By Joahna T. Eduarte
There’s something about being in a roomful of artists that displaces a non-creative person like me. This was how I first felt when I stepped into the art gallery at the 3rd floor of the Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences Building last June 26. I was invited by experimental film creator and MCL part-time professor Bryan Quesada to check out his exhibit together with fellow artists Eric Guazon and Marc San Valentin.
Bryan Quesada’s
March 2010, Jan. 2010, and April 2010
Staple wires and cut-book on wood
2010
122X152.4 cm
When I stepped into the art gallery, Mr. Quesada was already sharing his experience in creating his “staple wires and cut-book on wood” series. Having heard his revealed thoughts, the initial feeling of displacement was replaced by some sort of epiphany, a eureka moment. I then realized that the theories which we study in communication and literature are simply reinvented and concretized in their works. Good thing I know something about semiotics and deconstructivism. The amazing thing is how they translate and modify those theories into extraordinary artworks.
Bryan Quesada’s
Jan. 2010
Staple wires and cut-book on wood
2010
122X152.4 cm
An audience trained under the classical or realist tradition might find the works too strange for her. The exhibit contained life-size canvasses filled with torn pages of books with swarms of staple wires; scanned faces and hands; clocks frozen in particular moments in time; collage of blurred pictures; framed enlarged photos of a person curled in a fetus-like position on a chair; and repetitive black and white photos of what appears to be a face filling one end of the room.
Indeed to a person conditioned to conform to certain rules in visual arts, the works would appear strange. But hearing the explanations of the creators themselves can shed light into any uninformed consumer of the pieces.
Mr. Quesada, a film major who decided to pursue higher studies in fine arts at the same university he graduated from, UP Diliman, has got this to say about his work. His work “staple wires and cut-book on wood” is actually an attempt to create an onslaught to language, on the ordinary function of communication, and on the sacredness and authoritativeness of books such as the dictionary. In the process of creating his work, he also integrated the redundant aspect of film making. The repetitive motion of splicing and attaching film negatives, digitally or manually, is captured by the redundant tacking of staple wires into the canvass, which at some point caused him difficulty in flexing his hand. He mentioned that in a day, he would finish off approximately ten thousand pieces of staple wires.
Among Mr. Quesada’s influences are Lukas Samaras who did a work by gluing different clothes pin together in the 1950’s and Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending the Staircase.” The Duchamp influence is manifested in his other work, this time on actual film, in which he captures different traces of shadows. The short film, which he let us see, revealed black sketches on white background of different human shadows that appear to move. Here, Mr. Quesada is trying to point out how people tend to ignore the traces that their actions leave behind which in a way affect reality and history.
The other two artists included in the exhibit are Marc San Valentin and Eric Guazon. Both are classmates of Mr. Quesada in the graduate program of UP Fine Arts, and both artists turn an essentially two dimensional, static aspect of photography into time bound, multidimensional works of art.
Mark San Valentin’s
Melchor Silvestre
Oiled pigments on paper
2010
Dimensions Variable
In Marc San Velentin’s series of scanned faces and hands entitled “Trophy Wall,” he tries to create an awareness about the postcolonial ideology that documentation establishes identification thereby reducing people to mere specimens divorce of their real identities. The pins used to tack the pictures on the wall resemble those that are used to pin down insects into a dissecting board. This is also San Valentin’s way of venturing into cameraless photography by using a flatbed scanner to scan the images of his subjects.
Marc San Valentin’s
Trophy Wall
Oiled pigment prints on paper
Dimensions Variable
2010
Another work of San Valentin exhibited in the Picasso Art Gallery is the series of black, working clocks that reveal different points in time. One clock reveals 10am, another 8pm, still another 3am, and so on for the rest of the seven clocks on display. What is intriguing about these clocks is how they are labeled. Each clock is labeled with the name of a person, a date, and time. The names are as follows: Ali Banabato (8/26/06; 10AM); Ed Jopson (9/21/82; 8PM); Jose Sumapad (5/23/86; 3AM); Philip Limjoco (5/8/06; 8:37AM); Roland Rallo Porter (5/16/06; 12NN); Feliz Malayo (5/15/08; 9PM); Danny Dayanan (6/30/05; 9AM). What do these names have in common? They represent people who became victims of abduction, and the time in the clock reveals the moment when they were last seen. These people were also associated with leftist groups and were therefore marginalized and became victims of oppression. Another motivation for San Valentin’s work is the aspect of photography as a marker of memory. In this work of his entitled “The Last Seen Series,” he captures that by literally freezing time.
Marc San Valentin’s
The Last Seen Series
Wall Clock and Pins
24 cm
2010
The third artist Eric Guazon showcased two artworks; one is the “Missed Encounter” which exhibited similar black and white photos of a patched face attached in rows on one end of the room. They reveal a Warholian influence, as Guazon himself claimed, with its usage of similar photos in every frame. The other work of his is the three-piece mounted and framed enlarged photos of a man curled on a chair in a fetus-like position. Beyond the man, an open door can be seen. In the second photo, a ghost-like figure that closely resembles an anime character is seen emanating from the door and approaching the man, as if to summon him. The blurring effect in the second picture appears to convey the idea that the soul of the man is slowly separating from his body. The picture in the third frame indicates as if nothing extraordinary happened. The man is still in his original position, and no traces of the supernatural occurrence are seen. This work of Guazon is entitled “Flight: Homage to Koko.” The three pictures clearly echo death and its inevitability as the message.
Eric Guazon’s
Missed Encounter
Inkjet print on watercolor paper
2010
Eric Guazon’s
Flight: Homage to Koko
Backlit Duratrans print
2009-2010
91.5 X 195.5 cm
After having travelled from Laguna and walked quite a distance in the confusing streets of Makati, I stepped out of that exhibit completely satisfied that I took time out from my busy, practical life to venture into the world of beauty and meaning-making through art. It’s like I breathed fresh air right smack in the middle of Makati. I may not have fully understood the technical aspect of their art, but I think I pretty much got what they were trying to convey. That is despite the fact that meaning is indeed arbitrary.
The exhibit Making Pictures/ Choices runs from June 8 to July 18, 2010 at the 3rd floor Art Gallery of the Picasso Boutique Services Residences at 119 L.P. Leviste st., Salcedo Vill., Makati City.
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