La cabeza del amante

La cabeza del amante from 1985, was included in the artist's first exhibition in Europe at the Gallery Elisabeth Franck, Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium. Included in the work, are the iconographic elements the artist would begin to deploy frequently such as the bed, and the references to the theatre--such as the stage or proscenium, the spotlight, and the curtain. To us as viewers, depending on what is being observed, the figure in bed is that of a woman while the figure sitting on the edge, can be discerned as that of a man. The stage-like setting of the bed in front of what might be heavy and dark velvet curtains at an angle, is both jarring and puzzling. Are we observing a high but impossible melodrama or is the artist alluding to something more psychological--like the human drama felt by two people as seen on the bed?

As the artist has mentioned when speaking about his obsessive use of the bed as leitmotif, the bed is the setting for so many human activities--from conception, to birth and finally, to death. All of life's major events take place in bed. Here, in this composition, a private drama unfolds as a couple seems to have arrived at an impasse. We sense the tension as we observe closely that one of them--the man--sits on the very edge of the bed, having lost his head. A desperate act of quiet anguish is here rendered with subtle poignancy.