The Lost Boys of Krabi

Article in Men’s Review, Malaysia

A piece I wrote & did photography for, in a Malaysian men’s style magazine

A rag-tag bunch of Thai youths disembark from a boat at Krabi peninsula in southwest Thailand. They are runaways who start off living rough in a cliff-side cave (much higher than the one below).

As their makeshift home is in a spectacular national marine park, eventually these boys (Tex, King, Pan & Ek – the latter 2 my friends) become self-made entrepreneurs/small-time tourism operators & rock-climbers.

Click 2x on each magazine page to enlarge & read.

I’m in the turquoise tee, left, 150ft up at the beginning of a 5-pitch climb.
The finale is over the edge of a vertiginous overhang, a sheer 80-ft drop into thin air & on to Railay beach below.

(It was my 20th climb – if I’d known beforehand what I was in for, I probably wouldn’t have gone!)

1st photo by Chan Yuen-Li, who was lead-climber that day. My housemate at the time & Malaysia’s foremost female athlete/adventurer, she captained the nation’s Eco-Challenge team for 2 years!

Last photo on Page 3: David Moggie

All other photos by myself.

The following photos are from the website of resort hotel Dusit Rayavadee.

The pool at the Dusit Rayavadee

Phra-Nang peninsula in Krabi province

The Dusit Rayavadee management put me & my gang up for a blissful week.

Usually I’m at budget backpackers Ya-ya‘s – homey & equally cool, they build their tall lodgings around coconut palms rather than chop them down. So my home-away-from-home sways slightly in the breeze following the movement of the living tree-trunk skewing across a corner of my room.

Valentine for the Malaysian Rainforest

One of the most fascinating friends I have in Malaysia is someone I collaborated on a song with:

Antares (or when I first met him, Kit Leee) is a Malaysian-Chinese writer, cartoonist, multi-instrumentalist musician, environmentalist & teacher/pedagogue in the style of Buckminster Fuller whom he loves.

Antares penned pseudo-anthropological tracts, both comic (“Adoi!” which is about Malaysians) & serious (“Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos”, about a tribe of indigenous people he belongs to by marriage) – & you may also remember him as the talented philosopher-cartoonist in the last (& funniest) part of my “Kitsch spread”.

Kit Leee before he became Antares

I met him & his housemate Mary Maguire (a journalist & documentary producer) in Kuala Lumpur (“KL”) – not long before they relocated to a house near Fraser’s Hill, 1.5 hours away. (In fact these highlands are part of a 300-mile long range of ancient mountains which form the spine of peninsular Malaysia. All the important state parks in this country are located inside this range).

The hillside bungalow which these 2 KL-ites moved to, sits on a sizeable piece of land which was surrounded on 3 sides, by a crystalline mountain stream. This was the birthplace of a community Antares called “Magick River“, an eclectic, multi-racial community of friends, both local & international, & from all walks of life, which has revitalized this remote corner of Malaysia.

It also turned out this bungalow was located just 10mins drive from a Temuan village called Kampung Orang Asli (aboriginal village of) Pertak. According to Antares, it’s mythologically the most important Temuan tribal settlement where their equivalent of Adam & Eve survived their equivalent of the Great Flood to found a new historic Temuan settlement.

Through the years & through his interactions with the villagers, Antares eventually went on to marry & have a son with the headman’s niece Anoora Chapek, thus he became an important & integral part of this rainforest tribe. They moved to a large bamboo hut nearby, where their son Ahau was born.

By now, a small community had birthed where the arts, crafts & music thrived. Small numbers of painters, musicians, writers & filmmakers from the city started to drift to the neighboring town Kuala Kubu Baru which sits at the foot of Fraser’s Hill. A tiny version of Ubud in Bali.

Antares, his friend/KKB neighbor Rafique Rashid & ethnomusicologist Sunetra Fernando were commissioned by KL theatre group, Five Arts Center, to score a musical adaptation of “Jungle Book” called “Suara Rimba” (Sanskrit & Malay: voice of the jungle).

Suara Rimba

When that project ended, Antares & Rafique Rashid invited Temuan folk- & ceremonial-singer, Mak Minah (Malay: Mother or Aunt Minah, aka Menah Kuntom) to form a world music group with them. This was Akar Umbi (Malay: “grassroots”), & they played to 43,000 people at Shah Alam Stadium near KL, & also at the 2nd Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Sarawak (in East Malaysia which is part of the island of Borneo).

With a grant from the Japan Foundation, a CD “Songs of the Dragon” was produced – the core of each ethnic/reggae fusion track being a Temuan folk-song chanted with a quavering, heartfelt soulfulness by Mak Minah. They are songs of reverence evoking the love & connection which these indigenous people feel for their beloved native lands & the creatures of the wild.

                                                                     Akar Umbi

According to their folklore, the Temuans were placed on the earth by Tuhan* (Lord God) to be guardians of the rainforest. If they fail this sacred duty, the whole world will turn upside down & humanity will perish. – These marginalized people who survive on the poverty line through hunting, gathering, fishing & trading in forest products, actually feel a heavy responsibility for the mainstream from whom they’re marginalized!

They also believe each hill, rock & tree has a spirit in residence. Rivers are guarded by snakes (ular) & highland streams close to the source are protected by dragons (Sanskrit/Malay: naga) – both, magical forces which may cause mayhem whenever their guardianship is disrespected.

