Affiliated w/ the culture industries, those jaded by religion turn to Art.
Affiliated w/ the religious industries, those jaded by art turn to Jesus.
But consider the narrative leading to catharsis.
But consider the narrative leading to salvation.
One looks at Jesus & says, He is the protagonist.
One looks at Jesus & says, He is the messiah.
The faithful as audience know their protagonist to be true.
The audience as faithful know their messiah to be mythic.
Truth as socially mediated, culturally constructed:
together, let us believe in a mutual lie (story).
Myth as a collective of stories, as one collective among many:
together, let us believe in a mutual lie (religion)
& know it to be a lie—
religion as story, story as religion.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness…” But whose perception is accurate? Where everything is mediated, everything is false. What you see—that w/c you witness—is what you choose to see. (Physically, the eyes can only see so much, & the eyes in fact can be what hinder us from achieving genuine sight [concrete] no thanks to immediate insight [abstract], because it is all perspective.) Sight being a cylinder relies on focus as a principle; such that when one focuses on something, one cannot focus on something else.
Art being the utopian realm of alternatives, naturally it sets its gaze on what is normally not focused upon, on what possibly thrives beyond notice. But God being the center of much discourse over the centuries, is it not Art’s role to subvert this hegemony of the divine & divulge the myriad alternatives to God? & yet when Art identifies itself w/ notions of rebellion against Centers, it also cannot help but make an icon out of Jesus, himself a marginal presence in his time whose machinery was also rebellion against his milieu’s political & moral centers.
How do artists negotiate w/ this paradox in their respective (not necessarily respectable: for what works occasionally needs to be rudely crude) practices? This is especially relevant in our own historic bloc: The legacy of a Filipino icon of democracy who once built & led a government out of a dictator’s ashes is now yellowing w/ grief in Hacienda Luisita; the very corporations that endorse mindless & impractical consumerism involve themselves publicly w/ noble advocacies under the guise of corporate social responsibility; armchair activists in their laziness to authentically politicize all things ad infinitum turn off their lights for an hour, hoping the 60-minute darkness supposedly dedicated to the earth will rid them of the actual need to act—
Is salvation possible from these strange paradoxes we encounter everyday? Or is salvation itself in these very paradoxes, these nation-wide peculiarities that save us from the hell of drabness, from the temptation of simplistic blacks-&-whites? Hey sole Catholic country in Asia, one of the most corrupt countries in the world: Time to answer those questions. Hey country who believes in redemption thru suffering: Time to answer those questions. Time to be a critical Catholic. (angelo V. suárez)
:::
image: (top) POONster by Leoby Marquez, 2008, digital print. On view until the 25th as part of S T O P O V E R at LIONGOREN GALLERY, 111 New York and Stanford Sts., Cubao QC. (+632) 9124319
Affiliated w/ the religious industries, those jaded by art turn to Jesus.
But consider the narrative leading to catharsis.
But consider the narrative leading to salvation.
One looks at Jesus & says, He is the protagonist.
One looks at Jesus & says, He is the messiah.
The faithful as audience know their protagonist to be true.
The audience as faithful know their messiah to be mythic.
Truth as socially mediated, culturally constructed:
together, let us believe in a mutual lie (story).
Myth as a collective of stories, as one collective among many:
together, let us believe in a mutual lie (religion)
& know it to be a lie—
religion as story, story as religion.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness…” But whose perception is accurate? Where everything is mediated, everything is false. What you see—that w/c you witness—is what you choose to see. (Physically, the eyes can only see so much, & the eyes in fact can be what hinder us from achieving genuine sight [concrete] no thanks to immediate insight [abstract], because it is all perspective.) Sight being a cylinder relies on focus as a principle; such that when one focuses on something, one cannot focus on something else.
Art being the utopian realm of alternatives, naturally it sets its gaze on what is normally not focused upon, on what possibly thrives beyond notice. But God being the center of much discourse over the centuries, is it not Art’s role to subvert this hegemony of the divine & divulge the myriad alternatives to God? & yet when Art identifies itself w/ notions of rebellion against Centers, it also cannot help but make an icon out of Jesus, himself a marginal presence in his time whose machinery was also rebellion against his milieu’s political & moral centers.
How do artists negotiate w/ this paradox in their respective (not necessarily respectable: for what works occasionally needs to be rudely crude) practices? This is especially relevant in our own historic bloc: The legacy of a Filipino icon of democracy who once built & led a government out of a dictator’s ashes is now yellowing w/ grief in Hacienda Luisita; the very corporations that endorse mindless & impractical consumerism involve themselves publicly w/ noble advocacies under the guise of corporate social responsibility; armchair activists in their laziness to authentically politicize all things ad infinitum turn off their lights for an hour, hoping the 60-minute darkness supposedly dedicated to the earth will rid them of the actual need to act—
Is salvation possible from these strange paradoxes we encounter everyday? Or is salvation itself in these very paradoxes, these nation-wide peculiarities that save us from the hell of drabness, from the temptation of simplistic blacks-&-whites? Hey sole Catholic country in Asia, one of the most corrupt countries in the world: Time to answer those questions. Hey country who believes in redemption thru suffering: Time to answer those questions. Time to be a critical Catholic. (angelo V. suárez)
:::
image: (top) POONster by Leoby Marquez, 2008, digital print. On view until the 25th as part of S T O P O V E R at LIONGOREN GALLERY, 111 New York and Stanford Sts., Cubao QC. (+632) 9124319
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