OSCAR SANTILLAN

Works accomplish on the last months

2012-01-31T00:17:00.004-05:00

The artist went to a lake and took of mouthful of its water. Then, walked to the city and gave it to the pigeons at an empty fountain

The Manifesto Of Goodness
Performance
2011
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Horse Semen Bubble (I)
Photograph
100x66.5 cm
2012

Horse Semen Bubble (II)
Photograph
100x66.5 cm
2012

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Color Semen (I)
Photographic documentation of the result of a masturbation by the artist after being injected vegetable pigments into his seminal vesicles
100x150 cm
2011-2012

Color Semen (II)
Photographic documentation of the result of a masturbation by the artist after being injected vegetable pigments into his seminal vesicles
100x150 cm
2011-2012

New Videos

2011-05-09T22:00:00.015-04:00

The Telepathy Manifesto / Video loop / 2011
Performing: Daniel Beckwith and Oscar Santillan
Camera: Alexandra Barao and Stephen Williams

Cascade / Video loop / 2009-2011
Produced by: Josie Lewis and Daniel Beckwith

The Cannibals / Video loop / 2011 / in collaboration with artist Signe Schmidt

2011

VCU MFA Thesis Show

2011-05-09T19:22:00.036-04:00

/// general view of the show ///
Special thanks to artists Jessica Dodd, Josie Lewis, Will Machin and Josh Bennett for their support with the installation.

Twins / Cast light and cast cake / 2011
Produced by Stephen Williams

A Knife To Defeat The Night's Breeze / Ashes of a coyote / 2009-2011
Produced by Daniel Beckwith and Oscar Santillan
Special thanks to Verena Schatz, Alexa Leister-Frazier, Josie Lewis, and Stephen Williams

Juana Ines de la Cruz / Several beings with long hair / 2010-2011
Produced by Alexandra Barao
Special thanks to the participants: Melissa Lesh, Loie Hollowell, Georgi Ivanov, Emily Sydnor, Jackie Rhines, Renee Doorly and Jackie Picariello
And, thanks to Aileen Painter for her support with this work

Ornst / Cast of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and something that expires on Yuri Gagarin’s birthday / 2011
Produced by Luke Harman and Alexa Leister-Frazier

Some new works

2010-12-16T10:58:00.022-05:00

Map and Dust
Photograph
100 x 123 cm
2011

For Juana Ines de la Cruz, Five girls with long hair are situated inside the gallery wall.
They appear randomly. By removing the caps, their hair is seen through five holes, being the only visible part of their body to the viewer. After several minutes they would pull back their hair and return the caps to the wall.

Juana Ines de la Cruz
Five beings with long hair
2010

Horn
Ashes, glass, and wood pedestal
2010

Strawberry Puddle
Photograph
100x67cms
2010

The Permanent Blink

2010-10-26T23:28:00.014-04:00

The Permanent Blink

Video installation
2010

Every single James Dean’s blink was collected from all of his movies. Then, the 951 blinks were aligned together, creating a video of several sequences of smooth spins of his head.
A projector installed inside the wall projects the video, that glows through the skin of the wall. When the viewer approaches the wall there are no marks, hole, or any sign of modification on the wall, but the very tiny video (about 2 x 1.5 inches, or 5 x 4 cm.) that is running, with no traces of the technology that makes it possible.

The Permanent Blink - Oscar Santillan from Oscar Santillan on Vimeo.

Work at "Kierkegaard's Walk" show, at Marilia Razuk gallery (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

2010-09-25T17:15:00.007-04:00

Silver Wake
(Estela Plateada)
Watch
2010

Detail of the face of the watch

Oscar Santillan

Photographs

2010-07-21T10:49:00.014-04:00

Cascade

Photograph

2011

Water Worm

Photograph

2010

Water Halo

Photograph

2010

Twelve Water Drops

Photograph

2010

Untitled (Breath and Dust)

Photograph

2010

NEWS and INTERVIEW

2010-06-21T09:55:00.027-04:00

Sleeping Child
Many pounds of dry oil paint
2008-2010

At certain distance the video in the wall looks just like a very small and colorful spark

Detail. The video glowing through the wall skin

The video was made by collecting and rearranging every single James Dean's blink from all of his movies

The Permanent Blink
Video installation
2010

A projector installed inside the wall projects the video, that glows on the skin of the wall. When the viewer approaches the wall there are no marks, hole, or any sign of modification on the wall, but the very tiny video that is running with no traces of the technology that makes it possible.
*

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Daybreak
Paint removed from the wall and rearranged on the floor
2010

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interview (click here)
by Mariano Napoli (Italy)

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The mass (The big mass)
Graphite on paper
14x17 inches
2010

A mutant text (written for Curious magazine)

2010-06-02T16:21:00.003-04:00

The owner of The Flood

by Oscar Santillan

God is the one who took our limbs, fingers, toes and nails apart, but forgot he did it.

