Sunday, September 20, 2020 | Sunday Arts & Style | D5

background is bare-bot-tomed and corseted, hiredfrom a Cabaret orchestra.

A large, more or lessfemale figure on the righthas an exposed spinal cordmade from yellow andorange strips. Biernnaypoints out one detail amongthe hundred or more in thissingle figure. The cup ofher bra strap is a fragmentof a subway map. In theskeletal groom, the limegreen arm and leg bonescome from a cyclist’s reflec-tive clothing.

Another female figure,reclining in the lower left, iscomposed of blockierswatches, suggestive ofcubist art. Kachmar is moreprecise, saying the figure isreminiscent of Jean Dubuf-fet, a leader of the art brutmovement that embracedfolk art.

Sitting in front of her is aperky white dog wearing agolden crown. Biernnaysays that’s his dog, Lola, the

tapestry’s title character. Hesays he and his husband inChile have been separatedby the pandemic.

Altogether, there are halfdozen or so large tapestriesin the exhibit. Some areexplicitly religious likeBiernnay’s version of “TheLast Supper.” Raised Cath-olic during the materialisticPinochet regime, he hasmade it satirical. The face-less disciples feast on fastfood, while dollar nails falloff the table and crabsscrabble on the floor.Again, he has includedhimself, pointing to thesmaller figure fourth fromthe right. “I’m always partof the crime,” he says.

The exhibit, timed toHispanic heritage month,runs to Oct. 31. The gallerycan be visited without ap-pointment during regularhours at 265 Golden Hill St.

Joel Lang is a freelancewriter.

The CityLightsGallery inBridgeportis givingthe Chil-ean-born

artist Carlos Bautista Biern-nay his first solo exhibit inthe U.S.

Biernnay himself, whonow lives half the year inHamden, says his workcombines the ecclesiasticand the comic. GalleryDirector Suzanne Kachmar,who has included him inrecent group shows, says hecan be an absurdist, com-bining the whimsical andthe macabre.

She also says his largetapestries, which dominatethe exhibit, are so packedwith visual information shecan barely stop looking atthem. One story they tell isof Bierrnay’s own life.

Coming first in his per-sonal chronology is a tap-estry that shows two mensitting shoulder to shoulderon a park bench. Both aredressed in loud style. Onewears a boldly striped suit,while the other sports ablue suit with big whitepolka dots. In another con-text, they might be vaude-ville performers betweenacts. But their faces aresomber, even if they arepatchworks of color. Thecontext is loss and reunion.

The man in pinstripes isBiernnay’s father, who diedin an accident soon afterBiernnay was born. Theman in the polka dot suit isthe artist himself.

“I never met him. Howdid he walk? How did hetalk? All my life I had thenecessity to meet him,” saysBiernnay, for whom En-glish is a second language.“Here, I’m having a con-versation with him. I get toknow him. I just feel sohappy.”

He says he titled thepiece “Sunday in the Parkwith George,” not as a ref-erence to the painter Georg-es Seurat or the Broadwaymusical that followed, butbecause his father’s namewas Jorge. But what aboutthe polka dots? Did Biern-nay have Seurat’s pointil-lism in mind. “Oh, no. I justlove polka dots,” he says.

Next in the chronologycomes “Scream and Shout,”the large tapestry that givesthe exhibit its title. Thistime Biernnay appears as amonstrous puppeteer loom-ing over a New York Cityskyline. One hand manipu-lates a skeleton, the other asad-faced Pinocchio. Apaper airplane crashes intoone side of the puppeteer’shead, while a red-wingedangel shelters between hislegs.

“Scream and Shout”refers to two life-alteringevents, for Biernnay andmillions of others, thatoccurred on the same date,Sept. 11. In 1973, a coupbrought the dictator Augus-to Pinochet to power inChile. Then in 2001, it wasthe terrorist attack onBiernnay’s adopted country.

“That’s me,” he says ofthe puppeteer. “For me thatday, 9/11 in 1973, it hap-pened again. I feel like Ihave to scream.”

He says he cast himselfas the puppet master be-cause he refuses to seehimself as an innocentbystander to shatteringevents. “I think it’s part ofwho I am. I represent whatI believe about the politics.The puppet strings showthe power: the victims ofpower and the power of themanipulator.”

Kachmar points out thatthe puppet master wears abroken heart on the outsideof his chest and that evenhe is controlled by a hookscrewed into the top of hishead. “That’s my connec-tion to God,” Biernnay says.

He first came to the U.S.for formal art training. Heconcentrated in painting atthe Fashion Institute ofTechnology in New Yorkand weaving at the Port-land Fiber Gallery. But hesays his first training beganas a child, observing hismother, grandmother andaunts make what theyneeded during the Pinochetregime. “They were doingeverything: clothes, sheetsfor the bed, pillows,” hesays. “I had my inspirationfrom them.”

In 2010, he returned toChile for more schooling.While there he says, “I triedto find a connection withmy past. So I started sew-ing.” Now, his tapestries aresewn mostly by machineand assembled from fabricremnants and oddments hemay find in flea markets.His willingness to mix andmatch with what’s at handlends a Latin folk art flavorto his work. Skeletonsabound, as in Day of theDead celebrations.

“In my life, I have a lot ofconnections with the dead.It’s always around me. SoI’m not scared about it. I

live with it. It’s part of life,”he says. He also revels inhis freedom of choice. “Youknow, when I work I don’thave control. I do what Ihave to do,” he says.

Biernnay seems to havepoured all his impulses intothe wall-filling tapestryopposite the City Lights’entrance titled “Fiesta de laLola.” He says it is a cele-bration of his own same sexwedding. What a weddingit just have been! As Kach-mar might say, it’s loadedwith information.

At first, it appears theskeletal robot in the centerof the tapestry must be thegroom. Seated magisteriallyin a throne chair, he rests aloving hand on a kneeling,lipsticked figure who wearsa dark veil. But then younotice the supposed groomalso is veiled and wearspolka-dotted ,high heeledshoes.

There are five or six wed-ding guests, all fashionedfrom such a profusion ofcut and sewn materials thatthey somehow appear na-ked and colorfully armoredat the same time. A free-floating bass player in the

Arts

‘SCREAM AND SHOUT’CARLOS BAUTISTA BIERNNAY CONNECTS PERSONAL AND PUBLIC TRAGEDIES AT CITY LIGHTS GALLERY

By Joel Lang

City Lights Gallery / Contributed photos

“Sunday in the Park With George” imagines the artist meeting his late father, Jorge.Below, Biernnay references two different 9/11 horrors in one work. Right, CarlosBautista Biernnay’s self-portrait incorporates a pink flamingo.