                                 Unfortunately the dam has submerged some of the Temuan tribal land

Antares relates an amazing tale told him by 1 of his Temuan clansmen, Nadi Pak Empok, who said the river naga appeared to him in a terrifying way, after he’d had a series of dreams beckoning him to a particular spot by the river. (4 paragraphs from the end of the 1st part of “Song of the Dragon” – the 2nd part is on “Bucky” Fuller. Buy this fascinating e-book here.)

Click on Mak Minah’s image to purchase mpegs – 10% of proceeds go towards a fund for Temuan youth, widows & seniors

Sadly Mak Minah passed away while their CD was being produced, which is why only one CD emerged from Akar Umbi. Here’s my favorite song of theirs, a Temuan nursery rhyme:

KUDA LARI  (click to play) or RUN HORSE RUN

Lari, lari, kuda lari (Run, run, horse run)
Belang, belang, kuda belang (Stripe, stripe, striped horse)
Pahang, Pahang, pergi Pahang (Pahang, Pahang, go to Pahang)

Malam, malam, kuda malam (Night, night, night-horse)
Lari lari mana jadi (Run, run, so where?)
Hilang, hilang, suda hilang (Lost, gone, it’s lost)

This humorous song is set during the British colonial era: local district officer Sir Cecil Ranking is reported to have fallen off his horse. His mount evaded capture & fled over steep mountain roads to Pahang (the next state to the east), with the civil servant in hot pursuit.

“A” = Kuala Kubu Baru

It was widely known in the region that Ranking was after a rare albino crocodile which lived downstream near the capital Kuala Lumpur (to the south-west). Mostly likely he wanted it as a hunting trophy.

The Temuan on the other hand believed the unusual-looking reptile to be a penunggu or sacred guardian of the river, & were trying to protect it from harm – perhaps they played some part in magically diverting the Englishman away from it.

It’s said Ranking finally did get his prey, but later that same year (1883), a nearby dam burst, causing almost the entire town to be destroyed in a flash-flood during which the district officer disappeared.

Mysteriously enough, Ranking’s corpse was never recovered – all they found was a Caucasian human hand which they believed his – now buried in Kuala Kubu Resthouse under a tombstone which reads, “Here lies the hand of Sir Cecil Ranking”.

The only buildings of the old town which remain standing now, are a Buddhist temple & a mosque. This area is now called Ampang Pecah or “broken dam”. The new town Kuala Kubu Baru (means “new”) was then built further up the slopes.

The “Run Horse Run” nursery rhyme basically warns against angering the sacred guardians of the land – crocodiles after all are a kind of snake or dragon spirit.

It also alludes to the orang asli‘s special rapport with animals. In most polo clubs throughout this country, the top stable-boys & grooms are usually orang asli. According to their folklore, there was an “age of grace” before the Great Flood, when orang asli communicated so perfectly with all animals, that language & speech were unnecessary.

                            Orang asli child with a baby civet “cat” locally known as “musang”

So I would come to visit Antares, his family & friends in this amazingly inspirational setting – a jungle-river gorge steeped in aboriginal folk culture – where I’d spend hours swimming, exploring, writing, relaxing & singing/jamming.

This highly biodiverse environment includes fauna like the Malayan tiger, clouded leopards, tapirs, sun bears & occasionally wild elephants which all live deep in these ancient highland forests; only the orang asli who roam far, & remote rural farmers (rubber tappers & oil palm plantation workers) ever encounter these rarer animals.

                                                                          Chiling Falls

There are also countless waterfalls, from gentle cascades to 100-ft giants – with rapids, streams & even hidden rivulets protected from view by the thick, almost ornamental undergrowth of vines, ferns & mountain shrubs.

With its peaceful community of musicians, artists & writers, Magick River really is an equatorial Garden of Eden & I count myself truly blessed to have spent so much time there.

The song we wrote together (based on a concept poem of mine):

SHARE THE BEAUTY (lyrics)

I like this cave
So warm & soft & full of space
I’m floating free
There’s music in my ears
& silver lights before my eyes
I wanna stay
But in my bones I know
I have to go
A voice is calling from somewhere
Come out of your dark cave (it says)
Come play with me

Chorus:
Share the beauty of this world
It’s our one & only
There’s so much you can be
When you’re part of the magic of this blue-green pearl
You’ve yet to see
The silver stars dancing in the night
Hear the song of birds at dawn
Taste the ocean spray
Smell the jungle after rain

Listen to me
It’s not all smiles
Sometimes you’ll have to shed a tear or two
But then it’s up to you
To dry your eyes & see the sun
The voice is gone
Do I stay or do I go
I just don’t know
I liked this cave before
But now I think I’ve changed my mind
I wanna see…

“Eden” by myself

*The Temuan tongue is mutually intelligible with the Malay language, Antares would know better than me how similar they are. But Malay reflects the influence of colonizers & traders of the region from ancient to more modern times. Loanwords are borrowed from Sanskrit, Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch, certain Chinese dialects, & more recently Arabic – particularly many religious terms – & finally English.
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In memory of Mak Minah, my aunt “Peng” (Oh Saw Theam), an animal-whisperer, Stephen Choi & Zelda Kaplan, who all passed away recently.

