Jorge Mendez Blake, Jorge Pardo and Pae White | Observer
Ceramica Suro’s annual Comida celebration during ART WKND GDL. Photo by Tuna Unalan.
By Elisa Carollo
The highlight of the evening at Plataforma was a conversation between Cuban artist Jorge Pardo and American artist Pae White, both of whom have long-standing ties with José Noé Suro. Pardo’s immersive, labyrinthine installation of luminous ceramic walls and colorful lamps seamlessly intertwined with White’s newest series of sculptures, forming an engaging, multisensory environment that explored how visual curiosity and emotional impulses shape perception.
The final stop was the studio of conceptual artist Jorge Méndez Blake, whose multimedia practice explores the intersection of literature, art and architecture—disciplines humans use to define their existential and operational space, imposing structure and direction upon it. Deconstructed pages of famous books transform into constellations of meaning, as Méndez Blake distills single characters, isolating them in a careful, rational order. Across his sprawling studio, various workstations held a series of hyperrealistic paintings, which, through trompe-l’œil techniques, similarly yet more directly challenge the viewer’s perception of reality. These paintings also serve as tools for conceptualizing and developing his other projects, reinforcing the artist’s fascination with language, illusion and the ways in which knowledge is both constructed and dismantled.
