15th century, the most beautiful examples of which we owe to the engravers of Germany and the Netherlands.

Funnily enough, the sometimes symbolic spirit of his work, which does not disregard religious reference -as in "Cristo entrando a la cancha de Boca" (Jesus Christ Entering Boca Stadium), or "Virgen de los parricidas" (Virgin of the Parricides), not to mention the flaming heart of his own self-portrait- does not escape these antecedents either.

I would say that Brickles's work is something like an update of ancient cults, from the oldest religious manifestations onwards -both pagan and Christian, and devoid of their sacredness to a certain extent-, that exhibit themselves unabashed in Buenos Aires. This does not mean though that, from a different viewpoint, they should not return mythically through the gates of art.

The human couple kissing is a frequent protagonist, not unaware of the pop of Lichtenstein's comics. But in Brickles, it is more plastic, more dramatic, with the added nostalgia that separates tango from jazz.

Wood engravings colored by hand -the way the ancients did it, and among us, often Antonio Berni- have an extraordinary power, that is, out of the ordinary; we could remember Munch here.

If the aforesaid is true of the paper copy, what can we say about the actual woodcut, which constitutes an authentic relief, when it is illuminated with colors, that apart from black, are predominately primary colors -red and yellow in particular.

Iglesias Brickles knows his craft well, and he also knows about the history of art, which he owes to a great extent to his Chilean ancestry, fortified by
the invigorating airs of his native Curuzu Cuatia. Excellent antecedents, which our schools of Fine Arts could not tame. Brickles is -and will always be, without a doubt- a feral artist of those that do not run away galloping through the hills. Inevitably though, works so beautiful and personal did not go unnoticed by his contemporaries: Brickles has a long list of awards, the greatest of which is, undoubtedly, the grace that allows him to give shape to more inspired images every time. On an enormous polychromatic woodcut, he pays homage to the "Manao tupapau" of Gauguin -another feral artist whose wood engravings can also be mentioned as a valid antecedent of this show, which was exhibited at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires.

La Nacion, Buenos Aires, March 4, 1995


LOST PARADISES
By Ana Maria Battistozzi

In the age of mass production, Iglesias Brickles refuses to abolish the original. His xilopinturas1 display the unique mark of the craft, eliminate copies, reveal the transformed secrets of wood and impose the rage of color in contrast to postmodern neutralism, The halftones of the age are reversed everywhere: a sudden cut, a suspended expression or the invading specter of a shade. The negative turns to positive and in its hidden interplay there is something that seems to play around with time. Nothing but the dissident fatalism of the end of the century.

His images move on the verge of reversal through escapes to other times and other depths. The graphics of the 1920s, Aida Carballo, Giorgio De Chirico, Marechal, Masaccio, the language of the marginal avantgarde, and Hockney's gloomy centrality sketch out a retraced path in search of meaning.

Iglesias Brickles's art, which comes from a thorough and ironic observation of the porteno2 stereotype braves to unearth -in these workscontents fallen into disuse. Some symbols taken from the history of art are used as a means of reflection. Paraisos perdidos (Lost Paradises), Masaccio, and Gauguin alike exhibit the current sense of nostalgia. A regressive impulse that grows to the beat of uncertainty while the