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Rumblings of the Earth (Rumor de la tierra)
Wifredo Lam Cuban
Not on view
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En la obra Rumor de la tierra Lam muestra unas partes corporales desmembradas que aparecen apretadas una con la otra en colores de negro, gris y blanquecino en un fondo de color café oscuro. Una figura en el centro que él llamaba una "ave diabólica" empuña un cuchillo. Tales criaturas volantes eran asociadas con el sacrificio y aparecen frecuentemente en creencias religiosas afro-cubanas. Además, Lam hacía referencia a la pintura monumental Guernica (1937) por su contemporáneo Pablo Picasso que representa los horrores de la Guerra civil española. Lam convirtió la historia europea a una caribeña contada a través de la perspectiva de la violencia colonial, transformando la víctima central de Picasso al agresor.
In Rumblings of the Earth (Rumor de la tierra), Lam presents dismembered body parts pressing against one another in shades of black, gray, and off-white in a dark brown landscape. A central figure he described as a "diabolical bird" wields a knife. Such flying creatures were associated with sacrifice and feature prominently in Afro-Cuban religious beliefs. Lam also references Guernica (1937), the monumental painting by his peer Pablo Picasso that represents the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Lam turned the story into a Caribbean one told through a lens of colonial violence, however, by transforming Picasso’s central victim into the attacker.