All Things Are Numbers

This is a triptych (3 part painting) I painted a while back, called “All Things Are Numbers”.

It’s a quote from a truly multi-faceted “mad-man”: the ancient Greek mathematician-astronomer-philosopher & “guru”, Pythagoras, who lived from roughly 570 BC to 495 BC.

It was his theorem which we all used in school to calculate the longest length of a right-angled triangle, remember? – probably not the best memory!*

I love all those Greek philosopher-mathematicians as they were all such Renaissance men (& women, recalling Hypatia whose story was dramatized in recent movie Agora).

These scholars each made important advancements on the knowledge of mankind in more than one field in their lives – talk about multi-tasking! Considering his numerous contributions to music theory, I believe Pythagoras must’ve been a musician, in fact a geometric form attributed to him is called the lute of Pythagoras.

Despite many controversies around this great figure, Pythagoras shines through the mist of ages as one of the brightest figures of Greek antiquity. The Pythagorean theorem is seen as the beginning of mathematics in western culture. His teaching method gave rise to the art of demonstrative & deductive reasoning, which until today has a profound influence on Western philosophy, from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell & Wittgenstein.

Ol’ Pythagoras sure had a crackpot side to him too, combining genius with an eccentric personality – some zany, crazy stories include one day stopping a stranger from beating their dog, as Pythagoras claimed he recognized a deceased friend’s voice in the dog’s bark! He was convinced about metempsychosis or the concept of transmigration of souls into human & animal lives.

He claimed to remember every single past life he’d lived; one being a Trojan fighter called Euphorbus who was killed by King Menelaus of Sparta during the Trojan war.

One day while visiting friends at Argos (as in Jason & the Argonauts?) in present day Greece, Pythagoras saw a shield which someone had nailed up on their wall as some kind of trophy. He shook with emotion & broke down in tears on seeing that memento. When the owner looked curiously at him, he claimed he’d once carried that shield as Euphorbus at Troy. Stands to reason he must’ve remembered his death too, & how that shield passed hands.

Of course his friends all thought he was barking mad (excuse the pun) but he told them to check the other side of the shield. They took it down & turned it over, & there inscribed in archaic lettering was the word EUPHORBUS. (From the writings of Diogenes Laertius)

Pythagoras was a seeker & scholar, he’s thought to have travelled to Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, Judeae, Babylon & India for the purpose of learning: the Egyptians apparently taught him geometry, the Phoenicians arithmetic, the Chaldeans astronomy & the Magi or Zoroastrians, the principles of religion & practical maxims for the conduct of life.

Pythagoras himself taught exclusively by oral means, he wasn’t a scribe so all we know about him was handed down by word of mouth, through generations of philosophers, historians & writers (the earliest writing 2 centuries after he had died!). Some of these writers eg. Heraclitus even categorically disagreed with his ideas, yet still recognized his immense cultural influence enough to record his life & teachings.

It’s a testimony to Pythagoras’ ideas, his personality & the love his students & even the populace had for him, that so many stories survive today about this eccentric yet charismatic figure.

Pythagoras started the mystery school of Pythagoreanism, a mystical tradition derived from his teachings on mathematics but extrapolated to include a whole spiritual world-view & lifestyle (yes, sounds pretty New Age to me too). Some of his ideas as follows:

– Transmigration of souls into the bodies of other animals (very Buddhist & it’s said he did travel to India)

– Vegetarianism excluding beans (there was clearly some kind of bean-phobia going on, it’s said that at the end of his life, rather than flee through a bean field, Pythagoras preferred to face armed assailants & was thus assassinated)

& other precepts or rules, more below –

The Pythagorean brotherhood started the first commune in the western world, their property being held in common for the first time in Western history. Their numbers included a few women which was rare but not unheard of in those days. (Pythagoras is said to have been taught among others by Thermistoclea, a priestess at Delphi.)

Despite being a secret society, Pythagoras & a handful of his students became highly influential in politics & society, they ended up governing the city where Pythagoras founded the brotherhood, though later they fell out of favor & were expelled or murdered.

In fact their ideas reverberate throughout history as Pythagorean ideas had a marked influence on Plato, & through Plato influenced all of Western philosophy, science & even medicine (through Aristotle, student of Plato & one of the progenitors of modern medicine along with Hippocrates).

One had to pass through many tests in order to enter the brotherhood of Pythagoreans & once in, there were still many gradations among the members, according to mental capacity & closeness with Pythagoras himself. It was an old maxim of theirs that not all truths should be revealed to just anybody. (This model was later used very effectively by the Rosicrucians & freemasons who modelled their secret societies on Pythagoreanism.)

The Pythagorean brethren also had to obey strict religious orders: they were forbidden to eat beans or meat, touch white cocks (huh?), or look into a mirror beside a light. Women were given equal opportunity to study, & learned practical domestic skills in addition to philosophy (Cooking & Cleaning after Mathematics 101 anyone?).

Pythagoras also believed a person could escape from reincarnation or the “wheel of birth” – through purification rituals & practices which he built on to the precepts of the Orphic tradition (ascetism, burial rituals, beliefs, mantras & even “purifying” music). Pythagoras’ addition to Orphism was that he claimed mathematics & scientific pursuits were 2 of the greatest new redeeming virtues!

