Pop Psychology and Picasso: An Interview with Jason Boyd Kinsella On His Artistic Roots

interview by Oliver Kupper
intro by Chimera Mohammadi

In the furnace of adolescence, Jason Boyd Kinsella’s world fell apart into the neat building blocks of identity that make up the Myers-Briggs personalities. Thirty years later, he’s finding new ways to put the pieces back together again in geometric patterns. In his portraits, smooth, inorganic shapes against flat backgrounds become vivid, abstracted bodies, occupying startling emotional space. The tension between inhuman and intimate is amplified by the contrast between his clear reverence for the Old Masters and his own unique brand of decidedly modern cubism. Kinsella’s exploratory practice responds to the deterioration of visual truth in the Internet era by seeking the psyche of each sitter. Melding cool modernity with rich intuition, Kinsella’s ever-evolving expressions of personhood have enkindled the excitement of an international audience.

OLIVER KUPPER: It would be great to start with your later-in-life career as a fine artist and your 30-year hiatus. How long have you been painting, and what was the initial impetus to leave your previous career and dedicate yourself to fine art full-time?
JASON BOYD KINSELLA: Fine art has always been the primary compass in my life. After graduating from university with my Fine Arts degree, I got a job in advertising, which was a fun way to use my creativity. I sharpened my creative tools across multiple mediums and I got to work with some incredibly talented people who taught me a lot about craft, ideation and creative discipline. In many ways, it was a creative masterclass.
While I was working in advertising, I still painted and drew in my home studio, but I never showed that work. I just created for myself. 
In 2019, my artwork took a very surprising shift. Almost overnight, my painting began to take on a deeper personal meaning and purpose. The intersection between my studies of the Old Masters, my fascination with psychology and MBTI, and my work experience suddenly collided on the canvas. I knew intuitively that something special was happening, so I threw myself into it completely and never looked back.

KUPPER: You describe your works as psychological portraits. What is it about psychology versus physical attributes that interests you more?
KINSELLA: We live in a world where you can’t completely trust what you see or hear. A person’s true likeness can be altered with Photoshop, digital filters, or even plastic surgery. People can hide who they really are behind an augmented version of who they want to be. This is the undependability of a portrait of the flesh. My practice is concerned with discovering the most authentic depiction of the self by way of the psychological portrait, where everything is laid bare.

KUPPER: When did geometry enter the field in your oeuvre of psychological portraits? 
KINSELLA: After university, I developed a deep passion for modern art. Once I discovered artists like Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens, Picasso, and Henry Moore, a light suddenly switched on in my mind. I couldn’t resist the art of subtraction because of its sober directness. I didn’t set out to incorporate geometry into my work, but I guess it makes sense that it would become a central element in my oeuvre. 

KUPPER: You received the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator book as a child, which would have a profound influence on your work—what was it about this book that fascinated you so much and who originally gifted it to you? 
KINSELLA: It’s funny how the mind works. My mother gave me a book when I was a teenager called, Please Understand Me, which was a book about the Myers-Briggs personality indicator. It included a self-test which I took, I quickly learned everything about the building blocks of my personality (INFJ), and it was a startlingly accurate self-portrait. I couldn’t believe that I could be reduced to these psychological building blocks and then assembled into 1 of 16 personality types. I remember feeling a bit disillusioned that there were only 16 different personality types on a planet with billions of people.
From that day forward, I don’t think I thought about people the same way. It took many years for that experience to manifest itself in my artwork, but there’s no question that it had – and continues to have – a profound effect.

KUPPER: What do you think you have brought from the world of advertising to painting and what have you left behind? 
KINSELLA: There is no question that, without my experience in advertising, I couldn’t do what I am doing today. I worked with some incredibly creative people that taught me how to get the most out of my ideas. I also learned a lot about psychology and self-discipline. It was those twenty-five years of preparation that enabled me to get the most out of what I do today. I took some great memories and lessons, and I don’t feel that I left anything behind. It was a very natural and necessary progression into my creative journey. 

KUPPER: Your sculpture is really interesting—what is your approach to sculpture versus painting? 
KINSELLA: Some people are surprised to learn that my sculptures always begin as paintings. I find this to be the most intuitive way to flesh out an idea. I really enjoy the interactivity and exploration that a sculpture offers the viewer. Every vantage point of the sculpture offers new insights into the subject's personality. It’s no surprise to me that some of my biggest influences are sculptors, furniture designers and architects (Moore, Lipchitz, Juhl, and Hadid, Gehry, Picasso, Wegner etc…)

KUPPER: Where do you start with a portrait—is it a jumble of imagined geometry, or do you have specific visages in mind? 
KINSELLA: When I start a portrait, I don’t think visually. I just focus on the feeling about a person and then I let my hand interpret that feeling. The results are always surprising and unexpected.

