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Colourful 80’s

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Puerto Rico born, US artist Nelson Caban is no stranger to international exhibitions, having participated in solo and group shows in New York, France, and Japan. From April 12 to May 11, he presented his first solo show “Full Blown 80s”, in Hong Kong at the Voxfire Gallery, recalling and discovering the good old days of Hong Kong and New York in the 1980s.

As a child of the 80s, Caban’s work embellishes nostalgia in an exhilarating approach. The decade that inspired him “was just fun, it was this [like] urban, global youth culture, big hair and freestyle music”, he says – an era marked by nostalgic movements in music, film and pop culture. 

Those who grew up during that time will still vividly be able to recall Madonna and her fingerless lace gloves, AHA music video’s, MTV, Greenpeace, bad hairdos and bulky yellow Sony cassette Walkman’s – in addition to other technology that today sounds positively Jurassic. It is that graffiti-stained world that inspires the artist, who has been hailed as “the next Matisse” by famed photographer Bruce Davidson. 

For the past two years Caban has called Hong Kong home. In 2011, whilst visiting a friend in Southern China for Chinese New Year, he had to renew his passport in Hong Kong, and during those five days he was impressed by the number of people he met and how many art openings he went to. 

“I thought ‘wow, there is a real energy here that is lacking in New York’” recalls the artist.  

After returning to New York and realising that he had no attachments keeping him there, he bought a one-way ticket back to China with no particular plans.

“I thought I’d be sitting in China, meditating or something, and I’d figure out my life. That was pretty much how it went”.

Despite the leap of faith, Caban believes he is in the right place at the right time.

“It is a great place to be, it ranks up there with Shanghai and Tokyo”, he says, adding, “Hong Kong is the largest art market in the world, which makes it great for high end art”. 

However, he does wish that there was more support from the Hong Kong government for local artists, more financial investment in industrialised centres for art students, and more collaboration with some of the universities.

“There are really, really creative, talented people here in Hong Kong who just can’t show to the public if nobody knows they exist.  If the government really wants to tout Hong Kong as a world city, it can’t just be a financial hub”.

In relation to his own work, Caban insists the environment in which he lives plays a big part, but it goes even deeper than that.

“Picasso once said that art is a living diary, in a sense, one way of keeping a diary. I’m very much influenced by my personal diary. I can only create based upon the thoughts that are in my head. I’m influenced by my environment, the people that I meet… relationships”

The move to Hong Kong has made Caban re-think some of his approaches to his work, which centers on social issues and political narratives, and also the role that art plays in the communication of beliefs, and its capacity to provoke dialogue and effect change. 

“I did my first group show here in Hong Kong and I did something that was particular to my own experience.  People thought the colours were pretty, but they had NO idea of what I was talking about!” he laughs. 

The experience shed light on the fundamental message of his work: “If art is not universal – if you can’t relate to it – especially as I deal with a lot of political issues in my work, then it is irrelevant in terms of creating a dialogue or a connection with people”.

Mindful of his new environment and the need to communicate with an audience unfamiliar with his subject matter, Caban decided to explore new ways of bridging the communication gap, whilst staying true to that which drives him.

“I’m very much into textiles, so I have incorporated traditional Chinese textiles or patterns from Ming dynasty vases, just so that people can aesthetically understand what’s going on, and even if the subject matter is different, it serves as a bridge and I can get started, use it as a reference point and then I can talk about my own personal background and Latin American dictators or something, but at least they understand”.

 

 

With punchy titles such as ‘The Cool Kids’, ‘Material Girl’ and ‘Iron Mike’, Caban has sealed his international reputation many times over, and he was a featured artist for the 2010 Toyota Cup Football Tournament in Japan. His fan base also includes a very particular individual, none other than the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. 

In 2008, while living in New York City during Obama’s first election campaign, he decided to create an artwork that embodied the ideals of change and hope, and what that period represented in American history. He then posted the image on his social media channels, Myspace and Facebook. Shortly after, he received a call and, the rest, as they say, is history. 

Obama was presented with the painting exactly a week before Election Day 2008. 

“I was able to meet him during his campaign and I actually boarded his plane and gave him the painting. He took off to the next stop and a week later was the election. So I know it got on the plane with him, but then I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it ever left that plane or if it ended up with a flight attendant”.

If he were given the opportunity to meet the President today, would he have any questions for him in relation to the artwork? To which a laughing Caban replies, I would ask him “do you remember this? Where is it?!”

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