I.
Chao before ciao.
—Fernando Modesto
Whether as Vietnamese rice porridge or as fried rice in the guise of yang chao at local Chinese eateries, “chao” in the epigraph is in opposition to “ciao,” such that primacy is granted to the former: Chao before ciao. This opposition transcends the symbolic & does so towards the systemic, as in Roland Barthes’ famed schemata of the sign’s 3 relations: symbol, system, syntagm. Notice also that while metaphor here is not taken for granted, it does take the backseat in favor of the metonym.
‘In favor of the metonym,’ in the sense that we arrive at chao from ciao by way of punning, thru the sheer logic of metonymy—for how else does one depart from departure’s decidedness—from the finitude of farewell (ciao)—to leap onto the infinitude of rice (chao)? The vast field of Modesto’s universe—Galaxies, Earth, St. Marys and Second Heaven—cannot be measured just as rice grains cannot be counted. & yet its dimensions are definite, still: Where Modesto, hinting at boundaries, depicts the axes (East-West axis, North-South axis) of his realm, rice too has bounds made definite by cupping—
II.
Please give yourself time to dream.
—Fernando Modesto
as one would cup a pair of breasts, St. Mary’s breasts: a virgin teat for a viand or 2, steaming rice topped w/ the minute meatball of pure nipple. Are those her legs parting in the intergalactic void, is that her smooth frog in the middle of the mystic foliage, all of it Mother Mary’s / Mother Earth’s / Gaia’s?
Association: I will leave this erased, then blank—
Connexion:
Contiguity: In his early writings, Freud was preoccupied w/ symbolism: What did this image from a dream stand for, what did that scene from a dream represent? This is the internal relation occurring w/in the sign—the signifier’s relationship w/ the signified—that begs for interpretation. This is the symbolic.
This is chao standing for rice standing for infinity.
This is ciao standing for goodbye standing for finitude.
This is Oedipus constructing an entire universe for a mother.
This is the man in fear of castration.
This is the tree of genealogy—arboreal & rooted, static.
This is the erasure of your composure. As always.
Yet, for all the fullness of dreams in terms of symbolism, for all its richness beneath the erasures, its logic is not run by metaphor whether solely or at all; what is dream-like is necessarily metonymic; in its free associations it becomes boundless: Where ciao becomes chao rather than mere adieu, dream bids adieu to the planar in favor of the multiplanar, of galaxies, earth, St. Mary—of dream as second heaven.
(Freud was once an icon of Surrealism. Does it surprise you that on occasion you’re reminded of the lithographs of a young Joan Miro in some of Modesto’s strokes, fleeting & flitting in the ether despite the permanence of paint & ink?)
III.
Everything is hunky-dory.
—Fernando Modesto
(Actually, no, not so much. What initially come to mind are the early delirious paintings of David Medalla before his fantastic machines, the dark seeming-primitivisms of Roberto Villanueva—a kind of folk sensibility that mingles w/ the Christianity once imposed by the West. But these are meaningless comparisons that hold no water. They hold just about as much water as any interpretation does, w/c is none: W/c is nun: Witch’s nun.)
No interpretation will ever be accurate: It’s no mystery that “mystery” comes close to “mystic,” both beginning w/ what sounds like “miss.” The mystical nature of Modesto’s work is indication of the futility of interpretation, tho it certainly isn’t forbidden. Here is the signifier, but the signified is missing, is missed tenderly. Almost as if the artist himself were saying—painting—“I love you” to each stroke, to each gesture & figure as an object in itself, complete in its utter lack of a signified. Paint as material, replete in its materiality—
IV.
Chao for imagining.
—Fernando Modesto
where materiality is prior to meaning: Chao before ciao. Such that a prayer addressed to St. Mary is not so much a real supplication but a celebration of sound if uttered, of pure visual form if painted. Notice the partial erasure in “Prayer to St. Mary’s” that brings attention to paint’s erasability, to paint’s paintness. This explains the multiplicity of circles—
an object depicted to return to itself over & over again—the Ouroboros of form exhausting itself—Mary doubling herself in the mirror as a child doubles him/herself in the mirror in its first exposure to the Self as Other—
where the child, in order to know the self, must imagine the self as other—the self saying ciao to itself over & over again—the self arriving in multiples—thru sheer contiguity/metonymy creating whole systems & syntagms—so many selves that there comes an entire universe out of it—
Fernando Modesto no longer painting Galaxies, Earth, St. Mary’s, Second Heaven, but himself becoming galaxies, becoming earth, becoming Mary, becoming second heaven.
Ciao.
