Wifredo Lam (1902-1982)

Estate of the artist
Galerie Lelong, Paris

Roma, Istituto Italo-Latino Americano, Contreras Brunet, Eielson, Lam, Roca-Rey, 1972
Venice,  XXXVI Biennale di Venezia, 1972
Albissola, Villa Faraggiana, Il ritratto oggi, 1973, illustrated
Madrid, Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Exposición Antológica: "Homenaje a Wifredo Lam" 1902-1982, 1982-1983, p. 136, illustrated in color (incorrectly catalogued)
Bruxelles, Musée d'Ixelles; Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Wifredo Lam 1902-1982, 1983, no. 123, p. 126, illustrated in color
Düsseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordhein Westfalen; Hamburg, Kunstverein, Wifredo Lam, 1988-1989, no. 60, p. 85, illustrated in color
New York, Galerie Lelong, Wifredo Lam, paintings, 1990
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Barcelona, Fundación Joan Miró, Wifredo Lam, 1992-1993, p. 121, illustrated in color

K. Iwaya, "Wifredo Lam: Revelation in the Jungle," Mizue, Tokyo, 1971, no. 3 p 81, illustrated
El Correo de la Unesco, Paris, 1972, p. 13, illustrated
Gérard Xuriguéra, Wifredo Lam, Paris, 1974, p. 56, illustrated in color
Umberto. Allemandi, "Lam della Giungla," Torino, 1974, p. 66, illustrated in color
Max-Pol Fouchet, Wifredo Lam, Barcelona/Paris, 1976, no. 190, p. 153, illustrated
"Wifredo Lam", XX siècle, Nº 52 special issue, Paris, July 1979, p. 110, illustrated in color
Serge Sautreau, Abalochas, Paris, 1981, p. 82-83, illustrated
Hans Platschek, "Wifredo Lam: Keine Kost vom Tisch der Herren," Art, Das Kunstmagazin, no. 7, Hamburg, July 1988, p. 104, illustrated in color
Fundació "la Caixa" and Americas Society Art Gallery, Wifredo Lam. A Retrospective of Works on paper, New York, 1992, p. 52, illustrated (exhibition catalogue)
Fundació "la Caixa", Wifredo Lam, obra sobre papel, Barcelona, 1993, p. 70, illustrated
Musée Dapper, Lam métis,  Paris, 2001, no. 83, p. 166-167, illustrated in color
Lou Laurin-Lam and Eskil Lam. Wilfredo Lam: Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work, Volume II 1961-1982. Lausanne, 2002, no. 70.72, p.339, illustrated (also illustrated in color on p. 89)

This large and important painting was lined during the artist's lifetime. The lining successfully supports the fine linen on which the picture is painted and does not leave any negative effects on the surface. The reason for the lining was most likely that a work of this scale may have been rolled for transportation, as is often the case with Latin American paintings. The paint layer has never been cleaned and its original finish is well preserved. The painted areas are glossy according to the artist's intention and the light areas, which for the most part are un-painted, are not glossy, also as the artist intended. There were some restorations here and there addressing small losses and areas of instability which had developed and these had been restored fairly effectively. More recently these restorations were adjusted slightly to correct the color and the painting looks better as a result. Whether the retouches are to be adjusted going forward is a matter of taste. The painting is ready to hang and being a picture that should be viewed from a comfortable distance, these small details may not be of concern. However, there is no question that a large picture of this scale and delicacy can very often attract damages, and we are happy to say that this painting is still very fresh, despite the retouches. This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The art of Wifredo Lam communicates transcultural beliefs rooted in the African diaspora not only in Cuba and the Caribbean but many other countries around the world. During his long prolific career as a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and ceramist, he contributed to Modernism in very special ways. As an insider, Lam embraced Afro-Cuban subjects at a time when few artists in the western world were engaged in dialogues  addressing cross-cultural, ethnic, and spiritual themes.[i] His practice slowly but undeniably changed the direction and understanding of Modernism. Master of line, form, and color, the artist absorbed the lessons of cubism, expanded the parameters of surrealism, and mediated the fine line between figuration and abstraction. His work, which expresses human emotions—pain, suffering, loss—and references war, independence movements, and spirituality, became a paradigm for future generations of artists who have expressed their socio-politico-spiritual histories in visual form.[ii]