Pythagoras also originated the concept of the “harmony of the spheres“, ie. that the movement of planets & stars were governed by mathematical equations, which corresponded to musical notes & thus produced a symphony.

Clearly Pythagoras thought all principles of the universe could be expressed in terms of numerical relationships. Pure thought & deductive analysis revealed the secrets of the cosmos to him thus he made mathematics into a philosophy, a way of life & even a religion!

Hence this most famous quote attributed to him:

“All things are numbers”.

“All Things Are Numbers – Pythagoras” – 2ft x 2ft, mixed media

My series of paintings was inspired by Pythagoras & also by the memory of a psilocybin-induced vision which I experienced during a full moon party on Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand (a while back during my younger wilder days, I’m all Mrs Clean now). 😉

In the vision I saw everything around me in light-grids of differing intensities: people & animals brighter than plants but even inanimate objects had some slight “buzz” or aura – that was when I realized everything stood in this same grid together, all connected in some way however far apart, living things have their own force-field & magnetism attracting & repelling each other – it was as if I’d dropped into the grid in one of the Matrix movies. Cheesy now I think about it!

But it’s said the Bible can be read as a powerful numerological document. Gravity, time, waves & light can all be represented by equations. Even chaos forms a pattern.

I’m not claiming to be Pythagorean (I’m a follower of Christ & the Buddha with a strong interest in mysticism, metaphysics & maybe even the supernatural). But I was much seduced by these ancient madmen when I first heard about them many years ago 🙂

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras#cite_note-47
http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/pythagoras.html
My own rusty memory

*Turns out the earliest known formulation of Pythagoras’ theorem was known by first the Indians as far back as 800BC, & was passed to the Babylonian master builders. It seems probable that followers of Plato attributed the theorem to Pythagoras for political reasons.

Kitsch fashion spread

Fashion spread on which I collaborated with a friend, stylist/photographer/art director Dominic Sio. We did this for now-discontinued Monsieur magazine (Malaysia).

I wrote the text & contributed some of my own clothing & perhaps even influenced it a little with my personal style at that time (funky, colorful, over-the-top vintage/designer style).

It’s also a philosophical & style exploration of the real meaning of kitsch. Wait till you see the magazine cover (I have to find it though!)…

Plus a cartoon by Kit Leee aka “Antares”

Theatre de Sade: Teatro de Sangre

In May 2010, an occasional project of mine Theatre de Sade* created & produced a performance event series “Teatro de Sangre: Gothic Comedy Dinner-Theatre”. The event took place at Mehanata the Bulgarian bar in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

This place (used to be on Canal St) is notorious for their wild after-hours antics – they’re where Eugene Hutz, left, founder of Gogol Bordello, used to DJ when not on tour with his gypsy-punk outfit.

Meanwhile the Bulgarian bar was the perfect venue for an evening of rude, irreverent performances topped with a dance after-party presided over by one of my favorite NYC bands: Mark Sposato‘s super-cool jazz-fusion Stem Trio. The entertainment lasted from 8pm till 1am on Thursday night.

Click this image to hear the “uber-smooth post-modern stylings of Stem Trio”.

We packed out both floors of the venue by 8pm – normally it’s pretty empty till 11.30pm (when their usual late-night clientele starts coming in).

The evening’s theme was the Gothic (horror) genre which has always been a favorite of mine, an under-utilized treasure. For me, creating an atmosphere of sinister, foreboding other-worldliness peppered with camp touches of comedy, is a means of screwing royally with the mind of an audience. 😉

Here’s one of the fliers created for the event:

Incredible photography was by talented newcomer Ashley Dupree (below, www.theashleydupree.com).

Ladies & gentlemen, I give you two rising new stars on the verge of exploding: Chantal Thuy & Michael A. Jefferson.

Talented funnyman Michael A. Jefferson carried the play almost single-handedly while the gorgeous Chantal Thuy provided first some nerdiness as a nurse then raw sensuality as a bedbug nymph(o).

I played a neurotic control-freak of a bedbug mother (hmm, typecasting?). 😉

Video of my play at the end of this article – keep going. 🙂

Other performers included stand-up comic Jon Robbins (below).

As well as witty beauties Nadia Menco & Lucie Tripon performing their slightly sinister style creation “Beauty Is Not Eternal Sunshine”:

5-min edit of (my 30-min play) “Bug-pocalypse Now!” – excuse the poor quality. Feel free to Like on Youtube, thanks. 🙂

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* “A passionate, convulsive conception of life, violent rigor & extreme condensation of scenic elements” – Antonin Artaud on what “Cruelty” meant in his “Theater of Cruelty“, an austere, surrealist, semi-violent form. We’re not into the normal definition of cruelty in any way.

Andres Serrano: A Tight-Rope Act

PUBLISHED IN ITS MAGAZINE (NYC) – SPRING 2001 ISSUE
Written by Lida Geh
Photography by Amedeo Volpe
This article is PG-rated for adult-themed content

He is one of the art-world symbols of controversy, general scapegoat in the mid- to late-80s… before Salman Rushdie came along & took the heat.

Not long ago he could’ve been ex-communicated, in medieval times he would’ve surely been burnt at the stake – like Joan of Arc – for heresy: a crime against God & against mankind. In a lesser society he might’ve been simply labelled a social deviant, a public enemy, a desecrator.

