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'Poessessed' |
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 (for STAR, January 31, 2005)
by Alfred A. Yuson
Several weeks ago, this space featured a review of “Flashes of Genius” — the
comeback exhibit of Cesare A.X. Syjuco at the CCP Main Gallery. The show closed
last Thursday. But before it did, on Saturday Jan. 22, curators Sid Hildawa and
Jean-Marie Syjuco arranged a poetry reading cum performance evening billed as “Poessessed.”
The artist, who is also known to be a first-rate art critic and a Palanca
awardee for poetry, read four poems, a couple of which were featured as
“hypertext” in his cryptic, illuminated artworks.
Other readers included Cesare’s and Jean-Marie’s daughter Maxine, actor slash
performance artist slash photographer Ronnie Lazaro, and Likhaan: UP Institute
of Creative Writing director Vim Carmelo Nadera, another flasher/shocker of a
performance perpetrator.
I was invited by fellow poet Hildawa to participate that evening, but couldn’t
get away from a previous commitment to operate on an incipient garden in
Tagaytay. Good thing another buddy, Mario Taguiwalo, made it to the ritual
event, and better yet, rendered a fine report on the occasion.
Mario’s no slouch as an analyst and critic of all things under the sun, from
governance to high fashion to the management of development funds,let alone
hospitals, such as he once did with Medical City. He has also served as DOH
Undersecretary, and done beefcake roles in Peque Gallaga films.
Ten years before what we now call EDSA Uno. Mario wrote a prophetic piece for
ERMITA magazine, titled “what is edsa and why is it doing these things to me?” A
brief bio he submitted reads thus:
“Mario Taguiwalo is a lapsed Catholic, relapsed activist and a fellow traveler
in the world of what DTI Secretary Cesar Purisima now calls ‘the creative
economy’ that includes everyone making a living by their wits. His professional
interests include diseases, ignorance and prejudice, hunger and pain, lust and
pregnancies on a mass scale, and unfulfilled wants and unrealized aspirations.
In more conventional terms, he works on health, education, social protection,
population and reproductive health, culture and governance.”
Occasionally we find his perceptive socio-political analyses appearing in
various newspapers. So when Mario hands over a critique of sorts on cutting-edge
art, friends who are often awed by his intelligence and intuition can only pay
mind and heart to it.
Following is his report, titled “Unplugging Flashes of Genius.”
The Saturday ritual started late. Young people from the National High School for
the Arts were milling around the pictures, anticipating some action. The waiting
felt like performance art. Small children were running from one end of the hall
to the other. Euro disco music was playing on the background. A guy came forward
and announced that coffee, water and some sandwiches were available. It felt
like a metaphor of something important — a death, a birth or a passing of an
era.
Then it began. Cesare Syjuco, the artist whose exhibit was closing in a few
days’ time, was introduced as “the guy wearing a bonnet standing by the water
cooler.” Sid Hildawa read a poem about zooming out. Joe Gruta came forward to
say he was invited to read a poem but he was not given a poem to read.
Mystifying. Was this a miscue or a finely executed act? Another metaphor,
perhaps, about poverty and deprivation? Some TV correspondent, whose name I did
not get, read a poem about being rushed
because time is gold. A performance artist did his version of a tsunami on a
basin and a cardboard box, which caused the middle of the audience to stand back
to escape the waters.
Then there was a balagtasan about whether a long penis is better than a thick
one. Hilarious. Although I was wondering what the four- and five-year-old kids
thought of it. Heber Bartolome recited an old song of his about media, falsehood
and truth. I thought its earnestness was a nice counterpoint to the evening’s
absurdity. Vim Nadera did a typically strange act wearing a medical patient’s
gown and a black cardboard mask while asking people if they wanted love. Then he
launched on all the
social evils of Philippine society as the source of our lack of love. No need
for a metaphor there.
Did you see Cesare’s latest exhibit? It was extended till Thursday the 27th. It
demanded intelligence and sensitivity; so if you have neither, it was right that
you missed it. I did not see it as an exhibit. I experienced it as a venue for a
ritual event. I wonder how it would have affected me had I encountered it as a
quiet exhibit on a mid-morning or late afternoon of a working day. Maybe I would
have walked around and said to myself, “How clever! How witty! How smart!” Or
maybe I would have
gaped at the white spaces, words on pictures or pictures on words, and said to
myself, “What the f**k is this about? What is this crazy guy trying to say?”
Cesare really has a knack for challenging your idea of art, taunting you to
either spit on him or kneel in prayer before him.
In any case, I was part of a motley crowd that celebrated the imminent end of
the exhibit. I sat across a part of the exhibit hall where backlit pictures
screamed at me: “I could…” and “Eat my shorts…” and one with a long sentence
that included a phrase about “the rectum parallel with the body.” And these
words were in frames with images of Americans from the 1950’s that seemed quaint
and perverse at the same time.
The highlight of the event was Cesare reciting his poems. But first he was
preceded by his daughter, Maxine, looking like an anime character’s love object
— dainty, fragile, bright, but strange, reciting a poem about her being an
origami being folded and floated to the sea until her tears melted with the
waters.
When the daughter was done, the father stood up and took the mike. Cesare first
recited “Our Lady of the Thorns,” a fairy tale about a boy who accidentally
mutilates himself and talks to the Virgin Mary. After this religious piece,
Cesare offered a math lesson in life, “The Table of Zero,” a litany about
nothing coming from nothing and leading to nothing. Then he really got serious
and tackled racial discrimination, religious persecution and individual paranoia
with his poem, “American Scarecrow.”
And best of all, he ended with his poetic take-off from something suggested by a
David Bowie song — "Commander/James/Calling/Space/Station” — including a
haunting and disturbing guitar solo accompanying the words. I have a copy of
these four poems but Cesare’s poems are merely faint suggestions on paper that
are transformed into fully formed vibrant living beings when performed by him.
The whole shebang — the exhibit and the closing performances — was cleansing.
Meaning is subordinate to mystery. Purpose is not in ourselves but in our
situation. Art is the moment when creation meets audience and an emotional
connection beyond words ignites, even for just a moment, even beneath
consciousness.
Through the mystifying acts and symbols, through the dense imagery, behind the
correct grammar but undecipherable meaning, beyond the unfinished sentences and
the unmelodic sounds, one finds accidental significance, personal clarity,
emotional release and ultimately, gentle relief from the daily oppression of
navigating this life with sense and responsibility.
Cesare gets you to become a child with all your adult faculties. He is a genius
who is a fool. He blows my mind and crushes my heart. He jolts me to life and
lulls me to sleep. He prepares me to die and promises me resurrection. He is a
god; no, a witch doctor; no, a magician; no, an illusionist. And his exhibit has
closed. Until the next one, then.
***********************
Published in Gutom.org with Permission from Alfred A. Yuson
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Posted on Monday, February 07 @ 18:37:38 CST by don |
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