KUPPER: How do the Old Masters and other influences play into your work? 
KINSELLA: My formative influences have a big range. My schooling was primarily the Old Masters. That’s where I developed a strong affinity with portraiture, especially with the work of Rembrandt, Dürer, Jan van Eyck, Hans Holbein and Caravaggio. Their work was always loaded with mystery and emotion. I also was drawn to the work of Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn – more for the elegance and simplified palettes.

KUPPER: What role does color play in your paintings?
KINSELLA: Color is very important to my work. It is a key element in conveying a sitter’s emotions. 

KUPPER: How do you navigate the tension between creativity as a personal outlet versus art as a means of communication with an audience?
KINSELLA: I am in a quiet conversation with each painting while I make it. It’s a highly personal and intimate process that doesn’t include anyone other than myself and the subject. When I paint I never think about the audience because I am making the work for myself.
But sculpture is different. I definitely consider the audience when I am making a sculpture because I want the work to be accessible for everyone. Things like scale and the point of view are important to consider so as to enable people to interact with the work in the most personal way possible. 
Digital is also different. Often I will think about how people can interact with the work on digital platforms to potentially take ownership over a piece. (Especially on mobile phones).

KUPPER: Your work has been received with enormous positivity—not only amongst an art audience, but also collectors. How has your perception of success in art changed over your career?
KINSELLA: I am deeply grateful that my work resonates with people. That positivity really energizes me. A big part of my life has been spent visiting museums, galleries and reading art books, so it is very fulfilling to see that my work has found a place alongside the people and places that I venerated for so long. It fills me with a lot of joy. I just continue to make the work for myself, while continually pushing into the unknown to see what I can find. 

KUPPER: In your latest exhibition at Perrotin, Emotional Moonscapes, your paintings existed on multiple floors and within multiple mediums—where do you see the future of your paintings? Any unexplored mediums?
KINSELLA: Over the past five years my work has evolved in craft, medium and narrative. It’s hard to say for sure what things will look like in the future, but finding new and relevant ways to express my visual language is central to energizing my practice, and I will continue to lean into that everyday.

Both Sides Of The Street: Jason Stein On The Art Of The Auction

MOTOROLA
50XC Radio
1940
marbleized green and butterscotch catalin
height 6 1/2in (16.5cm); width 9 1/2in (24cm); depth 6 1/2in (16.5cm)
US$ 5,000 - US$ 7,000
£ 3,600 - £ 5,100
€ 4,200 - € 5,900

interview by Oliver Kupper

Jason Stein, Director of Modern Decorative Art and Design at Bonhams, grew up in the world of astrology and birth charts in Los Angeles’ growing New Age scene. His mother was a co-founder of The Aquarius Group, and his father was a department store manager. This amalgam wound up being a perfect formula for his work in the secondary market, first as an intern at Sotheby’s and finally at Bonhams where he is immersed in a universe of rare and beautiful objects that span movements, thoughts, trends, and design history. Ahead of this week’s Modern Design | Art auction, which has a focus on rare Bakelite radios and Mexican surrealist artists, like Leonora Carrington, we spoke to Stein about his fascinating role as design guru at Bonhams, avoiding fakes, and the return of maximalism. 

OLIVER KUPPER Let’s start at the beginning. Your mother was a well-known astrologer and your father sold clothing. Is that right?

JASON STEIN My mom founded this organization with her friends called the Aquarius Workshops. In the ‘50s, my mother and some of her astrologer friends would go up into Laurel Canyon. They were taught astrology by this woman named Kio, who was this incredible personality, and she imparted everything she knew upon this group of women. And then Kio died really young. So, my mother and others carried on the tradition and created this organization that defined the criteria and started vetting for people getting into astrology. They had all sorts of courses. They also had a magazine called Aspects. So, I grew up in this house where until maybe weeks before my mom passed, people would come every Tuesday, and she would assign birth data to work up a chart. People were always around coming for charts. She had so many clients.

KUPPER And this was on the cusp of the New Age scene in Los Angeles.

