Catalog
Texts
Exhitions
Gallery
Some critical reviews
“Néstor Saiace plunges more than ever into the nostalgic mood of the old cafés and the music hall, and soaks them in a soft and moving beauty, polishing them as if his hand was the hand of time, and attaching a most beautiful spiritual vibration to them. Saiace’s are perfect paintings.”
César Magrini, El Cronista Comercial, Buenos Aires, June 3, 1990.
“I have been following Saiace’s works for some time now, always with a growing interest. He is a serious artist, a hard and not a superficial worker. With very few exceptions and for a couple of years, Saiace has chosen an intimate, slightly expressionist profile, in the first place, and a clearly naturalistic one later on. In the end he is but an elegiac. Because he sings to the old cafés, to their special environment, their static, almost hieratic characters, involved in a dark and silent plot. Of course, all this has to do with the theme. And the subject, as Brahms said, is secondary; what really matters is to know what to do with it. And Saiace knows. Almost ritually, his painting going wisely and progressively from shadow to light, lets the visitor peep into the past, whose sands have slipped by, leaving reverberant witnesses. Saiace produces magnificent painting. Echo of an unusual sensitivity, which halts the introspective look in the realm of its own memories -the «vert paradis» of which Baudelaire spoke about- which allows the visitor to share those visions. What is a painter? He who teaches how to see, or who teaches how to treasure what one believes to have seen. An he who reveals the dark, practically invisible tissue of dreams and turns it into a palpable, dazzling reality.”
Cesar Magrini, El Cronista Comercial, June 28, 1984.
Néstor Saiace…“has consolidated his craft in a short number of years. His talent, his imagination and his gift, are as fresh as ever. He can be placed among the most valuable and representative painters of his generation. He has advanced especially in his handling of light (his themes are still mostly façades or interiors of cafés or tea-rooms), the starting point for his pictures to acquire their worth, as if their different elements were being slowly retrieved by this same light. He has again lowered the chromatic effects and in the majority of his works there is a nostalgic expressionism, a proof that to Saiace, life seems a succession of shadows, either fleeting or static, heavy with their load of loneliness, void and spleen. “This painting arouses sensations, keeps growing richer and richer, by the constrained dexterity of the design and by the dull colored images of the past in pictures of gone by days and that, miraculously, thanks to the creator’s very special aptitudes, remains as immersed in himself, source of an aesthetic experience of multiple and actual roots.”
César Magrini, El Cronista Comercial, Buenos Aires, August 10, 1982.
“Saiace inquires in his usual low color range, into the nooks, so to say, which give shape, figures and objects in the most risky way, the patch, instinctively guided by his sense of color; he slowly smears the canvas with that patina which gives the scene elements of optical appreciation, avoiding the classical literary danger in this brief and picturesque universe. At times, when we realize that to arrive at the desired tone he has juxtaposed successive coatings of color, we understand the artist’s conscientious tenacity- l’ostinato rigore; he never gives up, he builds his paintings obsessed by his passion.”
E. Baliari, El Economista, Buenos Aires, August 6, 1982.
“Saiace submits at Wildenstein oils that show densely painted cafés, with heavy mixtures of earths, ochres, beiges, and with occasional brilliant color touches. They are dreamy cafés, memories of the past, most of them already disappeared or which are still alive only because Néstor’s heart and imagination give them life. These are places where one can indulge on quiet chats, where one can exchange ideas, meet somebody, smoke a pipe or a cigarette, read the newspaper bathed in the silvery light which filters through the panes of an “art nouveau” door or window. Their names are “Interior de un café italiano”, “Aux Deux Magots” (Paris), “Viejo Café Tortoni” (Buenos Aires), “Taberna” (Atenas). There are slight Daumier or Manet touches in the mass of the forms and in the view against the light. A soft reminiscence of Proust’s «À la Recherche du Temps Perdu» charms us.”
Thelia C. de Behar, The Buenos Aires Herald, Buenos Aires, July 17, 1981.
“In a previous exhibition Saiace took us into the foggy atmosphere of “cafés” and “cafetines”, perhaps not totally aseptic for the rheumatism of morals; the dancing couples fulfilled their tango sensual rite, performed the presumable drama of solitude and enjoyed the company of women and alcohol. He now insists on a theme which not only attracts him, but actualy affords the multiplicity of nuances he needs to sustain the climate of his plastic interpretation. “But not only has he found support on the “porteño`s cafés”, which embrace the evocation of the ancient Tortoni; he has also brought from his recent European trips identical impressions from France and Greece, which give us an idea of the universality of this aspect of urban life. Coffee house or tavern, Saint Germain, La Tour or Magog (sic), the café is a picturesque and ritual aspect of cities and men, which goes beyond a multiple expressive possibility of patches, colors and forms.”
E. Baliari, El Economista, Buenos Aires, July 17th, 1981.
“The light -which in his case is not dimness- of the atmosphere of the cafés, allows him to try the mastery of his stroke, outlining and coloring forms at the same time. Or in his case it could be better to say that he blurs forms off to blend them with the environment. Because Saiace does not need to chase after the human figure or the objects until he finds their exact representative definition, he approaches us to them through the impression that they carry the notes that conform the atmosphere. He is not a painter of patches, either; he is an artist that provokes our imagination, leading it to various possibilities every time we look at his paintings. That is to say, the picture is never exhausted and it keeps itself alive. “Uncertain outlines and undefined spaces frame the objects, highlighted by color, not by identifying forms. The contrast form-representation arouses that dramatic sensation of the poetical, if we understand by that that we have arrived by the shortest way -or the one proper to the painter- to the essence of his proposal, be it a billiards game or a musical group performance. “There is a contrasting communicative strength in his color, and he even edges miraculously the boundaries of expressionism, a tendency to which he cannot be ascribed because there is a fundamental difference between the contents of his painting and the “fauve” school exultant manifestations. His sensitive palette, checked precisely when his instinct would prevail over his communicating humility, may induce to that misapprenhension.”
