CriticC Comments and Critics about Susana Lasta
2003 "Shoes, blood, bullets portray The Moment After", Idea for Cabrillo Gallery juried exhibit inspired by beginning of Irak war, Critique by Richard Bennett, for the Register-Pajaronian, Thursday, September 11, 2003. (See Attachment, Richard Bennett) Catalog
1993 “The Sum of All its Parts", Critique by Laura Tuchmn San Jose Mercury News, Arts and Books, 9/19/93. .(See Attachment), Catalog.
“…Susana Lasta’s three-parts “My Grandmother’s Soup,” takes the show’s theme to heart, creating a touchingly humorous homage to the chicken soup Lasta knew as child in the Argentine city of La Plata. In Lasta’s altar-like installation, a printed recipe calls for the soup to be cooked for 20 to 25 years (the time it took Lasta to understand its significance), and flavored by ingredients as varied as tin tea cans, love letters and small drawings. Here, the soup, and by extension, food in general, is a symbol of familial love…”
“…My Grandmother soup” includes a series of acrylic drawings (“The Table Series”) that combine soup-related items-checkered tablecloth patterns, a spoon- with Lasta's’ long-standing interest in lines and forms in space.
She takes these acrylic drawings one step further in “Dialogs of Diversity”, a smaller shoe work’s by members of the Latino Artist Cooperative on the second floor of the d.p. Fong Gallery. There, Lasta’s drawing becomes collages that use old photograph, bits of checkered cloth, tissue and feathers. In the best of them, “Uncle Nappy” and “Aunt Rosa”, the figures, cut from old warm-toned photographs, stand like old souls rocketed forward in time to a bright pastel world…”(See Attachment).
1987 Susana Lasta”, Critique by Osiris Chierico, in the book “40 Dibujantes Argentinos”, Pgs. 234-241. Editorial Actualidad en el Arte, Buenos Aires (See attachment: Chierico)., Catalog.
“The younger artists are represented by a greater combinatory freedom of elements of all these imaginary zones. Thus, Lavallen, DiCiervo, Lasta or López have a discourse that can be read as overlapping or linear messages that always refer to each other”. (See Attachment Raul Vera Ocampo), Catalog
1977 "A Treasure of Hispanic Cultures", A modern master of an ancient art, Critique by Jacqi Tully, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Sunday, May 1, 1997, Section F-Page One. (See Attachment).
"Tucson Fitting Site to open exhibition" “Tucson embraced and mirrors the traditions of Hispanic Cultures. Befitting that tradition, the first national exhibit to display the work of contemporary Hispanic artists of the United State will be premiered in the Old Pueblo next Sunday. "Raices Antiguas/Visiones Nevas" mark the start of a two year tour of mayor Museum and universities throughout the country. Afte Tucson, the show moves on to the Smithsonians Institution's National Collection of Fine Art, the Museum of Albuquerque, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and the Everson Museum in Syracusse, NY. Ninety-one works of art by over 80 artists make up the exhibit, will all areas of the United States and Puerto Rico rep. resented. Four Tucsonians have been selected to display work: photographers Luis Bernal and Jose Galvez, painter Susana Lasta, and folk costume crator Rogelio Valdovin...” (See Attachment, Jacqi Tully)
1976 "Drawing: The Roots Of Images" Opens At The University of Arizona, Critique by Adina Wingate, Star Art Writer, The Arizona Daily Star, Page two-Section G
“…Lasta incorporates her brand of realism with strong narrative style that is rich in the folklore history of South American culture and mythology...""... Lasta’s drawing are mature; she bridges her representational mode of drawing with inventive story-telling images in a style that is uncluttered and evocative.” (See Attachment, Adina Wingate)
1976 Susana Lasta, Critique by Cesar Lopez Osornio, Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota, Colombia Sep-Oct.
“Susana Lasta sabe que no es en la superficie ni declamando ideas, ni conformándose con reproducciones, donde se agita su ser, sino indagando en la latencia germinal….Ella persigue, desde su conciencia sumida, perpetuarse como símbolo de la vida nueva en un lenguaje y estilo que la define y la una para siempre al destino de los hombres…” (See Attachment, Cesar Lopez Osornio), Catalog.
1976 “Lasta Drawings Display Skill”, Critique by David Hoyt Johnson, Arizona Daily Wildcat, Wednesday, January 28, Tucson.
As part of the "Drawings: The Root of Images" exhibition currently on display throughout the Student Union, 17 pencil drawings by Susana Lasta view with photographs of University luminaries for the passerby attention in the Second-Floor Hall of Fame League. “BIRDS AND THE OLD Maid" is the shortest, alternately juxtaposing stylized birds and Indians peasant women to disproportionately large eggs. Though less obvious, surrealistic elements are also present in the other drawings..." (See Attachement, David Hoyt Johnson)
1975 "Susana Lasta, Pituras y Dibujos", Critique by Cesar Lopez Osornio, Galeria Lorenzutti, Santa Fe 2844, Buenos Aires, Argentina
“Susana Lasta irrumpe en la plástica Argentina como el agua en los campos. Pinta porque el mundo ha grabado en ella la “marca de lo visible” y hace presente esa marca como manera de surgir desde el misterio de las formas expresadas. Convive con el polen, los frutos y las plantas, es vidente y observada. Sus mujeres encorvadas por el peso de los frutos recogidos, sus hamacas estables y sus hilos enhebrados en raíces de memorias y mantos para el niño, se ubican con sus pájaros en el espacio de las telas, sin tiempo…digamos como esperando que el misterio se revele de continuo...” (See Attachment, Cesar Lopez Osornio).
"La Plata tiene su arte propio, muy singular por cierto. Claro está que sus artistas asimilaron las propuestas de las metrópolis , y aun fueron definidos por ellas; pero el sentido de lo intransferible que se manifiesta en el color, cierta simplicidad formal y una gran dosis de proyección teórica les dan un lugar en la plástica argentina e internacional. Solitarios que emigraron rápidamente o gregarios que se unieron sin perder su individualidad, forman esa buena base de amplio espectro que no implica cotar nombres - que están en el consenso de todos - mas aún cuando se trata de ampliarlo con la presentacion de un grupo nuevo..." “...En arte lo primero es la comprensión de imágenes porque; “sin imágenes no hay ideas y la civilización muere lenta pero inevitablemente.” Amato, Bianconi, Grioni, Lasta, Manganiello, Rossetti y Tartarini son promesas de belleza. Tal vez descubramos en ellos donde abrevaron; mas ésto es el proceso de la vida que persiste un clamor de una sociedad por nacer con hombre alimentados por la imaginacion…”(See Attachment, Cesar Lopez Osornio).
1974 "Premio Marcelo de Ridder", Critique by Samuel Oliver, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina, (See attachment), Catalog, Pagina 15.
1973 "Premio Marcelo de Ridder", Critique by Samuel Oliver, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina, (See attachment, Samuel Oliver, Catalog.