Les Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, dieu de l'unité (The Abalochas Dance for Dhambala, the God of Unity), one of Lam's most ambitious paintings, caps a decade of extraordinary work in which he also produced Tropic of Capricorn (1961) and The Third World (1965-1966). Each in turn represents a crowning achievement in his artistic practice.[iii] The Tropic of Capricorn or the Southern Tropic marks the most southerly latitude at which the sun appears directly overhead at noon. Given Lam's interest in colonial history and the more recent decolonizing movements, Tropic of Capricorn embraces many countries in the southern temperate zone including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia, countries with diverse political, religious, and ethnic cultures that had experienced colonization. Two years after completing this work, Lam visited Cuba for the first time since the revolution and painted The Third World. Commissioned for the Presidential Palace, the large painting commemorates, if in title only, the nonaligned nations, an alliance of African, Asian, and Latin American countries that were meeting in Cuba at the time of Lam's visit.[iv]
            The word Abalochas in the title Les Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, dieu de l'unité is most likely a phonetic variant of the more common babalochas,[v] or priests of a deity in the Afro-Cuban religion known alternately in Cuba as Lucumí, Regla de Ocha, Santería, or Orisha worship. Lam seems to have used the form abalocha in two other works, Abalocha of 1951 and 1964, which feature a femme-cheval surrounded by spirits. His reference to Damballah (the more usual spelling of the name), the deity being honored, appears in only two of his paintings: Reflets de Dhambala (Reflections of Dhambala) of 1968 and the painting under discussion here. Damballah is the creole name in Haiti for the rainbow-serpent, whose consort, Ayida Whedo, is also a serpent of the sky. In worship the intermingling of Damballah's body with that of Ayida in the form of two snakes is a sign of union and ecstasy,[vi] a spiritual state suggested in part through the title and hinted at in the iconography of the painting. Lam may also have known that Obatalá, the creator of mankind in Lucumí, is the Dahomeyan counterpart, Damballa.
During Lam's early upbringing, his godmother, Mantonica Wilson, a Changó priestess in Lucumí, spiritually guided him.[vii] He became acquainted with the Vodou worship of Haitians living and working in Cuba and also attended celebrations in that neighboring country from December 1945 through April 1946. During that time, Lam had an exhibition and attended Vodou ceremonies with André Breton and Pierre Mabille. It seems that Les Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, dieu de l'unité, as well as the smaller 1968 painting, were, on one level, an acknowledgment of the importance of Vodou, which, as Robert Farris Thompson asserts "is one of the signal achievements of people of African descent in the western hemisphere: a vibrant, sophisticated synthesis of the traditional religions of Dahomey, Yorubaland and Kongo with an infusion of Roman Catholicism."[viii] And, on another level, Lam mixed the words in the title to signify the reblending of practices that define Afro-Caribbean religions.
Lam used poetic license in both his naming of Les Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, dieu de l'unité and his iconographic interpretation of the religious scene, choreographed so brilliantly. Were we to look at documentation of a Vodou temple, with an altar, pole, flags, and offerings, we would find a scene very different from the one rendered by Lam.[ix] As was characteristic of the artist's form and style, he improvised in expressing the intricacies of a ceremonial dance. From the perspectives of formal unity, innovative comminglings, and content, this painting looks back on the compositional structure, fluid line, and planar figures of earlier work. The figures, surely but delicately outlined, seem to advance and recede into the dark forest-green background in continuous movement. Lam's consummate draftsmanship created lines that flowed from one anatomical part to another without seeming to separate being from being. Several of the gendered figures, some identified in part by their skirts, another by a phallus, are visible from the side, back, and full front, producing a sense of constant movement. We recognize heads that are moon shaped, others in the form of Africanizing masks, still others, as Lowery Sims suggests, crocodile-like. All the figures are connected to each other as if sharing the same energy source. The little round heads, a bedrock motif in the artist's vocabulary since the early 1940s, are sometimes intended to be Elegguas; here they are manifestations of cosmic energy or life force (also known as ashé) and offer a sense of mystery as they hover in the background. As the abalochas dance, we decipher the large figure in the foreground in a reclining position, similar to the one in the foreground in The Third World. That figure (a devotee), whose head is configured by a horse mask, is experiencing spirit possession, a spiritual state further signaled by the yellow-bodied fragment with hooves that conflates with the worshiper, indicating a metaphorical union. Never interested in straightforward narrations of magico-religious practices, Lam intuits them with his inventive morphologies. Although no drums are depicted in this painting, one can hear them. They have been beating (in spite of intermittent prohibitions) since the 1500s in religious ceremonies in Cuba, and their invisible presence resounds herein as well.[x]
Lam—the world traveler—befriended artists, writers, and musicians with his worldly nature, curious and open disposition, and capacity for embracing difference as a wellspring of the human condition. His dialogue with people, reclamations of place, critiques and, at times, affirmations of world events, and recognition of spiritual traditions were the cornerstones of his art.[xi]

