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Paiva only knew Buenos Aires when he was fourteen and left it when he was thirty. When he began to visit her again, he did so more and more often. Yes, he had lived in Paris, but it was during his journeys of discovery and exploration through Central Asia that he derived from non-European culture and its popular art a power that attracted him without the need for Paris to accept, analyze and codify it. In the photo Parana State I recognize This gaze has previously stayed at a distance that was not often seen: in Paiva’s case, in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan.
Indoor/OutdoorPublished in Paris in 2002, it remains the boldest and most challenging point in the figurative explorations of this strange, solitary, almost mysterious artist, whose work will reveal the profound coherence of a creative vision from the perspective of the future, transcending the vicissitudes of the past. The history of the last century has suppressed individual existence. Indoor/outdoor, Oruro, Misiones or Calle Rosa, recorded with 19th century photographic procedures such as two-color rubber and then processed with a paintbrush on negatives and photocopies, acquire a certain ghostly appearance that depends not only on the survival of an image of the past, but also on the resurrection of an abandoned technology to regain its power to transform presence and reveal absence.
We often talked with Rolando about the weariness that Paris evokes in those of us who chose to live there about thirty years ago, about the erosion of an image that, for those who once thought so, is prestigious in a different sense, instead of being like the light of a dead star that continues to shine due to the difference of distance and time. Rolando insisted that the formality of French social relations, which was initially a relief for those of us who grew up in the Buenos Aires party scene, has become stifling for those of us who have not sought assimilation (writing in French, thinking in French, feeling in French). I supported the already tired idea of Paris as an interesting marketplace where one can meet other growers from all over the world, showcasing and ideally selling metaphorical birds, vegetables and other fruits from non-European farms.
Now I can go no further, and those idle talks, which were not much fundamentally changed by the repetition of arguments, come back to my memory with a precise, inevitable clarity, like the memory of friends who have left us. We used to laugh at those insignificant French literary prizes or at institutions composed of modest people. Thought Leadership (Bernard-Henri Lévy, Jean Baudrillard!); at the same time, we recognize that the prestige of culture, however tenuous, offers protection: it allows us, immigrants without the stamp of political exile (and until recently profitable), to find a space where we can work in peace, Rolando in painting and photography, me in writing and cinematography, without worrying about gaining approval from a society whose modus operandi reflects the calculated expiration of fashion.
A plastic artist like Rolando Paiva, who for a long time refused to exhibit his paintings and photographs, was clearly defying the demands of a medium that demands a diversity of stock and a constant renewal of goods, whether in Paris, Buenos Aires or New York. Less than ten years ago, I felt that he had made a firm decision when he decided to photograph at different times of the year along the course of the Paraná River until he reached Paraguay (for him, the legendary homeland of his father). Not long ago, he chose to own an apartment in Buenos Aires, where he would go several times a year to “breathe”. (Fate wished that I would inherit a private library in Buenos Aires at about the same time, which gave me the excuse to have a second home, a Buenos Aires home, and to take advantage of every break from work to go and “breathe”.)
During his last visit to Buenos Aires, around New Year’s Day 2003, he insisted on meeting his friends from the 1960s and presented them with the photographs he had taken in Paraná. At that moment, I saw only a generous gesture, which he ironically presented as a Find the time Far from the Proust salon; now I wonder if he realized that he had little time left in this world and wanted to leave a little trace of his youth, that is, the multiple and inexhaustible American beauty that only his return and maturity allowed him to see and record.
*Text contained in the book Bruce (AH, 2010), written by Edgardo Cozarinsky, a collection of travel and biographical notes, edited by Fabián Lebenglik. The cover image of the book, by Rolando Paiva (Untitled; Paraguay, 1999), is part of the book quoted in the notes: Indoor decoration, outdoor decoration, Created by RP, Maison de l’Amerique Latine, Paris, 2002.
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