STEIN It was definitely in line with Bodhi Tree, which was this metaphysical bookstore that was on Melrose. She was one of the people on file there. And my dad was a retailer. He worked his way up to managing these midsized department store chains that are no longer around. So I grew up doing inventory essentially.

KUPPER So, both those things tied into your interest in art and cataloging.

STEIN Yeah, for sure. And, you know, we would go to exhibits when they came out—usually at LACMA. Often it would be some sort of blockbuster that would come through town, or some of my mom's friends were into collecting, and would tell us about openings.

LOT 122
WIFREDO LAM (1902-1982)
Untitled
1957
watercolor and ink on paper, signed 'Wi Lam' and inscribed 'PARA MI AMIGO LODI/MARACAIBO 1957' lower right
sheet 14 x 9 3/4in (35.5 x 24.7cm)
US$ 10,000 - 15,000
£ 7,300 - 11,000

KUPPER And you knew you wanted to get into the auction world when you went on a trip to the South Pacific?

STEIN I went to Cal State Northridge, and I started off being a radio and television film major, and then switched to speech communication. I wanted to have a broader major in case I didn't stay here or wanted to do something else, but I was not thinking about art or auctions at all. It really was on this trip that all of that happened. We went to Tahiti, and Bora Bora, and Moorea. When we were out on Moorea, among these garden huts, I met this guy who ended up being a very senior specialist from Sotheby's that had just quit his job. He and his wife specialized in Early European Works of Art, porcelain and glass at Sotheby's. So, I would just listen to their stories of the auction business, and after talking to them, I really was in love, and I could not stop thinking about these jobs they were leaving behind. When I got back to Los Angeles, there was a woman named Kathy Watkins and she was the local Sotheby's rep in Beverly Hills. Kathy had amazing energy, grace, presence, and she really radiated. We talked once or twice, she invited me over for a meeting, and I was even more captivated. I had never been in this environment at all, and I just wanted to be there so badly. After the meeting, she invited me to come back and meet the whole office. Kathy was the head of decorative arts, and I interned there for a little under a year. Then I went into contemporary art just to see what that was like, but I really felt more drawn to furniture and decorative arts. Then from going on field trips with Kathy to Butterfield and Butterfield, which became Bonhams, I became an intern here, and that’s how it started.

KUPPER Would you say there's a defining difference between the two auction houses?

STEIN Sotheby's, and really Christie's, both of them were small branch offices in California but were primarily based in New York, whereas Butterfield and Butterfield was a full-scale, fully-operating, local auction house that had no large presence elsewhere. It was an old California auction house from San Francisco that was founded in the 19th century off of Gold Rush era money. It really had options in a myriad of categories, whether it was furniture and decorative arts, or even books and wine.

KUPPER How do you define the difference between decorative art and fine art for someone who might not know the difference?

STEIN So, fine arts I typically think of as paintings, prints, photography, and sculpture. Then in the decorative arts, we would have furniture pieces, objects, textiles, and applied arts that are outside of the fine art worlds. The lines are a little blurry these days because there are certainly designers or makers that I offer in what you might call a modern decorative art and design sale, but also could be sold in a contemporary art auction.

In recent years, there are a lot of people in the ceramics world that go back and forth, like Betty Woodman. We recently had this Betty Woodman triptych in our auction in January and interest really came from both worlds, whether it was design collectors or contemporary art people. And I know when you go to the art fairs, Woodman is shown at Art Basel on one side and Design Miami across the street.

LOT 103
GEORGE NELSON (1908-1986)
High Action Office Architect's Desk
1964
for Herman Miller, walnut and ash, polished aluminum, chrome-plated steel, laminated plastic, vinyl, with foil circular manufacturer's tag
height 44in (112cm); width 65 1/2in (166cm); depth 32in (81.2cm)
US$ 2,000 - 3,000
£ 1,500 - 2,200

KUPPER I've been seeing ceramics cross between those two lines over and over again these days.

STEIN Yes, there are a lot of ceramicists crossing the lines, but there are also makers in other media, like Ruth Asawa and Diego Giacometti that have been embraced by fine art collectors, and the same applies to non-ceramic artists like Ruth Asawa too. Certainly her pieces could easily be offered in a designer sale, but it's firmly in the contemporary art scene at this point. And Giacometti too.

KUPPER So, I want to talk about the appraisal process. Is there a specific formula to the appraisal process? Is it provenance? Is it historical significance? Is there a formula that you have?