Mr. Stickgold established that memory is the link between dreams and actual life; dreams are the stage where our characters and actions furiously meet: the hyperreal space that blends flesh and time into life. But the blended memory only makes sense if the awakening is possible.

On the eighth day He tried to wake but He could not, actually He has not. Since then, we are still captured in the eighth day, in His dream. There is no Plan anymore, and mystic practices cannot reach the almighty solitude of His endless wandering.

The alarm clock must be made out of whispers. Its sound must be the same as dust embracing a windowpane.

Quieter.

Dust is well known to be the epidermical matter that wraps human absence. But in order to exist, it needs light. Just recently, in the nineteenth century, mankind took it into account, when cinema was invented. In between the projector and the screen -through the darkness- floats this pristine body of light and dust, the movie.

For decades, Ecuadorians have been looking for the reels of ‘Atahualpa’s Treasure’, the first film ever made in the country. The only remnant of its 1924 release is a newspaper advertisement. In order to take control over the entire Tawantinsuyu kingdom, Atahualpa battled against his stupid brother Huascar. The Incan civil war was full of inventive forms of torture: the defeated Huascar armies were forced to eat their chiefs’ hearts; wombs were carefully cleaned out; trickles from thin, calm necks becoming leaking horizons; and wind rehearsing the way it sounds when caressing all things.

Atahualpa was taken prisoner by the incoming Spanish conquistadors, who demanded that the king fill an entire room with gold to release him. But the Incan general entrusted to bring the ransom was notified en route of Atahualpa’s assassination. After being baptized into the Catholic faith by his captors and receiving the Christian name of Juan Santos, he was gracefully offered two choices: being strangled or burned. The king died as a coward, under an unknown name and an unknown religion.

The general threw the treasure into the lake and fought the invaders back. Once captured and tortured, he was asked about the location of the golden load.

It is in a corner on the mountain.

Neither the movie nor the corner has been ever found.

The general’s name was Rumiñahui, and he knew that the best way to expose the mundane origin of the bearded invaders was to behead those alien animals that most Incas believed to be divine: horses.

Horses have been imagined as elongations of human bodies: statements of desire and frustration (the ungoverned conscience of the lost object). Reflections in a Golden Eye, and Giant show horses as manifest flesh where humans place their latent frustrations. Major Penderton, in the first film, and Luz, in the second, both brutally injure a horse owned by one they hate in order to unleash their emotional demands. Yet the wounds arouse our pity for the cowardly aggressor. Since the true wish in both cases is to murder – a wife or a sister-in-law– we are confronted with an old and persistent idea: if something is unbearable to us and unacceptable for our society – like the necessity of homicide – we are allowed to divert it onto nature: atonement through animal sacrifice remains of paramount importance to our imagery. Those wounds are a reminder of our constant lack of self-control: trembling maps. But crimes of passion are always a mistake, and the reason is quite simple: they restore no power to the murderer.

While setting up the room where she is planning to kill her husband, the woman confesses to her accomplice, “My only regret is that he’ll never know that I killed him.” The film is Diabolique.

If it is possible to recall the most beautiful death ever, it might be that of Bernardo Jaramillo, a heterodox communist running for President of Colombia. One morning in 1990, at the airport with his wife, Bernardo was shot several times by a paramilitary. Then serenely he sought for his partner’s gaze.

Hug me; those motherfuckers have killed me.

In The Misfits, old cowboy Gay Langland, his friend Guido, and a feckless stranger, Perce, go to a barren field to capture wild horses. Roslyn –a woman in a romantic relationship with Gay– also takes part in the trip. The night before the chase, she learns that the fate of the horses is not to be ridden, but to become meat. She is the only who sees the fatuity of men’s actions. Roslyn is still young. She looks naked; you can see her generous tits bouncing into her blouse, her blonde hair lightly petting her neck, her blessing voice like blessed sex. The men, expecting to find a herd of horses, find just six, a family. They are the father, the mother, the little child, the three adolescents. One by one each is lassoed and put down. Except for the colt that stands next to his mother as she lies tied up on the ground. Capturing the horses feeds Gay’s male fantasy of freedom and power, but it turns him into a monster in Roslyn eyes.

Later that night, the younger cowboy Perce helps Roslyn to free the horses. But in an attempt to reassert his authority, Gay, the old cowboy, immediately looks to capture back the alpha horse by himself: his redemption is capturing his own image reflected in the horse. And he does so. He regains his humanity just as he frees the defeated horse.

