ENTRE DOS LUNAS
Antes de cruzar la calle compro una revista Scientific American y leo: “We often think of the moon as a place, but in fact it is a hundred million places, an archipelago of solitude.”
Al poco tiempo de instalarme en New York, en 1987, pinte un cuadro azul y muy oscuro, al que titule "Entre dos lunas". Recuerdo que por entonces muchas noches caminaba hasta la mitad del puente Williamsburg y, frente a la luna, me apoyaba en las barandillas metálicas del puente para mirarla. Observaba también su reflejo, invertido, jugueteando nervioso sobre las oscuras aguas del East River.
En ese reflejo comencé, poco a poco, a reconocer la "otra luna", aquella que se vería desde el otro lado del azul, el lugar que yo había dejado. Me sentía bien allí, entre ambas lunas, y el puente era quizás una metáfora, un "no lugar", un transito que explicaba bastante bien como me sentía.
Han pasado muchos años desde entonces y en innumerables ocasiones he continuado observando las dos lunas, tanto desde Saro (España), donde paso parte del año pintando, como desde aquí. Ahora, en New York, ya no voy al puente a mirarlas, me conformo con verlas desde la terraza del edificio donde pinto. Y me es ya casi imposible aislarlas y conseguir ver una sola luna, porque siempre al intentarlo, me aparece junto a ella la imagen de la otra, la luna que vería desde la otra terraza de mi estudio.
BETWEEN TWO MOONS
Before crossing the street I buy an issue of Scientific American and read: “We often think of the moon as a place, but in fact it is a hundred million places, an archipelago of solitude.”
Not long after moving to New York, in 1987, I made a blue painting, very dark, which I titled “Between Two Moons.” I recall that on many nights back then I would walk to the middle of the Williamsburg Bridge and, standing before the moon, I’d lean against the metal railing to gaze on it. I would also watch its reflection, inverted, nervously playing on the dark waters of the East River.
In that reflection I began, little by little, to recognize the “other moon,” the one that could be seen from the other side of the blue, the place that I had left. I felt good there, between the two moons, and the bridge was perhaps a metaphor, a “non-place,” a way station that explained quite well how I was feeling.
Many years have passed since that time, and on countless occasions I’ve continued to observe the two moons, both from Saro (Spain), where I spend part of the year painting, and from here. Now, in New York, I no longer go to the bridge to view them; I’m content to watch them from the balcony of the building where I paint. And it’s now almost impossible for me to isolate them and manage to see only one moon, because whenever I try, before me appears the image of the other, the moon that I would see from the other balcony of my studio.
-text by Juan Uslé
