Yoan Capote - New Now New York Tuesday, March 12, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “My work is the result of a constant intent [to translate] our psychological or inner conflicts into a physical experience.”
    —Yoan Capote

    Capote’s American Appeal (Bridge), executed circa 2008-2009, portrays the iconic Brooklyn Bridge set against the New York skyline, a paradigmatic metaphor for the so-called American Dream. Upon closer inspection, the surface of the work has a striking textural component as well. Composed of several thousand fishhooks, the topography of American Appeal (Bridge) is at once captivating and sinister, the clever parallels of which the artist makes evident through the title of the work.

     

    Capote, born in 1977 in Havana, Cuba, remarks that much of his work reflects the Cuban experience, both politically and geographically.However, while he considers his work personal to his own background, he also believes that many of these specificities can be universally understood, appealing to an international market of viewers. “All human beings have experiences in common and face similar conflicts, despite the differences of their contexts.” ii 

     

    Capote states that he pushed himself to grow beyond classic representations to find abstract solutions, citing Piet Mondrian’s transition from figuration to abstraction as an inspiration to his practice.iii One example of this is in his experimentation with media; Capote's oeuvre has spanned video, photography, installation, and painting. In American Appeal (Bridge), the usage of fishhooks and nails set against canvas on a plywood support creates a work which stands apart from other paintings in its novelty.

     

    The use of fishhooks is a common motif throughout Capote’s practice. Regarding a similar seascape series exhibited in 2019, the artist describes:

    “I wanted to use thousands of fishhooks to create a surface that would be almost tangible to the viewer upon their approach; this would become the tactile experience of standing in front of a metal fence. The fishhook itself is an ancient tool that has kept its design for centuries and which is also symbolic of seduction and entrapment.” 
    —Yoan Capote
    For the artist, water represents a boundary of sorts, having grown up on the politically isolated island of Cuba; the seascape exemplifies his desire to see and experience the world beyond. In that same manner, the use of fishhooks creates a ‘fence’ as the artist says, conjuring up parallels to topical issues of migration, immigration, boundaries and borders. While the water in American Appeal (Bridge) may not be an ocean, it still represents an aquatic boundary of sort. By employing fishhooks, Capote creates a visually alluring but tactically repelling experience – using the bridge motif to overcome the threshold of the water.

     

    The visual effect of Capote’s bridge, spanning from the lower right corner of the composition and slowly increasing in size as it approaches the upper left, could be seen as mirroring the journey of the individual, and one’s perception of a new city. The ‘American Dream’, or to put it as Capote has, the American Appeal, gleams seductively. But its glow appears gentler from afar. The closer one advances towards this beckoning dream, the sharper the reality becomes, dragging the viewer down from the beams of the city into the gritty lived experience of those who inhabit it – a commemoration of the immigrant experience.

     

    By employing a contemporary chiaroscuro effect, allowing the material and lighting to intermingle on the canvas, Capote juxtaposes darkness and light, despair and hope, reminding the viewer that one does not, and cannot, exist without the other.

     

    Yoan Capote, quoted in Osman Can Yerebakan, “Yoan Capote,” Artspeak, March 10, 2017, online.

    ii  Ibid.

    iii Susan Delson, “Fish Hook as Metaphor: Yoan Capote’s Palangre,” The Archive: Cuban Art News February 2, 2017, online.

    • Provenance

      Private Collection, Ohio

    • Literature

      Garth Bishop, "Going Public: Gallery offers glimpse of massive private art collection," CityScene Magazine, March 29, 2013, online
      "The Art of Reinvention (Cuban Art)," Repeating Islands, August 7, 2013, online
      Melissa Starker, "Cuban pieces captivating in opening show," The Columbus Dispatch, September 1, 2013, online

79

American Appeal (Bridge)

oil, fish hooks, nails and canvas on plywood
76 5/8 x 118 1/4 in. (194.6 x 300.4 cm)
Executed in 2009.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
 

New Now

New York Auction 12 March 2024