How different is the case of Folco, the lonely kid in White Mane. The wild horse becomes his deep friend, not his mirror, but his equal. Together they run away from ranchers who try to capture the horse, and the chase ends at the beach on the edge of the ocean. Cornered, Folco rides with his friend into the sea. They disappear in the abyss of death. As his body becomes heavier, Folco understands that the world is just another place.

In my first year of elementary school I found my first best friend. Memories about him are very fuzzy; I remember neither his name nor his face, only his voice asking me if I wanted to share food that his mother had put in a greasy paperbag for him and a couple of dull images of us wandering into the undergrowth, where other kids had claimed that nuns were buried. In class we used to sit next to each other, but once, right after recess, he raised his hand and asked the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom.

He never came back.

I don’t know if I was sad, but after a few weeks I carefully started performing some of his characteristic gestures as my own. That was my opportunity to steal without stealing, and I was very conscious that I was a craven thing taking something that was not mine in the midst of collective oblivion. I never returned them.

In 1940 – it has been said that the exact date was March 2, 1940– the Direzione Generale per la Cinema, made up of heads of Mussolini’s regime, started its collaboration with the CONRA, the political police. To the public, the official mission of the Direzione was to champion fascist films as well as clean up and retouch scripts of their film industry. Their undercover aim was something a little bigger however: they were to exalt Italian cinema to the world’s rapture by dethroning Hollywood.

Dr. Alessandro Costa was the scientist leading the team that dealt with what seemed an insurmountable obstacle to their goal: Color. Upon The Wizard of Oz’s premiere, just one year before, color film became an instant condition for commercial success. Since creating their own color film technology would take years, and war against the US felt so imminent, Mr. Costa came up with a different method: he would extract the colors from American reels and inject them into black and white Italian films.

After several months and spending millions, on the evening of March 11, 1942, they finally succeeded at isolating and extracting color from an American film. (In a rare short interview for Cahiers du Cinema, Mr. Costa claimed they actually used The Wizard of Oz for the experiment.) The team watched as the color slipped away from the movie source, making it a pale and fuzzy projection, completely useless. There were three colors, each carefully poured into its own mold in an attempt to keep the strains separate and as pure as possible. As the team of scientists cheered, their army was being defeated on the Russian front.

The following day, the team came upon a tragic realization: overconfidence in their own process. The molds had not been properly tested and so overnight the colors had eroded the walls; running away, never to be found. With no budget to redo the experiment, and having been furiously accused of professional irresponsibility by the officials, the team was dissolved and the members barely saved themselves from execution. In fact, about a week after the accident, the CONRA unveiled the existence of the team to the public, exposing them as traitors to the nationalist cause. They were forbidden to talk to the press and their existence sank into obscurity.

The consequences were terrible for everyone but particularly to Mr. Costa, who would never go back to his scientific station, even after the war and the regime were over. After his death, his daughter –a leftist flutist exiled in the US– published her father’s memoirs, hoping for recognition of his legacy. Impossible: the few Italians who remembered the incident and lamented the outcome of the war were hurt. The academy abroad reduced him to an irresponsible fascist collaborator, and dismissed his achievement as an irrelevant one. Despite all of Miss Costa’s efforts—including an emotional preface describing the years of suffering her family endured—the first and only edition of the book (gracefully entitled ‘Shattered Suns and Sons’) hardly sold and was rarely quoted afterward.

One of the few people interested in the scientist’s life has been the writer Orlando Moretti. According to his accounts, after Mr. Costa was expelled, he spent most of his time at home, training his dog to whistle. In this version, the scientist had successfully trained the dog to blow, and it eventually produced some chords. Supposedly, Mr. Costa kept this a secret, fearing the academy would make fun of him. He also loved his pet too much to expose it to any possible media attention. His daughter has disclaimed the story as a mean-spirited joke, and has explained that the dog didn't even bark that much.

It is to be wondered if our friendship with other species is really reciprocal. Pretty often the edges of communication are contradictory and harmful. If you ever see the photograph, The Hug, in which a chimpanzee and a young woman, Lucy and Janice, embrace, you calmly realize that there are unspoken boundaries more profound than sacred verses, that the image of a hug between a chimpanzee and a woman is more compelling than the empty arms of a man on the cross.

Agnes Ozman has been documented as the first person who ever spoke in tongues in United States history. The Outpouring happened on January 1st, 1900. Some time later, she married Philemon M. LaBerge, a Minister of the Assemblies of God. Countless times he tried to leave her because of recurrent dreams in which an angel with an ice horn blooming from his forehead revealed that all of Agnes’ deep feelings were devoted to God alone: there was nothing left for him. After waking from one of these dreams, the man jotted down on a piece of paper something he would carry in his wallet for years:

Love is always strong enough to defeat the afflictions of life, but never strong enough to overcome the pain it causes to us.

