Roberto Chabet
"10000 paintings, i must paint before i die"
14 April - 7 May 2009
"To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened by the 10,000 things."
- Dogen -
Red, yellow, blue, black, white, red, yellow, blue, black, white, red, yellow, blue black, white, - one after the other, over and over again. The painted canvasses attached onto clipboards are arranged like a grid and cover the entire walls of the gallery; transforming the space into a meditative chamber on the five primary colors. At first glance, Roberto Chabet's installation may seem self-evident and basic, but to a viewer of a certain frame of mind, it is the epitome of substance within which all things exist.
Spinoza once said that God is nature and nature is God and that everything that exists can be reduced to a single reality. This line of thinking is not far from the Zen Buddhist concept of 10,000 Things, which denotes the sum of all essences and the dynamic interconnection, simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe. This spiritual distillation in philosophy is similar to abstraction and its transmutative effect. Through authentic non-objectivity, we are distanced from worldly distractions and achieve a sense of higher self.
Having previously done works that elaborate on the ideas of Mondrian, Malevich, and more recently, Newman and Rodchenko, Chabet is well aware of the advancements of their intellectual explorations in geometric abstraction and primary colors. His response expands the field by way of re-configuration and repetition, on an architectural scale. Like other abstractionists, Chabet works with anonymous surfaces, applied with pure, flat color; any trace of the painter's hand is effaced. However, unlike others, particularly some Minimal artists who eschew any reference to the outside world, Chabet infuses his works with familiar, everyday objects. In this case, clipboards to signify inventory, notation and order.
While the work is assertively stark, it is far from empty. Abstraction, for Chabet, is not a clean break from the natural world but a process by which the self comes to know its differentiated yet immanent wholeness, which in turn, can only be glimpsed by realization of the self's complicated universality and mutuality of opposing forces. Such an art, like religion, as Mondrian explained, is one with life and at the same time transcends it.
Given his background in architecture, Chabet is concerned with the properties of space and of the objects in it. An installation can be seen as an exercise in classical geometry. The mathematical precision in the 'all-over' manner by which Chabet installs his painted panels and clipboards reveal a more sophisticated intelligence. Mathematical truths rendered in visual terms suggest discipline and control of the self as well as systematic reflection on it and demonstrate a belief in the timeless truth, which is vital to our existence and transformation.
One does not look at Chabet's paintings; one has to enter the entire work. And to experience the work is to turn inward and to see it as a structure of both personal and primordial signs whose seeming discord actually foretells its unity. Drawing from the most elementary of form and color, he leads us to an eternal vision of art, one that does not aim to represent the universe, but one that makes space for the universe in between.
Mag:net Gallery is located at 335 Agcor Building, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. For details or inquiries, contact the gallery at 929-31-91 or email info@magnetgalleries.com or visit www.magnetgalleries.com
"10000 paintings, i must paint before i die"
14 April - 7 May 2009
"To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened by the 10,000 things."
- Dogen -
Red, yellow, blue, black, white, red, yellow, blue, black, white, red, yellow, blue black, white, - one after the other, over and over again. The painted canvasses attached onto clipboards are arranged like a grid and cover the entire walls of the gallery; transforming the space into a meditative chamber on the five primary colors. At first glance, Roberto Chabet's installation may seem self-evident and basic, but to a viewer of a certain frame of mind, it is the epitome of substance within which all things exist.
Spinoza once said that God is nature and nature is God and that everything that exists can be reduced to a single reality. This line of thinking is not far from the Zen Buddhist concept of 10,000 Things, which denotes the sum of all essences and the dynamic interconnection, simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe. This spiritual distillation in philosophy is similar to abstraction and its transmutative effect. Through authentic non-objectivity, we are distanced from worldly distractions and achieve a sense of higher self.
Having previously done works that elaborate on the ideas of Mondrian, Malevich, and more recently, Newman and Rodchenko, Chabet is well aware of the advancements of their intellectual explorations in geometric abstraction and primary colors. His response expands the field by way of re-configuration and repetition, on an architectural scale. Like other abstractionists, Chabet works with anonymous surfaces, applied with pure, flat color; any trace of the painter's hand is effaced. However, unlike others, particularly some Minimal artists who eschew any reference to the outside world, Chabet infuses his works with familiar, everyday objects. In this case, clipboards to signify inventory, notation and order.
While the work is assertively stark, it is far from empty. Abstraction, for Chabet, is not a clean break from the natural world but a process by which the self comes to know its differentiated yet immanent wholeness, which in turn, can only be glimpsed by realization of the self's complicated universality and mutuality of opposing forces. Such an art, like religion, as Mondrian explained, is one with life and at the same time transcends it.
Given his background in architecture, Chabet is concerned with the properties of space and of the objects in it. An installation can be seen as an exercise in classical geometry. The mathematical precision in the 'all-over' manner by which Chabet installs his painted panels and clipboards reveal a more sophisticated intelligence. Mathematical truths rendered in visual terms suggest discipline and control of the self as well as systematic reflection on it and demonstrate a belief in the timeless truth, which is vital to our existence and transformation.
One does not look at Chabet's paintings; one has to enter the entire work. And to experience the work is to turn inward and to see it as a structure of both personal and primordial signs whose seeming discord actually foretells its unity. Drawing from the most elementary of form and color, he leads us to an eternal vision of art, one that does not aim to represent the universe, but one that makes space for the universe in between.
Mag:net Gallery is located at 335 Agcor Building, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. For details or inquiries, contact the gallery at 929-31-91 or email info@magnetgalleries.com or visit www.magnetgalleries.com
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