Hunter Drohojowska, " Raul Guerrero: Poetic License" L.A. Weekly, Dec. 1982.

Narrative art can be deadly, stiff with demands of literal interpretation. Raul Guerrero avoids this trap by presenting his visual stories through innuendo, thus retaining a quiet vitality. As with most interesting storytelling, the themes are both autobiographical and universal. An exhibition of his prints, paper cutouts and installations is on view at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art through December 17.

A mesmerizing installation aptly titled Poet and Audience employs the narrative in a suggestive rather than an explicit manner. At the end of a long room, the viewer is greeted by a black panel, in the center of which are a pair of glass eyes beneath a black velvet mask. these luminescent eyes peering from the darkness beg the viewer's participation. A stool and a chair stand facing the eyes, flanked by a pair of spotlights. One sits on the stool, "eye to eye" with the panel, and notices that, resting on the chair, are five pages made of hammered pewter, blank save for the numbers on through five etched a the top in Portuguese. Several thoughts occur. Seated as the "poet," one has reversed the relationship of audience to art. The panel on the wall is the audience and the seated view has become the art. One is suspended in the sensation of being seen, facing blank text and blank eyes.

Simultaneously, the glass covering the panel reflects one's dark shadow in such a way that one is also seen in a mirror, with the glassy eyes having replaced one's own. It's a Doppelganger, and one's perception rocks back and forth, as audience, then artist, and back. The installation raises questions of identity, removing barriers between object and subject.

The formal aspects of inquiry, softened by a poignant idealism, permeate all of Guerrero's work, at times successfully, at times not. for example, there is Guerrero's other installation titled The Sea (I've been Floating in these Waters for 3 1/2 Billion Years). A terracotta owl - his eyes latched onto those behind the mask in the installation at the other end of the room - is perched in a branch resting on a rectangular bed of sand. The branch, rather fleshy and orange, somehow looks more like a twisted human limb. At one side of the sand, a broken bottle lies in an acrylic ooze of ocean beneath which one can make out an oceanographic map of the Channel Islands. The bottle, washed up the eternal tides, seems to have released a message, received only by the viewer and the owl, whose wisdom is silent.

At this, one wants to cry out, " Alright! I get it!" In other words Guerrero's probing intensity remains but the installation is so straightforward in its presentation that nothing is left to the viewer's imagination. The work has been rendered little more effective than an exhibit in the natural history museum. Fortunately, the rest of Guerrero's works on paper more or less retain his desired sense of ambiguity.

Much of the artist's recent work is influenced by his residence in San Diego. That seaside community, catering to tourism and the U.S. Navy, is replete with tales of gain and loss. A triptych of line drawings cut out of paper in the patriotic scheme of red, white and blue, provides such a drama. In the first, a red panel, a woman at the train station looks with longing at a man going off in a sailor's uniform. The second, a white panel, depicts a simple graveyard of strong square tombstones. In the third, a blue panel, a man on an island gazes out to sea, while a pair of natives dance wildly in the background. He is a Gaugin figure, no doubt, as his easel and paints are also prominently displayed. A romantic saga?...soon one sees beyond the story to the metaphors of life, death and resurrection, an on the creative plane, the artist who shuns safety, and braves a psychological danger equivalent to death, in order to gain freedom.

Guerrero's preoccupation with adventure and investigation, literal messages veiled in ambiguity, continue in a group of four aqua silkscreen's, again of a sailor and ship coming to disaster, as well as in a series of prints made from black scratch board drawings. These latter have the same refined linear space, defined in white on black, in complex compositions of exotic locales such as a cafe in Tangiers, a studio in Berlin.

In all, Guerrero's exhibition runs a risky course around the dangers of the excessively literal, and for the most part, it is done successfully. An intelligent thorough line of investigation, both visual and conceptual, has been pursued, but not to any logical conclusion. The search itself is both inspiration and product leaving us with an exhibition with no endings. Guerrero leaves his viewers in a state of enigma and wonderment.

Robert McDonald, "Raul Guerrero at Quint Gallery," Images & Issues, April 1982.

Eight works by Raul Guerrero - silkscreen prints of scratch board drawings, sculptures, and a book - presented super elegant formal compositions combined with familiar representational content. Madrugada: Nueva York is an image of trash containers in a concrete canyon at dawn. Estudio: Berlin depicts a cluttered corner of a room whose furnishings and scattered objects - a bed, television set, lamp, locker chest, knapsack, shoes - are crisscrossed by a diagonal grid, a pattern super-imposed by a multi paned window overhead. Accidente: Monte Alban yields barely enough information to explain the narrative: an image of two startled girls in an automobile is pervaded by a sense of alarm. Cafe: Tangier is an exotic scene of domes and minarets crossed by sinuous, swills of smoke that a child versed in The Arabian Nights might read as emerging genies but that adults would recognize as something less magical. A block-letter sign explains: Le kif detruit le corps et l'esprit - marijuana destroys the body and the soul. Desayuno (breakfast): inglewood is a common scene at Winchell's donuts. The artist's use of minimal means belies the narrative evocativeness and emotive poetry of these images.