E. Baliari, El Economista, Buenos Aires, November 30, 1979.
“Néstor Saiace has gone a long way since his last exhibition. Some foreign influence has completely disappeared, his language is now his own, it has grown deeper and surprisingly mature. His oils can be seen, rather contemplated, at galería Wildenstein. They ask the observer to enter slowly into the world that they propose. The design is stronger, concentrated, it has gained in definition, not losing something very important in his present pictures: the likeness to a vague, foggy atmosphere. The same happens with color; it has moved within, in low but very eloquent tones, enriched to the point of surprise (especially when he adopts certain purple or some light violet colors, he obtains the most charming effects). Then, there is something like a gestural harmony in his way of handling matter, he takes advantage of the minimum light reverberations, turning it, at times, even in absence, into the great protagonist of the picture. Loyal to his favorite themes, he has, however, dressed them with a shining dress (the chromatic scales he used or their respective values, have nothing to do) that hurts, as the sharpest of swords, since his works convey the sensation of being immerse in quiet, immemorial waters, and at the same time obstinately cleaving into the always elusive memory. Curious contrast of this painting, already a major one: he gives permanence to what is fleeting, not abandoning movement, however. There is a lot to be expected, from now on, from Néstor Saiace’s painting, precisely because he has just given a considerable, radiant and unique amount.”
César Magrini, El Cronista Comercial, Buenos Aires, November 29, 1979.
“Handling colors is Saiace’s innate disposition: even in the lowest and most dangerous registers, he obtains a wide range of tones. This mastery of hues and shades allows to infer that he “plants” the work with saturated superimposed tints. Thus, he obtains that suggestive and emotional climate of the “Nonetto” or “Billar I”, with timely accents on the brush work, occasionally heavy with matter or with deliberate dry strokes shaping the composition. The musical connotation pervades the rhythm of his contrasts, stressing some syncopated profile. It does not make any difference whether the theme refers virtually to music or not; the structure and the articulation are genuinely musical.”
Elba Pérez, Convicción, Buenos Aires, November 28, 1979.
“Looking at Néstor Saiace’s paintings… (galería Wildenstein) we feel that the works before us belong to a master who wants “to irradiate a sentiment”. The intimate atmosphere (with music and billiard players) is for Saiace a valid pretext to represent light and darkness so that the observer immediately identifies himself with his pictures.”
Argentinisches Tageblatt, Buenos Aires, November 25, 1979.
“The outstanding consideration in Néstor Saiace’s painting … is that even if he shows some pictorial influences (he has worked with Urruchúa and J. Barragán, among others) has been able to find his own path, skipping over the sources and identifying himself with matter and color, somehow breaking forms; at times he must check them with strong brush strokes. He obtains vigorous, spontaneous images while he somehow develops a contest between color sensitivity and suggestive design structure. Consequently, he resorts impetuously to color, overlooking details. Overpowered by his creative impulse, he expresses himself openly, both when he paints landscapes and when he paints lonely figures or groups. In some of his «orchestras» the dynamics of music seems to enliven the composition with harmonizing, counterbalanced, oblique or curved strokes imbibed in a variety of nuances and plastic subtleties which characterize his very personal touch.”
Hernández Rosselot, La Razón, Buenos Aires, November 1976.
“Néstor Saiace, an artist who owns a colored, vibrating palette of sensitive matter, bases his works essentially on the expressive function of color. His compositions, in spite of the fact that they show rather violent oppositions, are harmonic, fluid and chromatically amiable, however much they praise matter, form and color with transfigurated freedom, in the manner of “fauves” and provoking expressionists .”
Aldo Galli, La Prensa, Buenos Aires, November 1976.
“Sensuous, rich in matter and of an uninhibited palette, on lines which would find the approval of Del Prete or Julio Barragán, is the art of this painter who in every one of his works shows a rich temperament and a reputable spontaneity. “Casamiento en Tropea”, one of the highlights of this exhibition, carries the poetic weight of freshness and spontaneity of somebody who commands his métier.”
Angel Bonomini, La Nación, Buenos Aires, November 1976.
[Saiace]… “expresses himself through powerful, defined pictures, in which color explodes as an outbreak of life, and at the same time, the design shows a turbulent but not a chaotic way of existing. Saiace paints (nudes, interiors, landscapes, still-lifes, marines) just as he feels them, and that is his first and exalted lesson of unfailing authenticity. This is why, undoubtedly, he wins us. Because of his exuberant and honest language, because of his healthy and communicative joy of living (in many cases of overflowing plenitude), because of his faith and confidence, perceived at once in his oils, placed on everything that surrounds him, but also because in his works there is an already defined style, a certainty that avoids imitation and repetitions, and a way of taking in (and of conveying) sensations, moods, strong and charming experiences that hold around him the enthusiasm and the plenitude which constitute, essentially, a luminous and exemplifying song to life.”
Buenos Aires. El Cronista Comercial, Buenos Aires, November 23, 1976.
“Néstor Saiace, Urruchúa’s and J.Barragán’s disciple, takes from both masters an interest in social matters and in good color, added to sensitive landscapes and still-lifes dipped at times in a world close to Torrallardona’s. With these beneficial supports, he has achieved an independent language endorsed by a high plastic quality.”
Hernández Rosselot, La Razón, Buenos Aires, August 3, 1975.
• next –>