STEIN There are so many things that go into evaluating a piece. First, you can look at the artist or maker just as a launching point. And what is it specifically? Is it a piece that is recognizable as being the work of a certain maker, designer, artist, or is it atypical? You're looking to make comparisons based on other examples that have come up in the past. You also look at the condition and authenticity. And, as you mentioned, provenance — the history of owners — is key, especially with certain designers and makers. We ideally would love to know all of the steps from where the piece started. So, it's often a fact-finding mission when tracing the lineage.

Other things that I look at will be the aesthetic quality of a piece. How beautiful is it? Certain pieces in a designer or maker's body of work really will speak to you and collectors more, whether it's a piece of furniture that is carved in a particular way, or has a certain patina. I mean, look at the world of Tiffany lamps. After this, I spend a good portion of my time on various databases doing comparisons and looking at similar examples that have sold in recent years and come up with a value range. If there's a piece that is a particular kind of Tiffany lamp, like a floral Tiffany, I would look at what sort of flower that is, and I can judge based on that and other lamps that have come up internationally on the market over a two-to-three year period. And I look at the color choices, and I'll look at the diameter of the shade, and then sort of plug the data in to see what the presale estimate was, versus what the item ultimately hammered for, and also I keep in mind factors like buyer's premium. So, I look at how close to an auction house's appraisal a piece ultimately sold for. If they've exceeded the estimate, or if it didn't sell, I have to reevaluate an estimate range and come up with a new one.

KUPPER In terms of authenticity, have you dealt with a lot of people trying to offer fakes? And how have you gone about discovering them?

STEIN You know, most people that would have something that is fake, or let's say it looks like there’s a spurious mark, may not know that they actually have something that is a reproduction. The lion's share of those people come to you in good faith. They probably inherited the piece or they acquired it. And in my position, you really have to do the due diligence and evaluate the piece, both internally with our team of specialists that have great collective knowledge, and on occasion, you could seek outside counsel from people who specialize in particular artists or designers. There are vetting committees for particular makers and you just go through the process and let the committee decide, and then we convey that news to our client.

KUPPER Especially with multiples or furniture, it seems like it could be tricky.

STEIN One thing that I specialize in is custom works of interior design—often pieces that came out of a particular commission, whether it was an interior designer doing a full house commission, or an architect that would also design the furniture for that house. That's when lineage is so important. Back in the day, if you were working with a really big interior designer that was doing a custom design scheme, working throughout the house, there were invoices that would list everything out. So, whenever someone comes to me with a piece and one of these invoices from the fifties or sixties, it's amazing because you have what you need. No one is going to challenge it. But sometimes I've seen pieces that are meant to be by a particular person, and sometimes you have a feeling that it's not. Then, you really have to go through, and you're doing lots of comparisons, and looking at the materials, and how something was built, and it's a very different approach than if something doesn't have the backstory.

LOT 17
TIFFANY STUDIOS (1899-1930)
Crab Inkwell
circa 1902
patinated bronze, shell, with glass liner, stamped 'TIFFANY STUDIOS NEW YORK 23547 L1' with maker's monogram
height 3 1/2in (8.8cm); width 8in (20.3cm); depth 8in (20.3cm)
US$ 7,000 - 9,000
£ 5,100 - 6,500

KUPPER There's been some interesting trends in art and design furniture over the past decade. Mid-Century made a huge comeback and then Memphis. What do you think people are hungry for now?

STEIN Over the last year or so, I am really seeing a return to the Arts and Crafts movement. When I got into the business in Hollywood, there were very big collectors of the Arts and Crafts movement—circa 1908 Craftsman. There were really some of the most important collections. Some of them lived here in California, whether they were from families that inherited them or in the industry, who acquired the best examples. So, like you said, with Mid-Century, they came in, and a lot of people shifted their focus and Mid-Century became the most desirable for several years. It's truly remarkable that recently I've been seeing pieces from Arts and Crafts—furniture or ceramics—bring several times the estimate.

KUPPER Who are some examples in that movement that are making a comeback.

