Aesthetics of Collocation & the Women of Bencab

“The society based on production is only productive, not creative.”

~ Albert Camus

Published at Manila Bulletin
Lifestyle Section (Arts & Culture)
Page F 1-2, June 30, 2008

“Mass Culture,” as part of popular culture, produces diverse products for mass consumption. As a commercial culture, it does not follow the principle of economics; instead, it subverts the laws of “supply and demand” by inventing or creating “needs” for the insatiable consumers.

Every day, consumers are bombarded with hundreds of products being advertised on television, newspapers, glossy magazines, internet, billboards, and so forth. The textual and visual images are, aggressively, inescapable!

Most often, the consumer’s capability to make a decision on what or which product to purchase is hindered by a wide array of “product-collocation”, as a result of multiple subliminal messages (textual or visual) that are imbibed in the human psyche and consciousness via mass media advertisements.

“Product-collocation” is a collective display of two or more similar products of different brands, placed side by side for the consumers to choose from.

Every consumer has to make a choice among those presented “product-collocations”, and before an individual can make a decision on what brand or product to purchase, he or she is already suffering from “decisional exhaustion”. When an individual suffers from headache, nausea, or unexplainable anxiety while shopping, it is a symptomatic result, if not the cause, of “decisional-exhaustion”.

In aesthetics, the counterpart of product-collocation is “media-collocation”. It is when two or more mediums are placed side by side as integral part of the pictorial composition.

As an aesthetic device, media-collocation mimics “mass culture”, albeit in an explorative or satirical manner. The best example of both product and media collocations is Andy Warhol’s serial copies of celebrities and branded products in what is known as the aesthetics of “pop art”.

MEDIA-COLLOCATION AS AN AESTHETIC DEVICE

The literal meaning of “collocation” is the close association of things, or the arrangement of things beside each other. The etymology of “collocation” comes from the Latin word “collocatus”, past participle of “collocare”, which means to place or to set side by side in a place or position. “Locus” is the root word of “collocare”, meaning “place” or “position”.

In the corpus of linguistics, “collocation” is defined as the co-occurrence of two or more words that are frequently or typically used together. For example, “herd of cows”, “crystal clear”, “blue sky”, “red sun”, “part and parcel”, etc.

In art, “media-collocation”, as coined and defined by this writer, is the juxtaposition of two or more mediums, arranged sided by side in a single or series of textual or visual composition.

As an aesthetic device, media-collocation elicits discursive interpretation of the binary subjects from referential to the final juxtaposition of the artworks. Media-collocation heightens the portrayal of textual and visual images into a deeper understanding of aesthetic symbol and meaning.

There are two kinds of media-collocation: inductive and deductive. Inductive collocation is to produce the same textual or visual image from the same subject and arrange them either in a linear or layered locus. The deductive collocation, on the other hand, is to extract a symbolic image from textual or visual sources and place the artwork (texts or images) side by side with the referential subject as integral part of the entire aesthetic composition.

A well-known Filipino avant-garde artist who uses both inductive and deductive collocations is Cesare Syjuco. His media-collocation, known as “literary hybrid”, is varied and complex as he explores both textual and visual images alternatively on Plexiglas, board, back-lit frame and boxes with Plexiglas or tarpaulin. His unique art is the multifarious combination of both literary and visual references, using an assemblage of texts and images within a defined space.

Another type of media-collocation can be found in Francisco Viri’s “Abstraction of the Figure”. During his 2005 exhibit at The Crucible Gallery, Viri created a four series of works from realistic to abstract images of the same subject and placed them side by side on the wall. Abstractionist and taxidermist Lindslee uses a unique juxtaposition in his “Figuring Abstraction”. In one of his works, he stuck a sliced taxidermal goat at the center of the canvas with texture, form and color that mimicked the skin of the goat.

Equally arresting is the video animation of painter and performance artist Jevijoe Vitug during the Philippine International Performance Art Festival in 2005 that was organized by Yuan Mor’O Ocampo. From the footage of his performances, he created a series of frame by frame drawings and morphed them into video animation as part of his live art performance.