Guerrero's book, Impressions of Three Cities - Berlin, New York, San Diego, is a handsomely spare, although garishly colored, collection of three brief poems and full page images that amusingly present the essence of the three cities, respectively, Sturm und Drang, faux chic, and polyester. Of San Diego, Guerrero, who grew up in National City, wrote: "Went to J.C. Penny's today. Bought / myself a chambray shirt, 65 percent polyester, / 35 percent cotton. Going to wash it, put it / on, then to the Westerner, to pick / up a dolly."

In yet another medium, a sculpture entitled Wood became a metaphor for frustration. What appeared to be a wood plank was really trompe l'oeil painted steel. A hammer and bent nails lay scattered on the base to unfool the eye.

This sort of mixed exhibition is usually dissatisfying, giving the impression that the artist lacks clarity of intention. For all its variety, however, this show revealed the artist's maturity. Guerrero knows what he wants to do; he selects the forms and materials that are most eloquent for the purposes.

Hunter Drohojowska, "Raul Guerrero, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art," L.A. Weekly, March 1983.

Too often, narrative art is stiff with he demands of literal interpretation. Raul Guerrero avoids such a trap by presenting his visual tales through innuendo, and so his prints, paper cutouts and installations retain a quiet vitality, and tempt multiple interpretations. A triptych of line drawings, the spare outlines of the figures cut out of colored paper, suggest a romantic drama of loss and gain. In the first, a red panel, a woman watches with longing as a sailor leaves to board a train. The second, white panel, depicts an austere graveyard. The third, blue panel, features the same man on a desert island, gazing out to sea. He is something of a Guagin figure, one supposes, since an easel and paints are evident in the background. The unconventional use of cut-out paper recalls a static sort of souvenir technique, which is counteracted by the elegant quality of the line. The unusual combination draws the viewer's interest beyond the obvious, to secondary and tertiary explanations. The story reads as a metaphor of life, death and resurrection, or, more intimately, the artist who scorns safety and braves a psychological danger equivalent to death in order to gain freedom. These metaphorical, personal interests emerge again in Guerrero's installation, Poet and Audience.

In the center of a large, black enamel panel, a pair of glass eyes gleam beneath a black velvet mask. These eyes rivet the viewer;s attention, beckoning participation. One sits on a stool, "eye to eye" with the panel, noticing five manuscript pages of hammered pewter on the adjacent chair. They are blank save for the numbers one through five etched on the top in Portuguese. Seated as the "poet," one has reversed the relationship of audience to art. The viewer has become the artist, suspended in the sensation of being seen by the relentless glass eyes. Simultaneously, the class covering the panel reflects one's shadow as in a darkened mirror. The doppelganger forces one's perception to vacillate from audience to artist and back again. This Duchampian ploy removes the barriers between subject and object, and raises questions of identity. Guerrero's work pursues and intelligent line of inquiry, spanning autobiographical, art historical, and universal concerns, but avoiding sentimentality.

Hunter Drohojowska, "Obsessions With Symbols, Cliches And Technology," L.A. Weekly, February 1984.

The line between symbol and cliche can be as thin and permeable as a membrane. Because cliches are predicted upon fundamental truths, even as banalities they have universal meaning. Hearts and flowers indicate romance, a skull and crossbones signifies danger. The symbol that is overused becomes cliche, yet cliche employed in a knowing context can regain its power as a symbol. Cliches operate as cultural jargon and like symbols, act as a shorthand for a larger body of information.

In very different ways, Raul Guerrero and William Leavitt are using cliches as personal symbols, hence empowering them with new meaning. The exhibition of their work continues at the Richard Kuhlenschmidt Gallery through February 11.

Guerrero's symbolism is eccentric, eclectic, yet legible. Conceptually, the show is similar to his last, in 1982 at the L.A. Institute of Contemporary Art. The elegant pictures add up to an oblique narrative on the subject of romance and loss. A spare linear image in gradations of aqua and time printed on a black background depicts a pensive woman watching the future in a crystal ball. She sees the proverbial tall dark man being watched by another woman. This intimation of betrayal is echoed by a striking scarlet and black painting rife with common symbols. A three-legged table of voluptuous feminine curves stands before other furniture that has been draped in sheets os though for a period without use. On the table rests a smart martini glass; an empty picture frame; a bottle marked as poison with a death's head cork; and the "poison pen," its ink in bloodlike blots on the table. Over the entire scene is a spider web, the pattern of entrapment or musty age, and the words "Ha, ha, ha...." The message conveyed by a common symbols is as obvious as the plot of a B-Movie, but is also smacks of revelation, as though the artist were using his work as a diary. Three smaller etchings depict a faceless woman's bust, a flickering candle, a sword curved into an S-shape that resonate on a more esoteric plane as though providing the ambience for the more active images. Aside from the narrative theme, the five works - all thoughtfully framed - are linked by their formal grace and refinement.