Anthony Goicolea’s work moves between collective and individual experience. The different works by the Cuban-American artist currently shown at Galerie Crone, Berlin illustrate this aspect of his practice very vividly.
The exhibition opens impressively and enigmatically. The first painting depicts two young men standing on a makeshift raft made of wooden beams and oil drums. They are handling buckets and pots filled with a yellow liquid. The background is largely obscured by a white sail, with only a few palm trees faintly visible in the distance.
While the scene is bathed in warm reds and oranges, the men appear in metallic green tones, as if coated in an unknown material that turns them into living statues. The distinctive color palette creates an alarming, post-apocalyptic mood. Associations with nuclear or chemical disasters come to mind, creating an uneasy feeling and evoking the unsettling sense that one careless movement could bring the figures into contact with their toxic environment.
The work’s disquiet and ominous tone sets the mood for the rest of the exhibition. The other paintings, while no less unsettling, feel less immediate in their alarm. They suggest more inner turmoil than external threat. With few exceptions, they depict the same young, blond man—presumably Goicolea’s partner—seen crouching, lying down, or clasping his hands over his head. All of these depictions share a melancholy and lethargy that starkly contrast the expressive use of color and stylistic vibrancy of the paintings. In bright yellow, the man’s outlines flash like lightning bolts, making his figure glow. Combined with the mostly monochromatic rendering of skin and clothing, this creates a schematic, almost comic-like appearance. While the man’s body language is clearly readable, the focus lies in the nuanced portrayal of his inner world—which appears intense, even pulsating. However calm and pensive the man appears, one feels he could burst at any moment, flooding the gallery with a blinding light. Where does this tension in Goicolea’s work come from?
Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, as a gay Catholic child, he had “all the ingredients for [a life in] isolation,” as he told Hyperallergic in a 2017 interview. However, as he grew older, the desire to fully express and live out his personality and individuality began to prevail, he continued. Both aspects are present in the works shown at Galerie Crone. The schematically depicted protagonists are somehow obscured—their sketch-like features only show few distinguishing traits. Yet the vibrant color and emotional resonance of the canvases emphasizes that behind the façade lies an individual with a complex emotional world.
This can be read as a direct reference to the experiences of the queer community, which in many places still cannot express itself as openly as it might wish. At the same time, Goicolea’s works are rich with art historical references. He frequently quotes elements from artists such as Van Gogh, R.B. Kitaj, Gauguin, Schiele, or Klimt—whether stylistically or by adopting poses of their portraits.
In both dimensions, Goicolea’s works reveal a fundamental dichotomy between individualism and universality. Every person, every artist, every painting is unique—and yet all humans are bound by shared needs and emotions. It is only natural, then, that artistic styles repeat and echo each other. In an interview with the curator of his upcoming show at Galerie Ron Mangos, Goicolea quoted Mark Twain, who said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Another group of works in the exhibition consists of portraits on Mylar, a thin, nearly transparent plastic film. Beginning with a wash of heavily diluted paint, Goicolea lays down a base layer before drawing the outlines of his subjects. He repeats this process several times, redrawing and refining the figures with each step. Thus, color and gesture are enriched by the element of chance, making the resulting works not only expressions, but also explorations of his subjects. The representation of their metaphysical dimension becomes a kind of exchange—a back-and-forth with the portrait—intensified by the translucent quality of the material. These Mylar works often serve as a foundation for his canvas paintings.
The exhibition concludes with another large-format painting like the one at the very beginning. On a beach, six horses are visible; five of them have a man standing on their back. The group forms a loose circle around a small rowboat filled with water. A greenish-yellow sun is just beginning to disappear beyond the horizon, casting a toxic light over the scene. The setting oscillates between equatorial idyll and eerie omen. It shares the same melancholy and lethargy found in Goicolea’s single-figure portraits, with one significant difference: As in the first painting of the exhibition, the protagonists in this final work are not depicted in isolation. The presence of multiple figures and their integration into a concrete setting suggest narrative—perhaps even hope.
The community seems to give comfort while not swallowing or dissolving the individual. Because just as there are things that divide us, there are also experiences that unite us. Goicolea’s exhibition makes us acutely aware of this tension—between individual and society, between personal and collective experience.
Anthony Goicolea’s solo exhibition “Double Standard“ at Galerie Crone, Berlin runs until June 21, 2025.
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