Untitled (man and crowbar) after Carlos Monzón

diptych 2023 oil on wood panel - 14in x 11in x 1.5in

In this small diptych, Bilik marries the tender and the threatening. On one panel, a faceless figure, hands interlaced under chin, elbows resting atop a table; on the other, a shadowed object, edges softened and details rendered indecipherable by overlaid brushstrokes. Carlos
Monzón—referenced in the artwork title—was an Argentine professional boxer (1942–95) successful in the sport but known for killing his second wife Alicia Muñiz and his serial domestic abuse of women. The crowbar Bilik obscures with a dreamlike haziness on the left panel was a personal gift to the artist from a friend. With the allusion to Monzón guiding one’s interpretation, the tool might suggest a certain violence, yet the object’s true history and the soft fluidity with which it was painted complicate the absolutism of that harshness. Unnamed and unidentified, the man in this painting has the freedom and opportunity to write a different narrative than that of Monzón.