Perhaps, the most complex and varied presentation of media-collocation was during the Chromatext Reloaded exhibit in 2007 at CCP, organized by PLAC and curated by Jean-Marie Syjuco and Krip Yuson. It was a brilliant and diverse array of textual and visual collocations from holographs to photographs, from illustrations to paintings, and from sculptural to video installations.

Among the participating poets, writers and artists were National Artists Edith L. Tiempo and Virgilio Almario, Jimmy Abad, Merlie Alunan, Tita Lacambra-Ayala, Juaniyo Arcellana, Cirilo Bautista, Butch Dalisay, Ophelia Dimalanta, Marjorie Evasco, Pete Lacaba, Vim Nadera, Danton Remoto, Frank Rivera, RayVi Sunico, Cesare A.X. Syjuco, Jean-Marie Syjuco, Ricky de Ungria, Krip Yuson, and the late Sid Gomez Hildawa, to name a few.

BENCAB’S WOMEN AND HIS MEDIA-COLLOCATION
Typical of Bencab’s works on paper, print and canvas like “Sabel”, “Larawan” and the “Japanese Women” series are, generally, demure and downtrodden but pullulating with majestic presence, pompously garbed in a seemingly stolid and austere manner.

With the exception of some of his works like the Bali sketches of women, which are more elaborate and relaxed with a well-defined facial expression. In the same vein, some of his “Cordillera” women elicit tension and drama with anxious look, muscular arms and body, and exaggerated hands and feet as if laden with hard work.

In his recent exhibit titled “Related Images” at Silverlens Gallery in Makati, Bencab explores and reinvents a new style and technique in his art making. He created a suite of stylish media-collocations, juxtaposing his nude photographs and drawings of women in a dynamic and sensuous manner.

He arranges his nude drawing, in a linear collocation, with the referential subject (photograph), dashes it with a single vertical stroke of color either red or yellow, and the result is elegantly stimulating. The viewer will have difficulty of choosing which of the two collocated mediums is better – the photograph or the drawing.

Bencab does not only explore the visual form and technique in his new series of nudes, he also exploits the technology of digital art as ancillary device to his pictorial composition. He crosses over between the traditional and modern art making and comes up with a unique structure of form, style and mood of his nude subjects.

For instance, in his “Related Images 01”, Bencab uses a negative filtering of nude photograph in digital manipulation, thus, enhancing the sensuality of bodily shape and contours of the female body. In similar manner, the transparent and oblique mass of dark yellow and gestural lines on the nude drawing creates a dynamic interplay between the binary subjects of his composition.

His nude women, in this particular series, are carefully choreographed, reclusive, genteel and, at times, dreamy. There is fluidity and harmonic structure of collocated images in a sumptuous and graceful manner. The artist’s hand and mood is placid and more relaxed as though he is relishing his subject or just having fun during the process of art making.

As a master illustrator, painter, printmaker and photographer, Bencab has created vicarious portraits of women that reflect their nature in different mood, time and epoch. He articulated the strengths and vulnerabilities of women with such passion as though they were his own in a metaphorical sense.

His “Sabel” series, for instance, is an iconic portrayal of a woman in flight, destitute and rootless. Perchance, this is the only series that the artist is so passionate about addressing the social issues in the country, translating the existential angst of the mother nation in flight, laden with adverse economic and political scuffles.

Bencab’s women, in general, are elegant, reticent and existential with a fragile existence yet, they evoke a powerful and enduring presence in his works. Whether they are dressed or naked, the artist conjures up their mystical allure not only as muse in his art, but as an indispensable presence both in his artistic career and his life as a painter.

He has explored and transcended the nuances of forms, moods and colors of his art in such a way that his women are portrayed not as a mere element or adornment in the pictorial composition, but as the very essence and convergence of female’s ontological meaning both in art and in the society.

To sum, Bencab’s recent exhibit is the simulation (drawing), in a philosophical sense, of the simulation (photography) of the simulation of empirical reality (the reference of actual subject), transforming the collocated mediums into a compelling symbol of metaphysical reality.