Julia P. Herzberg, Ph.D.

[i] Lam, brought up in both Catholic and Afro-Atlantic traditions of Orisha worship, did not practice any formal religion as an adult. His life's work, however, honors the spiritual beings in polytheistic Afro-Cuban worldviews.

[ii] In this context I recall NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, an exhibition at the Menil Collection in Houston in 2008 which brought together an intergenerational group of artists who address ritual and the wider implications of spirituality in contemporary art—drawing from the shamans and oral historians. Lam's painting, in the permanent collection, was not included in this exhibition, but the artist was certainly an ombudsman for many contemporary artists, some of whom included David Hammons, Robert Gober, Jimmie Durham, Ana Mendieta, José Bedia, and Magdelena Campos-Pons. Franklin Sirmans, ed., NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith (Houston: The Menil Collection, 2008). Essayists: Franklin Sirmans, Jen Budney, Arthur C. Danto, Julia P. Herzberg, Greg Tate, Robert Farris Thompson, Quincy Troupe.

[iii] The 1961 painting was awarded the Guggenheim International Prize in 1964. This painting and The Third World have had extensive exhibition histories.

[iv] In elaborating the larger context in which this painting was created, Lowery S. Sims notes that Lam's trip coincided with the first meeting of the Tri-Continental Congress, an alliance of African, Asian, and Latin American countries. See Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde. 1923–1982 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), p. 154.

[v] I am grateful to Onel Mulet, scholar, musician, composer, and producer of Habana/Harlem™, for having pointed me to several sources that have enriched my understanding of this word in the titling of this painting. Thanks also to Neyda Martínez and Dowoti Désir for their generous assistance.

[vi] Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), pp. 176, 177, 187.

[vii] Wilson gave Lam an amulet, a good luck charm, which he kept all his life as a tangible memory of her. The charm is now in the Lam archive in Paris. Julia P. Herzberg, "Wifredo Lam: Development of a Style and Worldview, The Havana Years 1941–1952," in Wifredo Lam and His Contemporaries (New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1992), p. 31.

[viii] Farris Thompson, p. 163.

[ix] A comparison can be found in Farris Thompson, plate 119, p. 190: Vodou flags, swords, and a pole simulating the tree in which Dhambala and Aiyda Hwedo are wrapped in an embrace.

[x] "Music was a vehicle for the conservation of the culture of Africa in Cuba, and, in return, the strength of the transplanted culture was a vehicle for maintaining the music." See Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (Chicago: Chicago Press Review, 2004), p. 89.

[xi] Since Lam's death in 1982, his work has traveled throughout the world: in Europe, to France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Yugoslavia; in North America, to the United States, Mexico, and Canada; in the Caribbean, to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Martinique; in South America, to Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil; in Asia, to China and Japan.