Videos

2010-02-15T11:44:00.014-05:00

Copper (2009)
A video piece that Andrew Brehm and me made a few months ago. Since it's about 15 minutes long and has some sort of narrative structure, I'll strongly suggest to be patient... and enjoy the whole video

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Diet (2005)
A video from a long ago

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Lecture

2010-01-30T14:51:00.013-05:00

Conferencia (Lecture)

The artist sleeping at the Museum while people expected him to give a lecture

2009

A lecture by Oscar Santillan was hosted by Museo Municipal de Guayaquil. When people arrived they found him deeply sleeping on the floor. Written on his hands there was a note that he left for them:
Left hand:
No es que crea en el silencio (It's not that I believe in silence)
Right hand:
Pero prefiero marcharme (But I rather leave)

some-new-little-works (December 2009 - VCU)

2009-12-10T21:22:00.024-05:00

{Overview}

The faint castration
Burnt-out fluorescent light
2009

The army with no past
All the pages of a novel rearranged as a flat composition
2009

The sad landlord
Candle wax and fluorescent light
2009

The golden book of cookies
A book bound with two spines
2009

The manifesto of goodness
Performance
2009

Proyecto para EFIMERA

2009-10-12T16:42:00.007-04:00

Somewhere and everywhere
Action with a private security guard and a telescope on a parking lot
2009

Un guardia de seguridad privada que ha sido contratado para el evento arriba al mismo con un telescopio casero en su mano. Se coloca en la mitad del lugar y hace uso del telescopio para ver las estrellas en el cielo.

http://efimeranicaragua.wordpress.com/

Oscar Santillan

Works from my first crit at VCU

2009-10-03T18:38:00.015-04:00

Buried sparkle

Installation

A light glowing through the wall

2009

The compassionate hunter

Photography

2009

The broken land

Rock, thread, levitating ground and living plants

2009

UN FANTASMA QUE RECORRE EL MUNDO

2009-08-15T17:29:00.019-04:00

A phantom traveling all around the world
Show by Oscar Santillan at DPM gallery
Guayaquil - Ecuador

LINKS:
Rio Revuelto (Curatorial text about the exhibition)
El Telegrafo (newspaper)
El Expreso (newspaper)

EXHIBITED WORKS:

Colored sperm
Photographic documentation of the result of 7 masturbations by the artist, after having vegetable pigments injected into his seminal vesicles
2009

One hundred years
Pinhole camera set up for a 100 years exposure
2009 - 2109

The lookout
Paint taken off from the gallery's wall, and a scale model created completely by the paint scrapings
2009

Memorial
'The New York Times' edition rendered blank by chemical process, and a miniature created from the extracted ink
Chemical counseling by PhD (c) Sean Bird
2008

The lost time
Clock set up in the Atlantis time zone
2009

Spider statement
Photography
90x60cm
2008

Anyway, I haven't lost my pants
Oil paint on canvas
2008 - 2009

Works from my last crit in IU

2009-05-08T00:50:00.027-04:00

Corazonada
sculpture (clock and thread)

Sunclock
video projection (1:00)

New sketches

2009-01-02T13:25:00.012-05:00

THE SECRET DIALOGUE

Photographs of the space between paintings in Museums

artist P O R T F O L I O

2008-12-14T15:17:00.015-05:00

O S C A R S A N T I L L A N
Portfolio> For an updated version of the portfolio download the PDF file

Memorial /// The New York Times blanked throughout a chemical reaction, and a miniature molded by using the dry ink extracted from the newspaper /// 2008
Chemical counseling by Sean Bird

Failed dawn /// sculpture /// 118 fluorescent lights /// 2008

Buried sparkle /// Photography of a fluorescent light under the snow /// 90x60 cms. /// 2008

Spider Statement /// Photography /// 90x60 cms. /// 2008

End of travelling /// Oil painting volume /// 4.7 kg. of oil paint /// 36x 40x 22 cms. (14”x15.7”x8.6”) /// 2005-06
Through a long process of drying, the oil paint turns into a perfect mass to mold with. Consequently, this mass of paint is used to make the whole volume.
Just because of the position on the wall, the skull looks like an urinal from the front view.

Degenerated practices /// oil painting volume /// 27.3 kg. of oil paint /// 150x 60x 50 cms. (59”x23.6”x20”) /// 2005
Through a long process of drying, the oil paint turns into a perfect mass to mold with. Consequently, this mass of paint is used to make the whole volume.

