FROM THE ETREUM EDICT
INSTALLATION
“Al l is alive, what we call
death is an abstraction”
David Bohm.
The creative process in Gilberto Cerón has
developed for many years in a circular way, that is, it does not occur
lineally, but is always involving his previous encounters and successes
with new focusing and resources that his permanent investigation shows
to him. More than a perspective, his work let us see an orbital development
in which the central axis is his intuitive approximation to life as
a magical principle of the being love, desire, and as a fundamental
counterbalance, the inexorable time, death and destruction. The elements
he employs, apart from his poetic sensibility, are all those plastic
elements that respond to a better manifestation of the creative intention
and to his necessity of expressing himself, and are: pottery, drawing,
painting, carving, photography and sculpture, elements which he uses
with great ability to leave his track on art, in his magic and surrealistic
world. His labour is not restricted to the traditional ways of manufacturing,
but also involves organic matter, remainders, and the newest in material
and industrial processes. His quality as an artist makes him transform
these elements to manifest himself.
Gilberto Cerón, when outlining
this installation “From the Etreum Edict”
takes into account the architectonic space that shelters it, to transform
it into a ritual place in which the death and life rite is developed.
Eros and Thanatos in an eternal dance, in which one supports the other
to give existence to the miracle of universal creation.
A hanging trigon is presented as the initial module
which gives origin to the proposal. On its three sides, a debate between
the energies of the matter in conjunction with the essential elements
of formation, as a floating poem inside one of them entitling the
element “Wind Vane”. Then, as the path of life, nine floating
panels with images of the energies of men women and vegetation, which
constitutes “The Paradise Trees” forming a labyrinth that
convey to three floating and spinning modules, each one with seven
sides being the central part of the proposal that has as an inspiration
basement the poems done by Orieta Lozano. The central one named “The
march of desire” shows elemental drawing lineaments and performs
which are the structures of the complex beings that develop in its
interior. The translucent support of the canvas, painted on both sides,
let the images influence mutually. One of the sides of this heptagon
is divided in two sections. On one of these sections the image of
a man and on the other the woman constituting the entrance door to
this penetrable space. In the interior there is a luxuriant vegetation
and in the middle, a pendant with the “Tree of Life “.
Beside this module a similar one hangs entitled “The Lamb of
Death” where Tanatos execute his dance, incarnating and dieying,
leaving as evidence the track of his permanent action. This is the
most dynamic module for the pictoric execution being shaped through
tracks left by the inked body with strong expressionist brush strokes.
The central pendant, axis of this environment ,presents
photographs that forms a gestual rite of great strength and expression
which evocates a chamanic work. The transparency of the cloth permits
the audience perceive at the same time the movement, the incarnation
and the structure of the dancing bodies while the module spins in
the surroundings.
The third of these spinning heptagons is called “The
Passion Ground “ where the universe machine in our surroundings,
is presented as a great clock that does not only rule time, but is
the creation stage of existence influed by the energy of the mechanisms
and the magic of the constellations, producing a great universal symphony.
Digital photographs complete this installation on
the walls, with self portraits where he evocates chamanic moments
and constitutes the officiating of the ceremony. As a support image
there is a hand, the artist’s left hand which is the icon of
his identification. Hand that as a manifestation of the brain’s
right hemisphere represents creativity. It is stigmatized in the middle
by an eye that sometimes is repeated on the fingertips auscultating
the original chaos, perceiving the myths and rites of what was created.
These digital photographs are conscientiously constructed to achieve
the required images, melting, duplicating, interpolating, applying
colors and textures to confere the necessary strength and effectiveness
to make them convincing. The photographic material is managed in a
pictoric way, and presents as a result, the ritual sequence.
The engine of this ceremony is the audience, for
while penetrating in the modules and moving in the middle of the canvas
giving them the spinning movement being an accomplice while integrating
with the dance.
This work, because of its outlining and structure,
goes further from what is static and prescribed, creating a feeling
of a constant movement. The arquitectonic space changes into a temple
where the universal creation process ceremony is constantly realized
and time is manifested as the eternal instant.
Edgar Correal
