in the center of the table – masks with sinister expressions, animal heads, skulls – a reminder of self-awareness and the futility of worldly pleasures in the face of the certainty of death. (…)
Kristine Guzmán
José Luis Serzo himself also explains how the entire series came about:
“(…) From the impossibility of imagining such a conversation, I felt the urgent need to sketch that situation in my travel notebook. Sitting one in front of the other, I attempted to somehow capture that uncomfortable silence that arose – and still arises today – between these two great painters.
It’s true that many historians, when writing about José Gutiérrez Solana at least, bring up Ensor’s name to highlight certain parallels in their work. But little is known about what they truly thought of each other. That creates a slight anguish in me, significant enough to try to ease it by working on the subject. I knew I wanted to create a life-size sculpture of that scene. I believed it would be the best way to attempt to crystallize the tension that would have filled the air as they sat face to face.
What would have been the menu they shared? Likely rare meat for Solana and some white fish for Ensor. What I was certain of is that they would have to share a feast of masks, a huge heap of juicy – or even rotting – masks, full of devils, skulls, deformed jesters, pathetic grotesques, perhaps a witch, bird-woman, or lizard. Empty faces spilling across the table as the main dish, or to accompany the silence of dessert between these two unsettling painters.
Along the way, in the speculation or projection of this “tabletop masquerade,” the thousand masks they might have painted together start to appear in my mind – perhaps those they would never have painted or even imagined. The “hundred and one” masks begin to show up in other complementary, satellite works, as well as those strewn across the table. These masks not only would expose or strip them bare (like laying all the cards on the table), but in this case, they would form a mound in the center of the table, obstructing visual contact between them, and perhaps thus preventing that conversation between the greatest painters of the grotesque. (…)”
José Luis Serzo
ABOUT THE ARTIST
José Luis Serzo (Albacete, 1977) is a multidisciplinary artist who, through his paintings, drawings, photographs, objects, installations, and literature, unifies a discourse in which imagination and reality are portrayed in an original staging, creating exhibition-narratives that allow him to explore various disciplines. He began his Humanities studies in Albacete, later studying Art in Toledo, although he completed his studies in Madrid, where he began exhibiting early on.
He has participated in exhibitions in museums, art centers, galleries, and fairs around the world, including Munich, Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Prague, and Buenos Aires, among others. Some of his best-known series include Post Show, The Fantastic Flight of the Kite Man, Thewelcome, The Dreams of I Ming, and The Lords of the Forest. Serzo has also ventured into the world of film, producing a short film titled Archimétrica, which won several international awards between 2020 and 2021.
Some of his most recent exhibitions include The Temptations of Courbet. From the Dreams and Fears of Courbet, held between 2017 and 2022; and Morphology of the Encounter. The Story of Michael Burton Junior, from 2018 and 2019. Additionally, José Luis Serzo was awarded the 2024 Visual Arts Prize by the Government of Cantabria. Last but not least, he was a featured guest artist at the Leonora Exhibition, a tribute to English painter Leonora Carrington, held at the Miguel N. Lira Museum in Mexico in 2023, among other recognitions and projects.
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