Jef Carnay
Susmaryosep
Opens 18 April 2009
On view until to 10 May 2009
Susmaryosep, Jef Carnay’s opens his first one-man show, featuring his “Abamg Maria” performance on 18 April 2009 at Britania Art Projects in Cubao, Quezon City. The show will be on view until to 10 May 2009.
Jef Carnay's dioramas and paintings in Susmaryosep, perversely attracts us into looking deeper and further.
His aesthetic vocabulary points to one who is attuned to the performative aspect of coloration, there is no pretenses to capture classic glazing techniques, nor does his appropriation desire exact simulation of the medieval representation. The clear outlines outline the clear intent, inasmuch as the soft, almost basic and banal colorations, imply a contemporary non-classicist technique. And the confident coloration, large swathes of barely diffused colors of dissipating gradations, underscores the post-punk aesthetics of today, the content supplied classicizes the overall historical muse: the tools of the Church's trade.
His signifying vocabulary lies in détournement a classic prerogative of artists who seek to dethrone via imagined absurdity what they see in absurd realities. The recognizable elements are not appropriated from art histories, they are appropriated by arts preempted by history, arts of propaganda, arts of faith, arts of war. Carnay's détournement fetishizes the religious implement & the imperial imperative as both construct & divine heritage. How a construct becomes a predestined heritage will always remain in question, what Carnay proposes is the ambiguity of both when mashed together. He does not juxtapose, we have been informed enough to know the differences- he cuts them up, he twists them, he puts them in a bowl and shakes them all about.
Who was it that decried the value of pride in family trees? The unknown source once complained of how much he despised those who mock liberty by brandishing their surnames, they are akin to potatoes- their only value lies underground, beneath their dirt. Carnay deconstructs and reconstructs these inherited false prides, he rediscovers these patriarchal prides in macro-concepts such as imperial might and religious decrees; he mashes them up like different breeds of potatoes and serves them in a platter, neatly served and garnished with a slew of localized signifiers.
In Susmaryosep, Jef Carnay capitulates briefly to the possibility of narration via the inanimate & the contained. The flattened, the multi-dimensional, both are now his stages, his frozen performances. Carnay revisits the adlib, the impromptu alongside the timeless, and freezes such stories within multilingual dioramas. In Susmaryosep, Jef Carnay puts on the many hats of being playwright, diarist, stage designer, documentarist & actor. He is both iconoclast and icon fetishist, he is both the prodigal son & the family historicist. His visual plays tell our own, our familiar personal-familial stories, our own grandly abstract histories, in lands & times here, there and everywhen- albeit with the familiar yet unfamiliar performative twist.
Britania Art Projects is located at #12 Tesoro Corner Complex New York Avenue corner Sgt. Catolos, Cubao, Quezon City. For more information, please call 387-6373, 331-1742 and 09175710468 or visit www.britaniaartprojects.com
Susmaryosep
Opens 18 April 2009
On view until to 10 May 2009
Susmaryosep, Jef Carnay’s opens his first one-man show, featuring his “Abamg Maria” performance on 18 April 2009 at Britania Art Projects in Cubao, Quezon City. The show will be on view until to 10 May 2009.
Jef Carnay's dioramas and paintings in Susmaryosep, perversely attracts us into looking deeper and further.
His aesthetic vocabulary points to one who is attuned to the performative aspect of coloration, there is no pretenses to capture classic glazing techniques, nor does his appropriation desire exact simulation of the medieval representation. The clear outlines outline the clear intent, inasmuch as the soft, almost basic and banal colorations, imply a contemporary non-classicist technique. And the confident coloration, large swathes of barely diffused colors of dissipating gradations, underscores the post-punk aesthetics of today, the content supplied classicizes the overall historical muse: the tools of the Church's trade.
His signifying vocabulary lies in détournement a classic prerogative of artists who seek to dethrone via imagined absurdity what they see in absurd realities. The recognizable elements are not appropriated from art histories, they are appropriated by arts preempted by history, arts of propaganda, arts of faith, arts of war. Carnay's détournement fetishizes the religious implement & the imperial imperative as both construct & divine heritage. How a construct becomes a predestined heritage will always remain in question, what Carnay proposes is the ambiguity of both when mashed together. He does not juxtapose, we have been informed enough to know the differences- he cuts them up, he twists them, he puts them in a bowl and shakes them all about.
Who was it that decried the value of pride in family trees? The unknown source once complained of how much he despised those who mock liberty by brandishing their surnames, they are akin to potatoes- their only value lies underground, beneath their dirt. Carnay deconstructs and reconstructs these inherited false prides, he rediscovers these patriarchal prides in macro-concepts such as imperial might and religious decrees; he mashes them up like different breeds of potatoes and serves them in a platter, neatly served and garnished with a slew of localized signifiers.
In Susmaryosep, Jef Carnay capitulates briefly to the possibility of narration via the inanimate & the contained. The flattened, the multi-dimensional, both are now his stages, his frozen performances. Carnay revisits the adlib, the impromptu alongside the timeless, and freezes such stories within multilingual dioramas. In Susmaryosep, Jef Carnay puts on the many hats of being playwright, diarist, stage designer, documentarist & actor. He is both iconoclast and icon fetishist, he is both the prodigal son & the family historicist. His visual plays tell our own, our familiar personal-familial stories, our own grandly abstract histories, in lands & times here, there and everywhen- albeit with the familiar yet unfamiliar performative twist.
Britania Art Projects is located at #12 Tesoro Corner Complex New York Avenue corner Sgt. Catolos, Cubao, Quezon City. For more information, please call 387-6373, 331-1742 and 09175710468 or visit www.britaniaartprojects.com
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