MIDDLE CLASS: ALFREDO DUFOUR'S UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Trained in the juxtaposed areas of pictorial and drawing visual art and the pluri-practical contemporary art, Alfredo Dufour articulates an enlightening discourse at a cosmic level and without nomenclatures, making in the same gesture the diagnosis of the present time, from the always fresh perspective of the South of the South.

Middle class by Alberto Passolini.

In the early 1970s space probes were sent into the dark sky of the galaxy, containing two rectangular metal plates inscribed with the same symbolic message. Their purpose was to inform a possible extraterrestrial civilization about humanity and where it came from. This happened at a time when earthlings were excited about the idea of communicating with life in outer space and, at the same time, new spiritual practices were emerging that attempted to connect with the individual's own inner self.

That message, latent in the dreary emptiness of the universe, with no chance of returning to Earth, does not lose hope of being interpreted by the inhabitants of other worlds. Half a century later, we are still on the only planet in the Solar System that has superficial water, which generates clouds and rains, and without answers from some other world.

We are in an undetermined geographical point, in front of the representation of a landscape expressed with economy of means: celestial for the sky and green for the grass, distributed in twelve rectangles of equal size.

This generic place that makes us anonymous is populated by an aesthetic language that refers to the optimism of New Age posters, that countercultural movement popularized at the end of the last century that expels pessimism from its belief system.

The represented sky overflows its color towards the walls of the room where Alfredo Dufour places his questions.

Perhaps this series is his best attempt to assimilate himself to optimism, as a philosophical doctrine, which affirms that we live in the best of all possible worlds.

If this were so, he is shipwrecked in the glass half full as well as in the glass half empty. Its visual aphorisms are Trojan killjoys.

Unlike the cards carrying a universal message, these paintings do not share the hope of being deciphered: the images work according to the nature of their author and reach their goal without the will of occasional viewers (terrestrial or alien) intervening.

Dufour dismantles any intention of being enthusiastic, which leads us to suspect that, in another timeline, he may have been in charge of the calligraphy of the famous “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate” that Dante Alighieri saw at the entrance of hell.

Seduced by the spontaneity of his images, we will stop at each one of them. And we will carry them already with us like the tattoo we will regret every time a distracted glance is fixed on it.

Maybe that's the middle class.

Clase media. Solo exhibition by Alfredo Dufour.

Until May 2024. 

_VIGILGONZALES. Pampa del Castillo 455. Historic Center of Cusco, Peru.