The drag /// public intervention
More info in www.elarrastre.blogspot.com

Arte para perros /// exposición para nuevos públicos /// 2002
Art for dogs /// exhibition for new public /// 2002

Favor no arrojar alfombras en el piso /// escultura /// Alfombra confeccionada exclusivamente con cáscaras maduras y podridas de banano /// 2005
Please do not throw carpets on the floor /// sculpture /// Carpet made up exclusively with ripe and rotten banana peels /// 2005

Prolongación /// dispensador de gasolina cuya manguera mide 1.3 kms. /// 2007
Prolongation /// fuel pump with 1.3 kms. long hose /// 2007
COLECTIVO LALIMPIA

Conductas en la Pinacoteca /// óleo y grafito sobre lienzo /// 170 x 110 cms.
Behaviors in the museum /// oil painting and graphite on canvas /// 2004
WITH ILICH CASTILLO

Sacos de carbon /// fotografia /// 90x60cms.
Sacks of coal
COLECTIVO LALIMPIA

P R O J E C T S

2008-05-13T01:52:00.000-04:00

El vigía
The lookout

AVAILABLE > A R T W O R K S

2008-05-13T01:50:00.006-04:00

Artworks in this section are available for acquisition >

El arrastre /// sculpture /// white resin /// 2:2 A/P

El arrastre /// digital print /// 60x35 cms. /// 5:5

Implantación de conductas (I) /// drawing on paper /// 42 x 29,7 cms.

Implantación de conductas (II) /// drawing on paper /// 29,7 x 21 cms.

Implantación de conductas (III) /// drawing on paper /// 29,7 x 21 cms.

A sunday ride /// drawing on paper and garbage /// 29,7 x 21 cms.

TEXTS - ARTIST INFO

2008-05-13T01:13:00.009-04:00

O S C A R S A N T I L L A N

Lo que empieza mal, no termina fácilmente[1]

Oscar Santillán

Motel

Se cuenta que en cierta ocasión a Humberto Moré, el pintor ecuatoriano, la señora casada con la que se hallaba en un motel le pidió que no le contara a nadie sobre aquel encuentro a punto de consumarse. Él contestó:

- Mejor no hagamos nada y déjame contarlo.

La anécdota –en su hilaridad– bien podría servir para localizar y discursar sobre dos sustancias disímiles. Ella parecería proponer la realidad, mientras él se acercaría a lo real. Es la misma distancia que existe entre mentira y ficción. Moré[2] se niega entonces a lo fácil, al engaño, a callar sus actos, como sabiendo que el engaño no tiene misterio. Si el silencio ha de practicarse no será con vergüenza ni complicidad sensiblera[3]. Milán Kundera ha descrito claramente este dilema al explicar que “la realidad la percibimos a diario, lo real en cambio debe ser demostrado”. Al pintor le interesa lo real, y es mediante la ficción[4] que se compromete con lo real.

Pero la tentación de la realidad es inmensa, casi lo consume todo. La misma producción artística ecuatoriana le debe demasiada lealtad. Una mirada del imaginario que la ha motivado da cuenta de estas limitaciones. Los comentarios sociales abundan: política (digamos las consecuencias de la política profesional), religión, participación social y su manto de benevolencia, y la lista seguiría con variantes de lo apuntado y quizás unos cuantos temas que no logro nombrar. Como complemento tenemos la pretensión tardía del cine ecuatoriano por “contarnos quiénes somos”, que es sino sinónimo de banal lealtad a relatos y construcciones irrelevantes: la realidad. No me interesan sus preguntas ni sus postales criollas.

El Retorno

Sobra decir que no creo en la ficción como contradicción con “lo ocurrido”, pero sí como un intento por intuir el futuro. Estamos repletos de pasado, nos rodea por todas partes. ¿Será posible crear algo que no sea consecuencia de la modernidad en ninguna de sus variantes, ni siquiera post o alter? Dar un salto hacia un futuro que no ha sido tocado por el pasado: un futuro que no es desembocadura pero un hallazgo sin cartografía. Ha sucedido antes: La Fuente de Duchamp. Claro que esta obra proviene de cierto linaje que puede ser rastreado, pero entre el objeto y el pasado existe una brecha que no es presente, sino futuro. Rompe con el continuum e inicia una nueva secuencia[5] en lugar de expandir una existente. La obra tiene linaje pero no tiene padre ni madre. La brecha es de fuego e incertidumbre, de desobediencia. Es la ficción que resquebraja la linealidad de la narrativa histórica, para devolvernos al caos donde el nombre de las cosas es desconocido.

