Luis Cruz Azaceta
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Luis Cruz Azaceta (born April 5, 1942) is a Cuban-American painter.
Azateca has been painting and drawing since the late 1970s. In usually large-format works executed with expressive colors, Cruz Azaceta has dealt with themes of urban violence, personal isolation in a large and overcrowded city, the conditions created by mismanaged government, the abuses and oppression of dictatorships, and in a number of works done in the late 1980s, the ravages of AIDS.[1]
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Luis Cruz Azaceta was born in Havana, Cuba. As a teenager, he witnessed many acts of violence on the streets of Havana: bombs in stores, cinemas and theaters, shoot-outs, arrests, and torture of citizens by Batista secret police. In 1959, the Cuban revolution brought jubilation and celebration when Castro promised to restore Cuba's constitution and free elections. Months later, executions began and businesses were confiscated, with some closing. Azaceta's experiences under both Batista and post-revolution impacted his vision—creating a sensitivity towards violence, human cruelty, injustice, and alienation—which later become central themes in his work.
At 18 years old, Azaceta left Cuba for New York City. In 1969, he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. After graduation, he developed series of works addressing the human condition. In 1975, he had his first solo show at the Allan Frumkin Gallery on 57th Street, exhibiting works from the Subway Series. In the mid-1970s, at the beginning of his career, Azaceta tended to fill his compositions with numerous cartoony images and figures which were boldly colored and clearly outlined. Many of the paintings articulate a shallow cramped space. Azaceta frames the urban dweller as a threatened figure, someone who is constantly being pushed, pulled, and squeezed by both the environment and other people.
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While Azaceta's "apocalyptic pop" style characterized his initial entry into the art world, he soon moved to different art styles. Critic John Yau argues that Azaceta's need to change is not only one of the features that distinguishes him from other painters, whether figurative or abstract, but it is also emblematic of his life as both an exile and an alien.[2]
By the 1980s, his cramped compositions shift to a centralized, nude figure (often self-portrait) that dominates the composition. The mood and color are somber, and the figure is often distorted.
His work throughout the 1970s and 80s is described as socially engaged neo-expressionist.[3]
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