But for Andres Serrano, the Bad Boy of Art, the extent of his punishment was merely withdrawal of some public funding, a few nasty words said about him in Congress & some token copies of his photography torn up in public by Jesse Helms, an indignant Republican senator.

It still got him a mention in art history books forever – as well as in congressional records. Not bad for a guy who once claimed he took up photography because he was no good at painting or sculpture!

His is the story every artist dreams of: worldwide controversy, heated debate, furor among public leaders & the press. Of course the ending of his grant from the National Endowment for the Arts wasn’t all that peachy, but look at all the attention he got!

So much so it makes one wonder whether he is just a one of those one-hit wonders, or fluke-shot adepts who make it their business to be controversial – how could he not be famous?

In person he is helpful & unassuming, seems genuinely good-natured with the occasional flash of grandiosity. His responses are playful, slightly provocative, & I had this very strong hunch, selectively blur in a sharp way. Andy Warhol had these qualities & this ability – obfuscating the highly aware knowingness with the bumbling child’s mind, quick to laugh at himself.

Which demonstrates how easily Serrano can impress any audience of the pure intentions behind his seemingly impure creations – with his slightly affected naivete & his paradoxically bold art. Yet he walks effortlessly & with style the perilous fine line between bad taste & good art.

Who else has dared (or could have the stomach to) photograph & exhibit such work?

His own urine & semen. The disabled & geriatrics captured in erotic poses. Corpses of homicide & suicide victims. The homeless. Burn victims. Couples in states of arousal at kinky S&M activities. The Ku Klux Klan. Siamese twins conjoined. Who else has dared defile the effigy of one of the most powerful institutions on this planet – the Vatican?

And he’s still alive, unlynched, neither ex-communicated by Church nor assassinated by religious fanatics nor  extremist Klansmen.

I liken his art to a tight-rope act above all the circus tricks which other artists perform for attention. It is one of the more courageous careers: depicting those elements by which humankind is so strongly repelled. The reaction against them is almost visceral, hence the uproar amongst more conservative circles.

These are the taboos he strives to portray – deformity, old age, violent death by act of God or by crime, perversity, destitution, racial hatred, icons of religion.

In confronting the most instinctive of repulsions, fears & venerations, in overturning the symbols & archetypes closest to our hearts, most powerful in our psyches, he attempts to make us question & re-examine that which we deem most sacred – & most profane.

And in a subtle way, without us realizing, he has changed us & changed history.

QUOTES:

About his “Body Fluids” series:
“I started to photograph my own body fluids as a sort of geometric, expressionistic, abstract form of art.”

About “Piss Christ”:
“The piss in Piss Christ humanizes Christ, compared to turning him into an unattainable deity. [It attempts] to bring home the reality of the natural crucifixion, which was a very painful & ugly way to die.
“So if people think that this particular work is debased or disturbing, they should think about what a real crucifixion is supposed to be.”

About “The History of Sex” series:
“I wanted to show that people – like the elderly & the disabled – people not normally seen as having sexual functions – are after all sexual beings, & therefore human.”

About his work:
“I do my work because I love to explore my obsessions, both the good & the bad.”
“I like to give people what they want, & what they don’t want.”
“It takes protest to make progress.”

About the Church:
“I think nowadays people stop going to Church at puberty because there is a conflict between what the Church tells you is right & what your body dictates.
“However I feel if anyone has the right to use symbols of the church – Jesus’ name & image – it would be people who practised & still practise Christianity – like myself.”

Arturo Cuenca : Light-Sabre Monk

PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK ARTS MAGAZINE – JULY/AUGUST 2002

Arturo Cuenca, on his way up at 45, once said in his usual flamboyant, over-confident style,

“I am the least known of today’s great artists.”

He certainly has had moments of glory as well as his fair share of tumbles, this controversial Cuban (now American citizen).

Hailed as the Next Best Thing in Havana while still in university, hundreds of students attended his public outdoor performances). Even today, he is still discussed in academic publishing as being in his time at the forefront of the Cuban vanguard, yet he ended up expelled & exiled from the country – for criticizing Castro publicly.

Left to his own devices in Gotham city, he went on to win few friends amongst New York art circles – probably, he believes, for his bitter diatribe against the cigar-smoking dictator. Sadly for him, left was in… thus the free wine & parties eluded him.

Fighting spirits don’t stand still however, & he worked steadily to gain a foothold in national & international art scenes. His recent participation in high profile shows like LA’s InSite2000, Fiac Art Fair 2000 in Paris, the Armory Show in NYC, a stunning solo in Miami last fall, followed by Art Forum reviews, have together gained him prestigious corporate collectors in Paris & London especially.

Today he has two big solo shows, one in Chelsea (Milagro Generoso, spring 2002) & the other at the Paul Sharpe gallery (spanning the decade during which he was expelled from Cuba, spent a sojourn in Mexico, then eventually arrived in NYC). One can safely say his time has finally come.

His work lies at the juncture between painting & photography, it has impressionist tendencies as well as a certain sci-fi element & it also bears a thread similar to that of documentary film because it seems to be a sort of narrative or commentary on his life & its concurrent emotional processes.

The images moreover have a certain Zen stillness to them, triggering a forlorn & wistful longing, a sentiment of nostalgia for some warmth, for a human touch or emotive presence, some shared memory in witnessing their beauty.