Volviendo al pasado, al nuestro: el indigenismo. Hay un momento silencioso y poderoso del primer indigenismo, aquel de Los Trabajadores. Pero pronto el misterio se perdería, para los indigenistas aquello era sino una baratija: lo canjearon por una teatralidad ruin. El gran problema del indigenismo no es siquiera la victimización con la que ahoga a los sujetos representados a los que pretendía reivindicar, sino su incapacidad de fracturar los afanes narrativos de la representación pictórica, que es una institución ultraconservadora. La mascarada de la representación europea adopta máscaras indígenas sin que el rito de la representación –su corpus narrativo– sea herido. Pronto esas imágenes serían incorporadas al discurso nacional. El indigenismo se transforma en un gesto histriónico patético. Es la demagogia de su discurso sensiblero la que se apoderó del espectro cultural nacional, sobreviviendo así por décadas, pero su proyecto artístico apenas nacido había muerto.

Debido a la falta de un continuum claro[6], a los artistas ecuatorianos nos cuesta mucho encontrar dónde acometer la brecha. Se ha creído entonces que la exploración del tramado social más conflictivo podría sustituir nuestra carencia de una tradición artística con la que dialogar. Quienes lo hacen –la mayor de las veces– son artistas que sucumben a la tentación de la realidad.

Es en la incertidumbre de lo real donde encienden las llamas que atraviesan la carne y la destrozan, solo para permitirnos el silencio y el abismo.

Sinopsis para video

Guayasamín ingresa a escena en un caballo púrpura. El viento palpita en la ladera. El caballo se detiene y calmadamente el pintor desciende y se acuesta en el pasto. El animal se recuesta junto a él.

Yacen juntos mientras se escucha un remake del clásico de Dead Kennedys “Too Drunk to Fuck” probablemente interpretado por Delfín Quishpe.

Moral

Tres viajeros que admiro:

Donald Crowhurst (el cobarde)

Bas Jan Ader (el invisible)

Robert Falcon Scott (el derrotado)

Siempre es demasiado tarde

Quizás una de las razones por las cuales nuestro tiempo, este de nuestros días, está estancado en la magra felicidad del pluralismo, es porque nos hemos dedicado a reinventar el pasado en lugar de predecir el futuro. Esto nada tiene que ver con aquella vieja idea de progreso lineal de la modernidad. Nosotros tan ingenuos y aburridos pensamos por mucho tiempo que deconstruir la historia, recontarla, y reivindicar a los sujetos que fueron víctimas de su discriminación o engaño, nos daría nuevas pistas para echarnos a andar. Eso no sucedió, quizás sabemos mejor lo que no queremos repetir, pero así mismo, forzados por esa contradicción profunda que nos define, repetiremos los mismos errores una y otra vez. Hoy nos regocijamos inventando nuevas formas de repetirnos.

Un conocimiento más profundo del pasado no nos hará mejores. A la biblioteca del conocimiento humano habría que aproximarse con actitud dionisiaca ya que el conocimiento solo puede existir para los placeres de la especulación, de lo contrario nos arrastrará en la trampa del conocimiento como herramienta de transformación. La labor de destruir el pasado sigue intacta, pero asumirla no serviría de nada.

Enemigos

I. Nosotros

Este paisaje verde y húmedo seguirá aquí cuando el Ecuador desaparezca. El país nunca se embarcó en ninguna empresa lo suficientemente ambiciosa como para romper su maldición, el anonimato. Nada habría importado la consecución o fracaso de la misión, tanto un gran triunfo como una gran derrota sirven en la irreprochable ambición de los fantasmas por hacerse de un cuerpo visible.

Se ha dicho que ya que los ecuatorianos tomaron el nombre de su país de una línea imaginaria son muy creativos. En realidad este hecho demuestra claramente lo contrario.

- Son tan faltos de creatividad que no se les ocurrió otra cosa que tomar el nombre que los franceses utilizaron previamente para nombrar la línea que divide el planeta en norte y sur.

- Son tan cobardes que robaron el nombre de una línea imaginaria, ya que el Ecuador nunca ha tenido el arrojo de hacerse de algo más tangible.

II. Nosotros otra vez

La Revolución Ciudadana no es el enemigo de los artistas ecuatorianos, ya que esta carece de carácter mítico. No es un rival digno de contingencia simbólica. Esta revolución no durará cien años sino cien meses (o en lenguaje burocrático, 200 quincenas). Si luego de ese tiempo alguien la recordara, será por el pomposo membrete de La Revolución Más Aburrida de la Historia.

Cuando en 1813 alguien publicó –probablemente en Poitiers– una postal de Napoleón cogiéndose a un french poodle, el gesto solo pudo generar bostezos. Los franceses ya estaban hastiados de las ambiciones del emperador, y fastidiados de la melancólica mirada de los mencionados perros.

III. Bidimensional

Es curioso que sea pintura (¡Viva La Pintura!) lo que mató a Napoleón, o al menos una de las hipótesis esgrimidas sostiene que el arsénico contenido en los pigmentos del papel tapiz de su habitación habrían sido los causantes de su muerte.

