Can one be allergic to a country? This is not the first time I have arrived in Nicaragua and immediately started sneezing and eyes itching. Maybe it is the political situation that I, like many, am allergic to. Yesterday’s news has new talks starting between the government, the council of corporations and the church. In the meantime, the streets are still crowded with cars (and broken pavement), the malls not crowded, but still open, the schools sill crowded but with 500 less students (those killed while protesting), businesses are still closed (including many gas stations and supermarkets,) imports are limited, corporate shake ups, and tourism down or almost non-existing.
It is still the dry season here and the days are hot but the evenings are delicious with cool breezes, the scent of flowers blooming and sunsets the color of orange sherbet.
Upon arrival, we visit the master artist Alejandro Aróstegui. I have been visiting his home and studio for almost 10 years now. He is an original re-cycler in art.
In the 60s, along with Guatemalan artist Cesár Isquierdo and a Costa Rican poet, he started an important art movement, PRAXIS, that was politically motivated and the visual artists involved used non-traditional objects in their paintings. After the devastating 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua, Samoza was not cleaning up Managua. Aróstegui picked up cans. He pounded, flattened and cut shapes from them and created paintings of structures, families, lovers and nature against beautiful hombre shaded backdrops of volcanoes and lakes.
His studio still contains thousands of flattened metals, sorted in bins by color and size. A bookcase is crowded with art books, catalogues and notebooks. Along the walls many stretched blank and pencil sketched canvases of all sizes. There are two large easel areas with work in progress, one a commissioned piece of the last supperand the other has the cans placed representing the city of Old León (the original capital of Nicaragua that was totally destroyed in 1610 by an earthquake) and the trembling volcano of Momotombo is sketched beside the can-city.
We talk to him about a retrospective show of his works…large works from the 1960s of New York, tables with objects from the 70s, collages of objects from the 80s and 90s, the clear blue back grounded works from the 2000s, and drawings.
Dinner at a typical Nicaraguan restaurant is next, with marinated whole onions, creamy black beans with tortilla chips, fried cheese, chicken and tostadas. After, we return to my colleague’s family home to sit on the patio, watch the sunset, smoke a Joya cigar and talk about the history of this country.