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Uncanny romance in Pacena’s 'After Mall Hours'


The Last Call portrays the gap that cannot be filled between people.
The end of 2010 was special in that J Pacena’s exhibit After Mall Hours happened, quietly and without much fanfare, in the new Blanc Gallery tucked in on the first floor of the Manila Peninsula in Makati City. Entering the clean white space that is Blanc’s aesthetic across its growing number of galleries is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. The color of Pacena’s works is in his usual light blues and grays, and on a superficial level it looks like it’s still part of his interest in archival digital print, real bodies and people within technology. From within the gallery space, 90s music was blaring, from the Eheads to Dong Abay, a vibe that’s strange more than anything else in this context. The vibe of this set of works from Pacena is different as well. Geometrical forms and computerized images still intertwine with human forms, speaking of our lives in current times. This time though, there is clearly an amount of human emotion that runs through the works, and Pacena’s curatorial notes point to this fact. The creation of the exhibit was a journey, one that brought him from his childhood in Manila to the art and loneliness of Japan, from his own exhibits to the works of other artists. In After Mall Hours the interest in the unsaid, is revealed through the life that’s unseen, words that aren’t articulated. It points to the hours of the day when there is no work to do, when there are no saviors to call, and our lives are just about the people we live with. Pacena places his works within each of these hours, in a strange alternate world, that’s only about the wee hours of the morning. Individuality seems to be the struggle here. There are glaring loud portrayals of things that cannot be shared like pain (“Migraine") and unexplainable discomfort (“Nausea"). But the bigger works with human figures like “The Fragile State of Holding Hands" and “The Last Call" don’t speak as literally of individuality. In these two works, what is concretized is the abstract that cannot be bridged, the gap that cannot be filled, between two people. The couple in each of these works have their backs against each other, but are holding onto each other by their hands or arms. In “The Fragile State of Holding Hands" the full bodies of the couple are portrayed going in two opposite directions, in a graceful stance, highlighting what seems to be the most normal thing to do. They are individually wrapped in the geometric shapes that also fills the floor they stand on, that speaks of their entrapment, but also the possibilities of their freedom.
The Fragile State of Holding Hands speaks of entrapment and freedom.
In “The Last Call" the couple is closer to each other, their upper bodies almost back to back, their arms intertwined. Their faces are more visible, more real: both with pursed lips, the rest of their heads covered with geometry almost like a helmet, or maybe like a shield. Their bodies are free of these shapes that entrap, almost as if they could let go any moment, because everything that binds them is only in their heads. “Stagnant 01" and “Stagnant 02" meanwhile show only the body, the first seemingly co-existing with the chaos of communication and technology that the computerized images connote, the latter portraying the shapes attacking the faceless body. These two bodies reveal the manner in which stagnation is either of these two situations, one seemingly more peaceful than the other, but both signaling the probability of resistance and therefore of violence. It’s in the works without human figures though, that Pacena proves he’s got plenty up his sleeve. Using photos from a curatorship grant that brought him to Japan, the series entitled “Silhouettes Voices and Familiar Phrases" was an interesting take on clichés and idioms, and obviously on love and romance too.
addiction. silent. alone. Handwritten notes are the highlight of each canvas in "Silhouettes Voices and Familiar Phrases."
Square canvasses are filled with individual collages each, in Pacena’s standard blues and grays but also with reds and yellows that’s rare in his works. The highlight of each one is a tinily handwritten phrase or word that is central to it, but which also works against the image on the canvas. Within the craziness of computerized shapes and black and gold squiggles is the phrase “in praise of folly." On a canvas that forms a solid cross in the midst of strange cornered figures, “Religion Gone Bad." In a work that says “addiction. silent. alone." a solid white circle is the lone and central image that cuts across the rest of the canvas, and seems to be in the context of a real concrete space. With what looks like the roof of a house within few shapes and more space that is solid and dark on canvas, a white circle holds the word “forever." This is uncanny romance for sure, what with the mess and chaos that Pacena uses to determine our current world. At the same time, this disorder strangely enough seems perfect in light of love and romance, in the midst of technology and change that we can’t quite get a handle on or control ourselves within. In Pacena’s After Mall Hours, we are shown how this is an intricate co-existence, one that can be violent and crazy, one that can be beautiful in its struggles. One that can still be romantic, for the ones who know how to be realistic in love. Pacena can show us because he lives. - GMANews.TV
Tags: artexhibit
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