© Danny Castillones Sillada

-----------------------

Above Arworks: (1) There Are no Hierarchies..., by Cesare Syjuco, (2) Campbell Soup I Portfolio, 1968, by Andy Warhol, (3) Figure with Umbrella, 2005, by Francisco Viri, (4) Nude Variations and Bencab (photo by Erwin Obcemea), (5) Related Images 01 by BenCab, (6) Related Images 03 by BenCab

FIGURING ABSTRACTION: The Shifting of Reality in Lindslee’s Art

“Modern art touches a sore spot, or several sore spots, in the ordinary citizen of which he is totally unaware. The more irritated he becomes at modern art the more he betrays the fact that he himself, and his civilization, are implicated in what the artist shows him.”

-William Barrett, Irrational Man

Published at Manila Bulletin, Lifestyle Section (Art & Culture)

In his insatiable quest for aesthetic meaning, Lindsey “Lindslee” James Lee questions whether abstract art is the end in itself defaced and bereft of figurative elements on a flattened surface of canvas. Or is it an indefinite medium open to a more concrete signification in relation to the image man amid his changing society.

In his provocative paintings and installations with thematic title “Figuring Abstraction”, the artist challenges the normative concept of abstract art as a medium. In the same way, as po-mo (post-modern) art questions whether the image of man is confined within the traditional and conventional belief, or is it shifting toward a more concrete definition in the post-modern society.

In the “Wake-up Call” installation, for example, Lindslee nestled a taxidermal rooster on top of a backlit box. At the right side of the box is an inscribed text “Idealism” and on the left “Paranoia”. The rooster, in an elegant posture, is clothed with knitted pink apron in a fashionable manner as though the chicken is geared up to ramp before the audience.

Tinged with satire and sarcasm, the sculptural installation signifies the existential reality of man and his society. Lindslee dissects the darker side of human psyche torn between the pendulous tensions of idealism and paranoia. The haunting imagery symbolizes the two opposing sides of man’s perception of reality. He can either be fearful and suspicious of reality or he can be desperate to believe on something sublime, which is beyond the rational comprehension of man’s consciousness.

As indicative in his incisive use of symbols, the artist completely deconstructs the finitude of abstraction by substituting it with a more sensual and perceptible elements. The use of taxidermy, for instance, and the aleatory portrayal of figures, amplifies the inevitable reality in the context of his own image of man within and beyond the borders of his creation.
Figuring Abstraction: The Equivocal Meaning
Figuring Abstraction, as an ambiguous theme, is the artist’s discursive proposition from savoir-faire (conventional or commonly accepted norms) to savoir-vivre (the ability to live and explore beyond the conventions or the given sets of rules and values).

The savoir-faire, as employed by this writer in the context of modern aesthetics, is the inherent principle of art as an end itself with fixed essence and nature – i.e., material composition, form, color and texture – its capability to become in-itself and for-itself. The savoir-vivre, on the other hand, is the symbolic principle transcending beyond its material composition – the source of revelatory meaning in contrast to what is conventionally accepted as a norm.

For instance, in one of his abstract paintings titled “Defining Gravity”, the artist painted a varying tone of black, white, and grey colors. At the upper left of the canvas, is an undefined mass of crimson lake adjacent to the realistic figure of man (self-portrait) standing on his side. The textures and colors of the canvas are arbitrarily arranged, which is, evidently: the characteristics of abstraction.

What makes the artwork arresting amid its mass of undefined forms and colors is the portrayal of realistic figure within the canvas. Otherwise, without the figurative aspect of the composition, the canvas is bleak and dreary. Obviously, the artist intentionally infused the figurative element to create a pictorial tension. Hence, the title “Defining Gravity” literally creates a gravitational impact within the composition and from the perspective of the viewers.

The artist, subsequently, redefines and introduces new dimensions in abstraction. First, he explores the aleatory symbol of selected elements, i.e., the realistic depiction of man, chicken, ladder or bicycle, etc., as a shifting device to put gravitational weight on the surface of his canvas.