IV. Desprecio

Se cuenta de cierto crítico de arte (de izquierda) que años atrás solía hacer de marchante en Guayaquil. No faltaba el artista que en medio de apuros económicos se le acercara a “pedirle” que adquiriese alguna obra suya. Con su inmenso corazón y devoción por los artistas accedía continuamente a aquella proposición, comprando su trabajo (en contra de su natural benevolencia) a precios injustos.

Fragmentos[7]

Dar un consejo es una vulgar manera de mentir. Pedro Almela. El Elefante y la Sirena.

I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extents and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself. Claes Oldenburg. I Am for an Art.[8]

‘…, if you say that artists take “risks”, it’s insulting to the men who landed on D-Day, to stunt men, to baby-sitters, to Evel Knievel, to stepdaughters, to coal miners, and to hitch-hikers, because they’re the ones who really know what “risks” are.’ She didn’t even hear me, she was still thinking about what glamorous ‘risks’ artists take. (…) Andy Warhol. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.[9]

La verdadera lucha es con el duende. (…)

Cuando la musa ve llegar a la muerte cierra la puerta o levanta un plinto o pasea una urna y escribe un epitafio con mano de cera, pero en seguida vuelve a rasgar su laurel con un silencio que vacila entre dos brisas. Bajo el arco truncado de la oda, ella junta con sentido fúnebre las flores exactas que pintaron los italianos del XV y llama al seguro gallo de Lucrecio para que espante sombras imprevistas. (…)

En cambio, el duende no llega si no ve posibilidad de muerte, si no sabe que ha de rondar su casa, si no tiene seguridad de que ha de mecer esas ramas que todos llevamos y que no tienen, que no tendrán consuelo.

Con idea, con sonido o con gesto, el duende gusta de los bordes del pozo en franca lucha con el creador. Ángel y musa se escapan con violín o compás, y el duende hiere, y en la curación de esta herida, que no se cierra nunca, está lo insólito, lo inventado de la obra de un hombre. Federico García Lorca. Juego y Teoría del Duende.

Evidencia

La ficción no puede ser retórica sino ética y erótica. El ficcionador sigue siendo el pionero romántico[10] aunque despojado de su antigua aura mítica y solitaria. Si bien este se niega a ser un ciudadano y comulgar con las normativas de su tiempo, no está alienado sino que participa bajo sus propios términos: son el silencio y la desobediencia los que le permiten preguntarse en qué condiciones le es deseable sentarse a la mesa.

Aprender a estar solo, cómo hacerlo, sigue siendo una pregunta de pertinencia irreprochable, especialmente ahora que es vital ser un agente activo en el ecosistema de información e innovación al que biopolíticamente nos pertenecemos. Y es que sigo creyendo en una voluntad nietzscheana: determinante aunque diminuta. Aun cuando los mapeos cerebrales hayan mostrado que el libre albedrío no es tal, todo parece decirnos que en lugar de encogernos, nos hemos ensanchado y que los bordes de nuestro cuerpo son menos definidos, a la vez que más complejos e indescifrables; como demostrando cierta alquimia posible que transforma la carne en aire.

[1] O, una continuación de “Evidencias de la Tercera Mutación”, el texto que publiqué en 2008.

[2] Me refiero aquí al artista como persona, no a su obra. De hecho su trabajo no despierta en mí ninguna emoción de la proporción de la citada anécdota.

[3] El silencio que ella propone está lleno de palabras calladas, las palabras que él propone están llenas de silencio.

[4] Secular y ascética.

[5] El término lo he tomado de George Kubler, específicamente de “The Shape of Time”.

[6] El dialogo con nuestros antecesores modernos ha sido inviable y, como sea, quizás es indeseable. En todo caso si este ha existido ha sido como reacción-a, no como presupuesto de partida.

[7] Ya que no he hallado la traducción oficial al español de varios textos he tratado de traducirlos.

[8] Creo en un arte que toma su forma de la vida misma, que se retuerce y extiende y amasa y escupe y suda, y es pesado y ordinario y brusco y dulce y estúpido como la vida misma.

[9] “…si tú dices que los artistas toman “riesgos”, eso es un insulto para los hombres que invadieron Normandía, para los dobles cinematográficos, para las niñeras, para Evel Knievel, para las hijastras, para los mineros, y los que echan dedo en la carretera, porque ellos son los que realmente conocen el significado de tomar riesgos”. Pero ella ni siquiera me escuchaba, ella seguía pensando sobre los glamorosos “riesgos” que toman los artistas.

[10] Figura que curiosamente parece apenas existir en el imaginario ecuatoriano.

