MADRON

The Box was featured in MADRON GALLERY BULLETIN: ISSUE 20 // 3.4.2025.

Out of the Box

When Aaron Bohrod returned to the U.S. after years as a war correspondent for Life and the Army Corps of Engineers during WWII, he began a series of trompe l’oeil (literally “trick the eye”) paintings that would become the predominant style of the remainder of his artistic career, in stark contrast to his earlier social realist works. The Box is an early example of Bohrod’s artistic turn. It includes some of the classic elements of trompe l’oeil (objects pinned to other objects, a musical instrument, crinkled paper that makes you want to reach out and smooth it, a dying plant) as well as his uniquely magical touch found in the impossible suspension of the floating boxes. The items assembled revolve around an unexpected theme: the exports and economy of Cuba. Portions of paper bills from the newly established national Banco Central de Cuba adorn the titular box, as does an ad for Belinda cigars, a Cuban tobacco brand that would later disappear with the revolution. Cuba’s coffee finds representation in withered leaves and berries, a strange juxtaposition to the plant’s stimulating effects. Painted circa 1950, The Box in some ways feels like a foreshadowing of Fulgencio Batista’s 1952 coup d’etat (the figurine emerging from the box at the righthand side dons a colonial frock and styled wig, perhaps a nod to the U.S.’s historic meddling in Cuba’s political and military affairs), an overthrow of a fragile democracy that Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner later characterized as opening “a Pandora’s box.”