Chao before ciao.
—Fernando Modesto
Whether as Vietnamese rice porridge or as fried rice in the guise of yang chao at local Chinese eateries, “chao” in the epigraph is in opposition to “ciao,” such that primacy is granted to the former: Chao before ciao. This opposition transcends the symbolic & does so towards the systemic, as in Roland Barthes’ famed schemata of the sign’s 3 relations: symbol, system, syntagm. Notice also that while metaphor here is not taken for granted, it does take the backseat in favor of the metonym.
‘In favor of the metonym,’ in the sense that we arrive at chao from ciao by way of punning, thru the sheer logic of metonymy—for how else does one depart from departure’s decidedness—from the finitude of farewell (ciao)—to leap onto the infinitude of rice (chao)? The vast field of Modesto’s universe—Galaxies, Earth, St. Marys and Second Heaven—cannot be measured just as rice grains cannot be counted. & yet its dimensions are definite, still: Where Modesto, hinting at boundaries, depicts the axes (East-West axis, North-South axis) of his realm, rice too has bounds made definite by cupping—
II.
Please give yourself time to dream.
—Fernando Modesto
as one would cup a pair of breasts, St. Mary’s breasts: a virgin teat for a viand or 2, steaming rice topped w/ the minute meatball of pure nipple. Are those her legs parting in the intergalactic void, is that her smooth frog in the middle of the mystic foliage, all of it Mother Mary’s / Mother Earth’s / Gaia’s?
Association: I will leave this erased, then blank—
Connexion:
Contiguity: In his early writings, Freud was preoccupied w/ symbolism: What did this image from a dream stand for, what did that scene from a dream represent? This is the internal relation occurring w/in the sign—the signifier’s relationship w/ the signified—that begs for interpretation. This is the symbolic.
This is chao standing for rice standing for infinity.
This is ciao standing for goodbye standing for finitude.
This is Oedipus constructing an entire universe for a mother.
This is the man in fear of castration.
This is the tree of genealogy—arboreal & rooted, static.
This is the erasure of your composure. As always.
Yet, for all the fullness of dreams in terms of symbolism, for all its richness beneath the erasures, its logic is not run by metaphor whether solely or at all; what is dream-like is necessarily metonymic; in its free associations it becomes boundless: Where ciao becomes chao rather than mere adieu, dream bids adieu to the planar in favor of the multiplanar, of galaxies, earth, St. Mary—of dream as second heaven.
(Freud was once an icon of Surrealism. Does it surprise you that on occasion you’re reminded of the lithographs of a young Joan Miro in some of Modesto’s strokes, fleeting & flitting in the ether despite the permanence of paint & ink?)
III.
Everything is hunky-dory.
—Fernando Modesto
(Actually, no, not so much. What initially come to mind are the early delirious paintings of David Medalla before his fantastic machines, the dark seeming-primitivisms of Roberto Villanueva—a kind of folk sensibility that mingles w/ the Christianity once imposed by the West. But these are meaningless comparisons that hold no water. They hold just about as much water as any interpretation does, w/c is none: W/c is nun: Witch’s nun.)
No interpretation will ever be accurate: It’s no mystery that “mystery” comes close to “mystic,” both beginning w/ what sounds like “miss.” The mystical nature of Modesto’s work is indication of the futility of interpretation, tho it certainly isn’t forbidden. Here is the signifier, but the signified is missing, is missed tenderly. Almost as if the artist himself were saying—painting—“I love you” to each stroke, to each gesture & figure as an object in itself, complete in its utter lack of a signified. Paint as material, replete in its materiality—
IV.
Chao for imagining.
—Fernando Modesto
where materiality is prior to meaning: Chao before ciao. Such that a prayer addressed to St. Mary is not so much a real supplication but a celebration of sound if uttered, of pure visual form if painted. Notice the partial erasure in “Prayer to St. Mary’s” that brings attention to paint’s erasability, to paint’s paintness. This explains the multiplicity of circles—
an object depicted to return to itself over & over again—the Ouroboros of form exhausting itself—Mary doubling herself in the mirror as a child doubles him/herself in the mirror in its first exposure to the Self as Other—
where the child, in order to know the self, must imagine the self as other—the self saying ciao to itself over & over again—the self arriving in multiples—thru sheer contiguity/metonymy creating whole systems & syntagms—so many selves that there comes an entire universe out of it—
Fernando Modesto no longer painting Galaxies, Earth, St. Mary’s, Second Heaven, but himself becoming galaxies, becoming earth, becoming Mary, becoming second heaven.
Ciao.
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