STEIN: Certain types of Grueby [The Grueby Faience Company, founded in 1894, was an American ceramics company that produced distinctive American art pottery vases]. Also, you’re seeing Newcomb Pottery [Newcomb Pottery, also called Newcomb College Pottery, was a brand of American Arts & Crafts pottery produced from 1895 to 1940], things that are rare and unusual. So that is something that has been forming, I'm truly seeing it in the results. And there's definitely a reinvestigation for certain people. We're certainly looking at Art Nouveau and Deco—there is some activity in the early century. And then, all the while, other pieces made by hand, the American Studio Craft Movement—things that are truly hand-worked at the studio, whether it's in ceramics, think like [Otto] Natzler, or in woodworking, California and [Sam] Maloof, East coast, [George] Nakashima, or like Northern California makers, like JB Blunk, like Arthur Espenet Carpenter, or like Jack Rogers Hopkins from San Diego's scene.

KUPPER Yeah. It seems like the Mid-Century thing was overexposed and burned people out a little bit, because there's so much 20th-century decorative arts to explore and there seems to be a return to maximalism in a weird way.

STEIN So, there is the "more is more" sort of aesthetic. I worked on Tony Duquette's estate years ago, until he passed away, and I was in charge of the estate auction that was done at the time. Tony was definitely one of the great maximalists who would incorporate an early 18th-century piece with something 1960s, and for me, that was a great education.

KUPPER In terms of the collectors that come to Bonhams, are they mostly LA collectors or is it global?

STEIN Truly global. In non-COVID times, there are fun, opening night parties and previews that are going on. There's a lot of energy to the environment at the campus because it's a main building and an annex across Curson, and we'll often exhibit together. I'll have my modern design and art set alongside prints and multiples. On opening night, our clients will go back and forth. So you have people that certainly can come from all over LA or Southern California, and people will occasionally fly in from elsewhere. But it is global.

KUPPER How would you define your own personal taste in decorative arts? Do you have an era that you specifically gravitate to?

STEIN When I started, I was much more pure or minimal, and now I think I call it “textured modernist,” because there are pieces that you collect along the way that ultimately I am layering. So, I like to mix, whether it's Scandinavian modern furniture with ceramics or textiles from Mexico. I like silver. I like studio ceramics, whether they're Japanese studio or American studio. I'm pretty open about that. 

KUPPER There's an auction coming up. Is there a specific theme for that lot?

STEIN Well, the title is Modern Design and Art and it includes all of the great modern movements. You'll see Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, Art Moderne, Mid-Century Modern, Post-Modern, and Contemporary design. We also have an art component in a sort of 360-degree view, how you put together an environment. This sale is a two-session auction. I also have this capsule collection that came in of radios. It's rare Catalin and Bakelite radios. Bonham's has been the auction house to offer some of the most important collections of rare radios that have come up over the last ten to twenty years. You hardly see things like this, especially coming all together, and the impact is big. For that, I think it’s exciting and unusual. And it would be for someone who is truly a radio collector who wants to add a particular piece to their collection, or someone who wasn’t even part of the radio world and wants to add to what they collect. These radios are largely ‘30s and ‘40s. The most important radios are called Air Kings, and the sale has several in really special colors. They were done in 1933 by a designer named Harold Van Doren. We also have a solid Latin American section in paintings. 

KUPPER I saw the Leonora Carrington Chipmunks. Those are really exciting.

STEIN Yeah, we have Leonora Carrington, and there’s a cool surrealist component to the sale. We do really well in this sale category in offering Latin art. I sold a painting a while back in a sale that is certainly a mix of design and art that broke records for a particular Argentinian artist. We hold the world record for this artist, Romulo Maccio, in modern design and art sales. We love Latin American design and art, and whenever we can, we incorporate it into the auctions.

LOT 118
LEONORA CARRINGTON (1917-2011)
Chipmunks Commuting (About to Commune)
ink, pencil and crayon on paper, signed 'Leonora' lower left and titled upper center
image 9 3/4 x 7 1/4in (24.8 x 18.4cm); sheet 10 x 8in (25.4 x 20.3cm)
US$ 5,000 - 7,000
£ 3,600 - 5,100

LOT 116
LEONORA CARRINGTON (1917-2011)
Study for The Chrysopeia of Mary the Jewess
circa 1965
pencil, pen and sepia ink on paper, signed 'Leonora Carrington' lower right
image 8 3/4 x 9in (22.2 x 22.8cm); sheet 10 x 13 3/4in (25.4 x 34.9cm)
US$ 4,000 - 6,000
£ 2,900 - 4,400

KUPPER Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about collecting decorative arts?

STEIN Well, it's always, buy what you love first. Buy pieces that really speak to you. Then you can honor that work, and have pride of place, and you can really enjoy it. When you truly have an association with an item, then it just sort of builds from there. And of course, do your research and contact folks that are specialists; people that do what I do. I'm always happy to tell someone who's starting about a piece and how it relates to other items. I'm always happy to be a guide.