Approaching monochromatism, his thoughtful, deliberate aesthetic is far more Japanese than Hispanic, the mood static, rather than vibrant – ex post facto rather than in situ.

There are reminiscences of delicate Monet-waterlilies, Fritz Lang metropoles & scenes of circumspect evidence left behind in accidental pools of water or blood, straight out of a Dick Tracy novella.

His microcosmic cityscapes on huge tableaux (sometimes covering 20 feet of a wall) have less presence than most large pieces, thus they approach textile art or even a black-and-white documentary film. Their repetitive, decorative patterns have an inclination to recede, blur & meld in the half-light around them.

I remember walking through the door of his studio for the first time, thinking to myself, “Exquisite! He has amazing shadows made by the trees & the lamplight outside his window” – & then realizing with pleasant surprise that this delicate patterning of intricate shadow was actually one of his works. “Ship-Smoke-Ships” 1995, his largest piece, stretches along the length of a 25 foot wall. In it, amidst the images of a steam-propelled cruiser & its smoke, there are his usual images of water & different reflections & refractions on the water, which are part of his visual vocabulary. The steamship symbolizes work & industry; the motif of journey is change, water a form of death & new life. It is clear to those who know him well: his paintings are about his redemption into a new life through the fruits of his labor.

Yet Cuenca’s images also have a futuristic, sci-fi element in their incongruous imagery: their shimmering layers evoke concepts of time, memory & experience, real & virtual, as in a Philip K.Dick novel. Scenes both interior & exterior, are viewed through peepholes & windows, through droplets of rain forming on a glass pane, through barbed wire & shards of glass.

From a muted palette of sepias, pastels & stark black-and-white, & the occasional use of typography, even installations of light boxes in Technicolor, his work embodies a range of emotions: irony, kitsch, satire, humour, a sense of nostalgia. Just like the person, it has a tendency to the didactic, instructve, complex & philosophical.

Cuenca says that he initially began as a painter working in photorealist style, & that in the late-70s he turned his attention to photography, experimenting with the medium to create hybrid art forms with painting, sculpture, film & installation art. According to Cuenca, his isolation in Cuba kept him unaware of many artistic developments. As a result he created his own brand of conceptual art, which he says, links ideas related to photography & philosophy, or what he calls “photosophy.”

As he himself stated in arturocuenca.com:

“The objective of my work is knowledge. The goal of being is self-awareness: being truth with itself. All [the] recourses that I have invented in my work have been means to arrive at a knowledge of myself & through me, of the spectators that represents the human culture to which I belong.” from arturocuenca.com website. (Click on image for manifesto.)

Thus “photosophy” is his own practice in art, a practice of self-awareness through the search for beauty using the medium of light.

This recalls perhaps a Keatsian search for knowledge through a search for beauty (remember “beauty is truth & truth, beauty”?), putting Cuenca’s goals squarely among the ethos of the Romantics: those emotive & impassioned poets, artists, writers, musicians, as well as politicians, activists & philosophers in the late-18th to mid-19th century who prized intuition & emotion over Enlightenment rationalism.

But perhaps it is unfair to say his career is merely “art for art’s sake”. There is a second element of his art. That of a philanthrope engaging in arduous work for the purpose of furthering the knowledge & capacity of mankind. Whether pompous or erroneous or simply grandiose, there is still an element of sincerity in this quest for his personal Holy Grail.

(Academics in literature often interpret the Grail as being not so much a sacred object, but as in fact, the personal journey & moral struggle one undertakes while striving to attain the perfect “Grail”. Hence the “Grail” may be really a cipher symbolizing refinement of character, self-purification, physical strife, perfection of beauty & lastly the attainment of truth.)

His modus operanti earnestly dictates his direction, which is probably why he has been recognized as “one of the experimentalists whose directions changed the course of Cuban art” (from INTAR show catalog: Arturo Cuenca: A Decade of Photography 1993 writtern by Julie Herzberg, a curator & specialist in Latin American history). In fact if one reads through all the literature, scholastic & journalistic, that has been written about him, it will seem that his ambition as a thinker has foreshadowed his work.

Even a jealous rival seeking to diminish his achievements questioned whether Cuenca’s work accomplished the complexity that he strives for in writing, & was forced to concede that “over the decade [it] had systematically come closer to [it]” – Luis Camnitzer in his book “New Art in Cuba”. He went on to preface this negative edict with a begrudging safeguard “not to preclude a future possibility of success” for Cuenca.

With hindsight it is evident that the enemy paid a greater compliment than any ally, in predicting something great not then completely achieved, like the critic of a gorgeous jigsaw puzzle who could neither envision nor understand the whole complicated picture.

Similarly we may yet acclaim Cuenca as a heavyweight who has set himself on an exacting path, investigating paradoxical phenomena, equipped with the mind of a sophist & the intentions of a teacher, to give us lessons in the guise of paintings.

Issa Nyaphaga: “Barackuda: Post Election Cartoon Show”

By Lida Geh

(Soft piece on a unique personality in the arts & non-profit sector –  Cameroonian artist-performance artist-activist Issa Nyaphaga)

This entertaining yet thoughtful show just closed in Artbreak Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – a showcase for Cameroonian artist Issa Nyaphaga & his seemingly paradoxical twin obsessions – politics & humour – a feat he manages to carry off with panache.