UN FANTASMA QUE RECORRE EL MUNDO

Unas cuantas ideas sobre mi trabajo. Oscar Santillán

Algún tiempo atrás empecé a deshacerme de mis viejos prejuicios (quizas solo para adquirir unos nuevos), esta bifurcación de alguna manera divide una primera instancia de mi trabajo en la que estuve cerca del discurso post-colonial, encarando la representación occidental de las periferias y cómo se interioriza esa mirada (Prácticas Degeneradas), reflexionando sobre la relación jerárquica entre el cubo blanco, la obra y el público (Arte para perros), o intentando deconstruir fragmentos de la Historia Nacional (Piedra, papel o tijera; o, El arrastre. Repetición de un monumento que no se ha hecho).

Ahora bien, a pesar de mi actual inconformidad con varias de estas ideas, creo que el haber dejado espacio para la intuición ha sido lo que en realidad ha permitido que estas obras sigan vivas y sean al menos algo más que pretenciosas ideas con cierto ingenio.

Aunque nunca se materializó por falta de financiamiento, Plano Gral. fue el proyecto que marcó un contagio de estos intereses previos y de algunos nuevos: la bifurcación. La idea inicial fue hacer una convocatoria pública para encontrar “ciudadanos” que se parezcan al Gral. Eloy Alfaro (el gran héroe nacional del Ecuador). Mi intención era multiplicar las versiones de la historia oficial, pero en el proceso, el molde-referente (el General) se fue convirtiendo en mero pretexto hasta quedar finalmente atrapado con el extraño y oscuro encuentro de seres que se parecen entre sí. Esa imagen no la podía explicar pero sabía que la deseaba.

Hoy me defino políticamente como agnóstico social y creyente en el azar antes que en el discurso sin fisuras (que siempre pretende transformarse en verdad) proveniente de la razón y el lenguaje. Es muy conocida la cita de Hegel “la contradicción es el motor que mueve el mundo”, y es precisamente en la práctica de esa contradicción en la que trato de inscribirme, tratando más olvidar que saber.

Mientras el discurso – con el uso del lenguaje – pretende explicar la contradicción (o darnos pistas, o “enseñarnos a pensar” a fin de cuentas), el arte es pensamiento incluso más allá del lenguaje. Contra el positivismo del lenguaje: la oscura indefinición del azar.

El creciente no pesa más porque los hombres asciendan

Los ojos del río tinto, José Lezama Lima

El azar se manifiesta en la vida cotidiana, no en los “grandes hechos de la Historia”, ya que aquellos son considerados “procesos sociales”. Quizas desde la cotidianidad se puedan proponer otras versiones del mundo, donde la imagen de lo creado y lo acontecido sean equivalentes. El mundo es solo un fantasma de posibilidades, donde las causales no ayudan en absoluto a la comprensión del fenómeno.

En mi nuevo trabajo la fotografía está teniendo un rol importante, ya que me permite acercarme con agilidad a situaciones cotidianas en las que he intervenido o planificado, como los pequeños retazos de periódico colocados en una telaraña (Spider statement), la fluorescente enterrada bajo la nieve (Buried Sparkle) o el reflejo del árbol que se prolonga en la grieta de la calle (Several falls).

Mientras por otro lado, en obras “más grandes” trato de “procesuar” materiales hasta que prácticamente ellos mismos sean rastros de su antigua condición, como en Memorial. O, en el otro extremo, corporizar estelas, como en Failed dawn.

Sin embargo en mi trabajo actual hay un premeditado trasfondo político que quizás aún no es tan perceptible. De cierta manera hay una reflexión entre líneas al desencanto sintomático (que creo ya está discretamente en movimiento) en la generación actual de artistas emergentes ecuatorianos.

Hay un fantasma que recorre el mundo, el fantasma del Romanticismo.

Oscar Santillán (Ecuador, 1980) es uno de los artistas emergentes más visibles de la escena del arte contemporáneo ecuatoriano.
Adicionalmente a su trabajo personal, fue co-fundador y miembro activo del colectivo Lalimpia, con el que en marzo de 2009 tuvieron una participación prominente en la Bienal de la Habana, Cuba.
Ha exhibido en UK, USA, España, Venezuela, Panamá, Colombia, entre otros. Actualmente cursa el masterado (MFA) en escultura (Sculpture + extended media) en el prestigioso programa de VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University), en Richmond, Virginia, USA.
Algunos de los premios que ha recibido son: Primer Premio, Salón de Octubre, Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana // Premio París, Bienal Internacional de Cuenca // Premio Único, FAAL, Museo Municipal de Guayaquil // Segundo Premio, Salón de Julio, Museo Municipal de Guayaquil // Mención de Honor, Bienal Internacional de Cuenca.

CONTACT
Oscar Santillan --- oscarsantillan@ymail.com
Richmond, VA, USA