Bonhams’ Modern Design | Art Auction will be held tomorrow, March 25, starting at 10:00 PDT with lot 1 and features an important collection of American radios.

LOT 256
FADA
652 Radio With Insert Grill
1945
blue and yellow catalin
height 6 3/4in (17cm); width 10 1/2in (27cm); depth 6 1/4in (16cm)
US$ 3,000 - 5,000
£ 2,200 - 3,600

LOT 211
HAROLD VAN DOREN (1895-1957)
Rare Air King 66 Skyscraper Radio
1933
molded mint green plaskon with white knobs, globe insert
height 12in (30cm); width 9in (23cm); depth 7in (18cm)
US$ 15,000 - 25,000
£ 11,000 - 18,000

LOT 272
KADETTE
K-26 Clockette
1937
dark blue catalin
height 7 1/2in (19cm); width 8in (20cm); depth 5 1/4in (13.5cm)
US$ 8,000 - 10,000
£ 5,800 - 7,300

LOT 287
SPARTON
500C Cloisonne Radio
1939
blue enameled front with yellow catalin cabinet and chromed metal accents
height 5 1/4in (13.5cm); width 8in (20.5cm); depth 5 1/4in (13.5cm)
US$ 6,000 - 8,000
£ 4,400 - 5,800

The Decorator's Home: An Interview Of Marco Castillo On Cuba's Incomplete Aesthetic Revolution

Interview by Oliver Kupper
Portrait by Summer Bowie
Install images courtesy of UTA Artist Space

Marco A. Castillo’s The Decorator’s Home – his first solo exhibition in the United States after 26 years in Los Carpinteros collective – is a microcosm of the dichotomies and failures of modernism’s utopian ideals. Amid a raging Cold War that extended far beyond the US and the USSR, modernism infused a tinge of fascism disguised as national pride in the name of aesthetics, whether it be the folksy arts and crafts dreams of Frank Loyd Wright, or the concrete and rosewood pavilions of Oscar Niemeyer’s Brasilia. Cuban Modernism offered the same sense of freedom and hope in an embargoed state of isolationism and Marxist fervor. Needless to say, the movement didn’t last long – it sputtered out in the tropical miasma of communism’s last island holdouts. In A Decorator’s Home, Castillo captures this fervor: the dreams of space travel, the dreams of high-minded aesthetics, razor sharp lines, rich wood, and rare materials. All of this is imbued with the paranoia of a global race to the cosmos, and the coded languages of spies trading secrets while their Cuba Libre’s sweat into hotel coasters. In the back of the exhibition, a solemn and heartbreaking film, called Generation, is a symbolic six-minute epitaph for Cuban Modernism’s ambitions, it’s lonely siren songs of paradise, and youth crashed on the shores of their aspirations. In the end, Cuban Modernism’s shipwreck wasn’t due to lack of demand or desire. It was the sense of control that the architect’s of The Revolution – namely Fidel Castro and Che Guevara – needed in order to legitimize their violence and delusions of grandeur. As the movement died, many of the buildings were converted to hospitals, schools, and public works facilities. We got a chance to speak to Castillo about his exhibition, curated by Neville Wakefield, and about his own take on Cuban Modernism’s successes and failures.

OLIVER KUPPER: Where did the name for the show, The Decorator’s Home, come from? 

MARCO CASTILLO: I had been doing research on Cuban Modernity, and there was this generation of designers at the beginning of the revolution that got involved in creating a new static for these people that were going to be the future of this country and the future of the world, because Cuba thought that they would convince the rest of the world to become communist. This needed to have an aesthetic. 

KUPPER: It’s funny how revolutions need an aesthetic.

CASTILLO: This generation designed most of the objects we were supposed to use, like furniture, and also interior design for the spaces, for the workers, for the buses, for the hotels, and for the farmers. But at a certain point, the government stopped being interested in that.

KUPPER: Was it too ambitious?

CASTILLO: I think it was the mood of Fidel Castro. He got radicalized, he got very into Soviet politics, and he militarized the country. And so the static artists became an enemy because they were the creative people. 

KUPPER: Yeah, a little utopian.

CASTILLO: Yes, too liberal. In the seventies, there was censorship for writers. The government destroyed the movement, the design, and the taste. 

KUPPER: How many years was that?