Nyaphaga’s art explodes off the canvas with exuberance, expressed in a visually striking though perhaps at times stylistically incoherent manner. But borrowing from elements of many different types of art, both high & low (protest/activist art, graffiti art, street art, graphic or comics art & political cartoons), he mashes it all up into something palatable, fun & judging from the strong turn-out, resonant to the urban, youth-oriented, visually literate audience of Williamsburg, aka hipster hide-out of Brooklyn.

See for example his hilarious hand-signals piece “Signs in the Urban World”, which light-heartedly lends anthropological legitimacy to invented ghetto-style hand gestures from all over the world (US, Africa, France): what do you think is the sign for “Gangsta playboy”, or “Cuckolded man”, or “Don’t leave alone, honey!” or “Not today I have my period” or “Where to buy marijuana?”! – It’s an infinitely useful, uniquely hip-hop approach to internationalism!

Done (impossibly) within a quick, 3 month period (which may explain an element of haste to the works), it was the time during which Nyaphaga did a residency in the Harlem Studio Fellowship – away from his usual homes in North Carolina, Paris & Cameroon. In that short time, this astoundingly prolific artist covered all the walls of Artbreak Gallery (the Brooklyn “wing” of the Carlton Arms Hotel – the funkiest hotel in Manhattan as each of their hotel rooms doubles as a sort of metamorphosing art gallery).

“Barackuda” contains witty, engaging murals & paintings – more often than not using cartoon images to humorously address (but without belittling) such complex, potentially incendiary subject-matter as Islamic terrorism, the Afghanistan-Iraq war, the bias of world order governments & Barack Obama’s seemingly Herculean tasks ahead.

Nyaphaga starts by addressing socio-anthropological matters or snippets of life in the “noughts” decade (such as iPod- & cellphone-addicted people going to AA meetings) & goes on to treat with a funny but slightly suspect humor the transition from Bush to Obama administration: in “Hey W”, Obama & Michelle exhort Bush JR to vacate the White House, if necessary with dynamite!

Another large format canvas, “In The Mind of Barack Obama”, depicts all the trials that Obama surpassed in order to become the presidential candidate: the caucuses, the fight against Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, the nomination & finally Sarah Palin.

The largest work & centerpiece (occupying pride of place at the gallery entrance) was “Guernika Today” modelled on Picasso’s seminal condemnation of war, painted during the Spanish Civil War. Nyaphaga’s Guernika is arresting in black & white, charcoal & paint on a 17 foot wide by 12 foot tall canvas. It addresses the last 8 years in political history – with some mischievous turns suggesting an impish outlook:

Bin Laden is appreciating Condoleeza Rice’s derriere (perhaps by satellite TV) from his home in the Afghan hills, the Iraq war is omnipresent, you see the collapse of the Taliban regime, Saddam Hussein hung (“victim of axis of evil” – a role reversal), Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist watching all these events with the emblematic shoes (which he threw against Bush Jr); Rumsfeld & Cheney are the bull or symbol of war-aggressors, the Madoff scandal, the economic crisis, Barack Obama (with a Hitler moustache) flashes a “V” sign, & an African tribal mask hung on the lintel of the White House!

Subversiveness is blatant in this piece, so I ask Nyaphaga what people in Cameroon thought about September 11 expecting perhaps some tactfully watered-down Islamic apologism, but he said:

“We think it was very bad, we were quite shocked because in my culture, growing up as a kid, people teach me that life is a most important thing, we don’t think (what the terrorists did on Sept 11) helps anyone. In my country, people are very desperate, just to eat & survive, so to kill people like that is senseless.”

A little about his background:

Nyaphaga’s father was an animist before he converted to Islam (Issa is the Quranic form of Jesus). Nyaphaga Sr. was a calligrapher, botanist & herbal healer; Issa turned away from his stern rule when only 14, so he could go to a larger town & study under a painter who became his mentor. His father had forbidden him to draw cartoons or any human or animal figures because depicting any real-life form is forbidden in Islam (according to Islam, Allah created these forms & noone can rival Allah).

When little, Issa also went to a Catholic primary school every morning. He now professes to be more Buddhist than anything else, but he loves to say that he has four religions (animism, Islam, Catholicism & Buddhism).

This pantheistic approach is reflected in his work as many paintings portray Obama as: Jesus on a cross, Che Guevara, the Dalai Lama, Bob Marley, a basketball star, even the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen. Clearly meant as commentary on how society is placing Obama on a pedestal, perhaps dangerously high.

Additionally the image of Obama as all these people of different ethnic backgrounds emphasizes the US President’s multiculturalism, surely one of his greatest political assets in this time.

Other poster-like paintings with tribal design of Gandhi, Martin Luther King & Malcolm X made another parallel that the more ethnically diverse parts of the US & probably some of the world at large, see Obama as some emerging civil-rights icon & a great African-American leader.

The US starts to be idealized too – in another piece Obama is introduced as “father from Kenya, mother from Kansas, the story that can only happen in the USA”. When I ask him what he thought the difference was between the European & American mentality, he answered:

“In two ways there are differences: in one, the size of the coffee, & two, the way you consume it. In America the coffee is big, not like in France where it’s tiny. Here, when you buy the coffee you take it with you in a paper cup, so you can continue to work or do whatever. In France they have to sit down with a newspaper & be served at a table by a garcon (waiter) with a glass of water: the French, they would never drink coffee walking, or in a paper cup!”