Second, the artist does not only explore what is abstraction in literal sense. He uses his auxiliary skill as a taxidermist to heighten the symbolic meaning of reality within the forms and structures of his creation.

The Taxidermal Elements

As an abstract and taxidermy artist, Lindslee skilfully concocted a more challenging formula in his art by integrating the two aesthetic entities into his works.

The unique use of taxidermal elements in Lindslee’s art is arbitrarily born out of the desire to explore and elevate his aesthetics into a more concrete expression of reality, a reality from which the artist wishes to reveal be it beautiful or ugly.

In his work titled “Ugly Painting”, an installation of taxidermal duck sitting on a bench painted with the figure of Jesus Christ (Sacred Heart); the picture is painted at one side of the bench. Below the bench is a huge white egg, which is five times larger than the life-size duck.

The symbolism of the duck, giant egg and a religious icon elicits a haunting reality. The poignant imagery signifies two realities. First, it symbolizes the complacency of man’s religious faith, still being hatched, as shown on the figurative symbol of giant egg. Second, the work itself becomes a symbolic icon of complacency in creating a more sublime aesthetics. It is a common experience among artists, who have already attained the pinnacle of their creativity; it is as though nothing is worth exploring anymore in art making.

The taxidermal elements did not only signify the reality that Lindslee wanted to portray in his art. But it also magnifies that same reality to a higher level of man’s consciousness and his struggle to create and to become. As a supplementary device to his art making, the artist has achieved his artistic freedom with magnificent force, creating a powerful medium in his quest for a highly sensitive aesthetics.

The Aesthetic Symbol as a Revelation of Truth

The use of symbolism in Lindslee’s art is generally coherent and rational but, at times, it can be capricious and satirical. In his painting titled “Vindicated”, the artist reveals a bleak symbolism – epitomizing his existential perception of life.

Typical of his abstract works, the canvas is pullulating with undefined mass of forms and colors. At the upper left portion of the canvas, is a realistic figure of a tilted diamond ring. An inscribed text is passing through the ring cascading down to the bottom of the canvas that says: "Things are made to be broken".

Obviously, the symbolic meaning is about a broken relationship. At a second look, however, one can feel that looming shadow of intangible sadness enshrouding his canvas. There is that feeling of resign and surrender that all things in this world, sooner or later, will pass away, and what remains is the awful reality of death and mortality.

“Everything is meaningless”, says the artist, “because someday, like man’s life, my art will vanish and disappear in oblivion”.

Despite the drab portrayal of reality, the artist’s symbolism persuasively touches the delicate part of human soul. His revelation of truth is a symbol of the here and now, penetrating the human psyche with urgency, anchoring man’s existence to his bleak but concrete reality.

The Unity of Art and the Vision of Reality

Is the interpretation of art limited to a particular medium or genre? Or, is it open to a more daring concept that reflects the shifting image of man in the post modern society?

As an artist of magnificent vision, Lindslee questions the parameters of abstraction, goes beyond its conventional form, and redefines his own modal structure of art making. The unity of aesthetic concept and his vision of reality culminate not from mere painting the surface of his canvas, but by integrating and fusing one or more mediums into his art.

Generally, abstract art is flat and abstruse, plane and simple. However, the artist goes beyond from its flattened surface to a more concrete signification of reality. He proposes, vis-à-vis, a dialectical concept of what it could become as a symbolic entity in contrast to the pre-conceived reality of art as a genre in-itself and for-itself.

In the end, the shifting of the artist’s vision, his dialectical concept and his departure from the normative practice of art making has become a liberating device to embrace the limitless possibilities of art rather than being confined within the conventional principles of aesthetics.

To sum, symbolism in po-mo art, be it visual, literary, film or music is boundless and metaphysical. It transcends the bleakness of the world and conquers the absurd by magnifying and revealing concrete realities so that the post-modern man may live with profound meaning and understanding of life in the midst of his changing society.

Creative freedom, like the infinite space of the universe, is boundless and eternal.

© Danny Castillones Sillada

--------------

*ABOVE PHOTO: Photo of artworks coutesy of the artist; 2008 works.