CASTILLO: Twenty years, I would say. In Cuba you have Art Deco, Art Nouveau, but I’m fonder of this utopic moment. People were importing resources from the human past. For the colonial time, they were based on identity and they mixed it with the high-quality design from the northern country.

KUPPER: The northern influence is in your pieces, too.

CASTILLO: Yes, what I’m doing here is basically because this movement was interrupted. This stirred a frustration in all of us; we couldn’t have a complete aesthetic revolution. I behaved like an interior designer at the time, creating my own objects. They are not furniture, and they are not art. They are something in between. 

KUPPER: Object-art.

CASTILLO: Yes, this creates a lot of influence in them. They look like decoration.  

KUPPER: At times it reminds me of Brasília. 

CASTILLO: Yes, except the Brazilians use rosewood, and we use mahogany. Cuba has the most beautiful mahogany. It’s darker than the rest. Also, we have a little bit of the Soviet influence over furniture—more practical. The Brazilians were more like peacocks, more exaggerated at times. 

(walking over to another piece)

KUPPER: What’s that?

CASTILLO: This is the type of wood people use to make cabinets. It smells so good. 

KUPPER: When did you start using caning?

CASTILLO: It was after the Cuban movement. I realized they were using this old material to do things that were very modern. Also, they were doing a lot of screens. There was a very tropical feeling in every piece of furniture—very delicate—you couldn’t really read it immediately. For example, they use a combination of mahogany and white surfaces. It would remind you of a coconut. I did the same here (walks towards screen). I designed the outside of it. I made it white, so it looks a little bit like pieces of coconut. A screen in a very important place called Salon de Protocolo El Laguito, the Protocol Room of El Laguito, inspired this. There is a huge screen that reminds me of this one, but it doesn’t have the alphabet. I added an alphabet because it was sort of an addiction of the Cold War.

KUPPER: Coding…

CASTILLO: Yeah, people really wanted to know these codes; there was lots of paranoia. (laughs) What are they saying? It became almost like art.

KUPPER: Would you consider there to be a Brutalist element to any of these pieces as well?

CASTILLO: You know when you’re dealing with this socialist element, Brutalism is always there. This (pointing to a caning piece with stars) reminds me of our monuments. This is pure Brutalism. 

KUPPER: This is very symbolic.  

CASTILLO: It represents a little bit of the revolution. I come from a country that had a lot of fun—a beautiful, turbulent country. Cuba was very rich in the beginning, but not after the revolution. I represent that as a circle. Simple, beautiful, perfect. It turns into a star, which is a very complex, geometric figure. At the same time, it reminds me of the back or the bottom of a chair. 

KUPPER: What about the rifles?

CASTILLO: The whole exhibition evolves from more abstract work to the more committed, symbolic, and engaged with the later alternative reality. It’s easy for me to imagine that an artist or a designer could have made a poster creating optical art with rifles as a monument, as a creative item. It never happened, and I never saw it, so I made it. 

KUPPER: Was it a military aesthetic?

CASTILLO: There was a moment of militarization. I had to start learning shooting when I was thirteen, and I got these preparations every year until I was eighteen. 

KUPPER: You weren’t going to join the army?

CASTILLO: No, it was not for me. (laughs) I don’t even like weapons. It just fascinated me—the shape of the rifle when you buy it creates a completely different object; it turns into something else. This is an American gun. I think it’s the Springfield. 

KUPPER: It’s a pretty common rifle.

CASTILLO: My grandfather had it. It’s the rifle I always saw when I was a child. He was a hunter. You know what we hunt in Cuba? Guinea chicken. 

KUPPER: What’s a Guinea chicken?

CASTILLO: It’s a beautiful animal.

KUPPER: Not like a Guinea pig?

CASTILLO: No (laughs), it’s a chicken, but it’s so beautiful. It’s a very strange animal. It looks like it’s from a patisserie.

KUPPER: Interesting.

KUPPER: (gesturing towards the sculptures across the room) These definitely remind me of the Cold War shapes—space-age shapes. 

CASTILLO: Totally, because all these amazing designs started in that era. 

KUPPER: It was the beginning of these explorations with satellites and this idea of our future in space.

CASTILLO: The future would be space, the future would be socialist, the future would be capitalist, which there was a big doubt about—there was a fight about it.

The Decorator’s Home is on view through July 13 at UTA Artist Space 403 Foothill Rd. Beverly Hills, CA 90210