Beautiful, Unsettling Moments

By Michael Tallon

For nine years now, La Cuadra Magazine has featured the work of local artists — be they Guatemalan or extranjeros with some deep tie to our community. Over that time we have realized that we live in a valley blessed with tremendous talent, much of it brilliant, inventive and not afraid of asking the public to reconsider their interactions with the world and their own hearts. To us, that is art.

Decorative work bores the tits off of us. Stillborn still-lifes, hagiographic portraiture, innocuous images meant to swell an empty space, start an idle conversation but no more, make us want to kick things. But then there’s the work — like these images below and the image above by Andü Abril, a wonderful artist who lived here for several years before returning to Barcelona — they’ve all got something that breaks the flow of time, if only for a moment.

We like that: art that unsettles the moment.

We’ll not harp on how these images from the La Cuadra archives do that to us. Either it works for you or it doesn’t. But if it does . . . then we’ve got a favor to ask: If you know of a scene or a movement or a school that fits our general parameters as laid out here — let us know! If you are a young artist with a vision, let’s go get drunk at Café No Sé and talk. Hell, bring your portfolio. We’re old, so there is going to be some natural adherence to painting and photography, but we’re clocking onto the power of digital photo-manipulation and graphic-design concepts, so long as they still result in that sense of a moment unsettled.

Take that where you will. It could be a rock tossed into a lake that stirs the surface and then sinks to the bottom like a persistent and unanswered question. It could be a fist through a mirror. We don’t care, so long as there’s not too much blood and the point is larger than punching yourself in the face. Join in the fun. Swing byDyslexia Books or the Café and ask around; the bartenders will find us. You can also drop us a line at LaCuadraMagazine@gmail.com or leave us a message at this website or on our FB page.

Here’s to continuing the forward march by stopping time, if only for an instant.