This analogy, I reply, is a great way of saying that Europe can be bound too much by tradition while Americans are workaholics.

Nyaphaga claims when Obama apparently “came out of nowhere” on the world stage, he was instantly transfixed by the Democratic nominee’s story & started to have a strong hunch about him & his trajectorial career, hence his interest in Obama.

“Barack Obama is nothing & he is everything. He is something to everyone, for example someone votes for him because he’s young like Obama, another person votes for him because he’s successful like Obama, another likes basketball like Obama, another because he’s black like Obama, another because he’s white like Obama, & so on… so you see, everyone is trying to hold him (as one of their own), he is a universal logo!”

How about the title of his show, “Barackuda”, I ask. Is it because he’s skinny & effective, ie. has “teeth”? He laughs & nods, adding that Obama’s character is politically very strong, he “eats all the other fish”. He continues,

“I think he’s a very smart person (with) a higher strategy that goes beyond politics, look at how he beat Clinton & Palin, & remember Jeremiah Wright? Everyone thought he was finished! But he has something more than politics, you can see it in his body, (he’s) a confident guy who knows himself well. In French there’s a saying, je suis bien dans mes botes, “I am good in my skin (or literally boots).”

I ask him if maybe he envies Obama?

“Oh no not at all! It’s the last thing I would like to be – the end of the list!”

“I can never be a politician because I don’t want anyone to hate me! That’s why I’m just an artist, (as an artist, I) can say anything & noone cares. That’s why my symbol in my paintings is a frog.” (If you look at many of his paintings, there’s a frog with speech balloons, passing commentary on what’s going on in the painting.)

“My frog is easily ignored & doesn’t influence anyone, he’s in a position of weakness, that’s what I say about artists, we are saying the truth but noone listens, I am the joker!”

On one hand you could say Barackuda was a low-brow but fun affair – attracting a gaggle of artsy teenage girls who gravitated toward him as to a father figure. Yet on the other hand there is a certain verve in his work that is more than meets the average art-reviewer’s eye.

Nyaphaga is an internationally known, mostly self-taught fine artist, portraitist & cartoonist, an acclaimed performance artist, as well as a political refugee & activist who has been given asylum & permanent residence by France (& recently the US) because he had been repeatedly imprisoned & tortured for his opposition to the Paul Biya-headed government in Cameroon during the mid- to late-90s.

He opposed the government through a unique “newspaper” which he had helped found with another cartoonist with the pen name of Popoli. The paper was called “Le Messager Popoli” (“the voice of the people”) & was political, weekly (now bi-weekly) commentary told completely in cartoons! The reason for the use of this unusual medium was because even though Cameroon has a population of 20 million, over 60% of its people are semi-illiterate.

This unusual magazine commented on life in Cameroon, along with the goings-on of the government told in a bodacious Cameroonian humour, stirring up sympathy & a newfound taste for politics among the populace. It became something of a national phenomenon, its audience growing to 5 million within 4 years.

This led to censorship & curtailment of the paper’s power by the government which obligated the paper to send in copies to the Justice Ministry & the Administration for review before publication. Before the general elections in 1996 however Nyaphaga & Popoli were determined not to send in review copies – since they went by their noms de plume or pen-names, their identities were disguised in print, so they thought they could escape detection. However someone revealed Issa’s identity & as a result he was imprisoned & tortured (for the names of his colleagues at the paper) over a period of 10 months.

Ironically during his sentence, he became so popular with the prison director & his wardens, that they allowed him to hold an exhibition inside the New Bell Prison.

Yet when he was released, courageously or recklessly, he described his ordeal in Le Messager Populi. For the government, this was the last straw, his life was now really in danger. Having been warned ahead of time, Issa fled the country with the aid of an uncle working in immigration. Fleeing to France, he immediately filed for political asylum which allowed him to remain there so long as he did not return to his homeland, thus he was exiled from his motherland for almost 12 years.

Working with Parisian art photographer, Jacqueline Hyde (former assistant to Man Ray), Issa gained valuable connections in the art world, eventually doing illustrations for books, co-authoring “Political Asylum in France”, a book criticizing French treatment of migrants, & also teaching – at universities, social institutes as well as leading therapeutic workshops for at-risk children & teens. A high profile political refugee now, he was chosen to give a keynote speech at the French National Assembly (or congress) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions.

He also founded or co-founded no less than four successful not-for-profit organizations which are still in existence: JAAFE (African Journalists in Exile) which defends and protects journalists in danger, Sphere Sud by which he contributes to the development of rural areas in Cameroon, HITIP (Hope International for Tikar People) which contributes to the development of rural areas in Cameroon as well as looking after his own tribal people, especially in cultural exchange, health and education sectors, & lastly Free Dimensional, an international network that advances social justice by hosting activists in art spaces & using cultural resources to strengthen their work.

As artist though, his deftness & lightness of touch in the face of our recent modern tragedies, is an essential in art: Nyaphaga as the joker induces our curiosity, arouses our laughter & thus enables much-needed new perspective in politics & society.

Sources:
http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?lang=en&id=72
French Wikipedia

Women Artists Breaking Taboos

Article on local women artists in Malaysia – ArtLink magazine (Australia) vol 13
By Lida Geh