The Argentine Guillermo Kuitca is deeply engaged with the notion of place, both physical and metaphysical. In the late 1980s, Kuitca began a series of paintings based on city maps and apartment floor plans. Bold in their conception and execution, the works function as profound statements of the human condition. This work is an important example from that series. It depicts a generic house plan with living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, and it functions for Kuitca as a central metaphor for the human organism. While the icy palette of the work suggests emotional detachment and self-containment, the thorns -- an allusion to Christ's crown of thorns -- also suggest a less tolerable state of permanent pain and sacrifice.

Ilona Katzew, 2008