Diogo Lopes
Clichés may only surface to existence given their anchorage
to a pervasive universal truth, rarefied yet nevertheless factual. As far as
art is concerned, to label it as a vessel for the manifestation of subjectivity
seems to be nothing short of a tautological display. If this is indeed its intrinsic
core, so unmistakable that it almost discards the need to underline it, many
mysteries veil however its glimmering silhouette. Artists may very well be knights
of creative freedom but their codes of chivalry also imply strict trials and
unexpected entrapments. One could ponder if their pledge to self-expression
should not be regarded also as their ultimate captivity, forever looped to the
urges of a ‘persona’ they keep on building every day. Somewhere
between Sisyphus and Narcissus, it is as if a devotional bond compelled them
to manufacture everlasting Rorschach blots of their crossing through the world.
Technique, motif, genre, media will try to steer and shift such inextricable
paths but somehow the calling will echo again. This condition always appears
to be most dramatically tackled in the undertaking of the self-portrait, or
to amplify it to literary terms, the autobiography: “Dear diary, …”
In 1989, the hip-hop trio De La Soul launched their debut effort, 3 Feet
High and Rising, to instant acclaim and praises of a musical renaissance.
Featuring classics such as The Magic Number, Eye Know and
the song that lends its title to this text, the record was a flowery alternative
to the testosterone antics of so-called ‘gangsta rap’. Gleefully
chanting the dawning of a ‘Daisy Age’, the Long Island combo felt
quite at ease in swapping the ‘homeys’ and ‘hoods’ (1)
for the sweet delights of inward wandering and pop psychoanalysis: “Mirror,
mirror on the wall…” This might seem a far-fetched detour to what
brings us here but for the sake of fiction, it is promising to wonder if those
loopy, colourful sounds breezed by Rui Calçada Bastos when he purchased
his first video camera that same year. Ten Years Looking Forward To See
You (1999) celebrates a decade over such an occasion not without a certain
hint of solemnity – a birthday of sorts – much in the same way a
virtuoso performer commits to memory the day he was handed, say, his piano or
guitar. The work sequences two alternate perpendicular projections where a variety
of people visually engage with the person behind each lense. Some gaze, others
smile, grimace or stare. The intensity of this flux establishes parameters for
an intimate concord, be it friends on one side or fleeting encounters and strangers
on the other. A bewildering reversal phenomenon happens: the author shields
his more intimate sphere of acquaintances with discretion, otherness, whilst
a humanistic drive seeks interaction with foreigners, expanding a league of
accomplices, a family. Reflected in this mosaic of many faces and many places,
he is multiplied and abides by Rimbaud’s illumination: “Je est un
autre.” [”I is someone else.”] This will be pushed a step
further in subsequent projects, namely in Quadrifoglio (2000-01), a
fourfold clover-leaved video where the artist casts himself as the role player
of interior unrest and melancholy, a solipsistic actor of his own theatre. In
these cinematic interludes, of impeccable elegance and classic pedigree (Dreyer,
Magritte), the only thing he can do is chase and run from his own doppelganger.
An everlasting charade of that kind leads one to a roving state of agitation,
zigzagging through new realms, looking for the ever-mischievous formula that
would tame his turmoil. Some call it process or journey; others will even summon
the mystical aura of pilgrimage. Whatever the semantics, all share nomadic reverberations.
The artist meanders from station to station like a corsair prowling for romance,
euphoria, defeat or disgust, bounty hunting the stuff his dreams will be made
of. Hence, yet another format could serve as a paradigm of his practice: the
travelogue, a recording or narration of a voyage to unfathomable whereabouts.
Set in a derelict tobacco factory for a self-organized, non-curated group show,
Ghost City (1998) easily falls under suchlike category. The work is
doubly site-specific: it was assembled with scraps and leftovers from the improvised
exhibition arena and, on the other hand, conjures the eerie might of a deserted
housing development in Macao. Mixing lo-fi (cardboard and wood) with hi-fi media
(video) it is an atmospheric mock-up where art, simulation and wizardry make
two analogue uncanny spaces encounter: dead ringers. The uncharted territories
of the ghost city, evacuated due to Feng Sui predicaments, emulate a twilight
zone that soars over the entire expanses of what was once the last Portuguese
colonial citadel. Its alluring decadence, its shady characters, its end-of-the-line
glamour (that so mesmerised Orson Welles and his Immortal History)
have been the siren’s song for many. As you entered this spectral model
of a microclimate you could sense that this had also been the story of Calçada
Bastos. The trouble is when you arrive to the off-limits and realize you had
been dodging your own shadow. An inquisitorial eye – a video beam shot
through a hollowed grenade container –, his eye, had tailed him all along.
An awkward feeling of incarceration, which the artist seemed to pursue in subsequent
chapters; Untitled (1999), a wooden box of his height crammed inside
with high voltage, is nothing short of a light casket. Calçada Bastos
confines himself to solitude, we can hear his footsteps, and the temperature
is very high, the knots of the planks glow in bleeding red. This existential
mayhem is nevertheless presented with precise delicacy, like a carefully drawn,
twisted little sketch or a bunch of assorted volatile notes scribbled on a pack
of cigarettes. It is as if he would not let go the compulsion to sublimate the
most decisive odyssey of all: ego-tripping.
Destination Berlin. There is always something of a quarantine in a residence
program, a spell of isolation in which the artist reassesses his previous moves.
Encased in a laboratory setting, he engages in a process of relentless internal
awareness and exposes himself to new life forms, testing their chemistry. Possibly
such a metaphor has too many positivistic undertones; maybe the religious procedure
of monastic seclusion could also be called upon: restating ancient vows, purging
undue ballast, and confronting wicked demons. Under such a light we now find
Rui Calçada Bastos in the German metropolis, Overexposed (2003).
A hood faces the wall, smothering a circular neon tube; from the inside a speaker
broadcasts an audio loop of an antagonistic masculine voice: “Leave me
alone! I don’t have anything else to show you. I think I am overexposed.”
The work brings the introspective musings of the author to a kind of creative
block, sheer autism. He refuses to cater any longer for the voyeuristic cravings
of his entourage, the imprisonment is deliberate and strategic, an act of survival.
For the sake of word gaming, it is his self-hood he seeks to salvage; the glowing
neon halo of the sculpture may even hint at a superior goal, that of saint-hood.
The starkness of this entrenchment is quite ruthless – arctic deep freeze
and silence –, the trilogy of ‘Me, Myself and I’ has been
mercilessly cornered into a bleak monolog, a sentimental wasteland. Loneliness
Comes From One (2003) could be the dispiriting deduction of this oblique
inquiry: two black raincoats, a neon light joining their sleeves and the title
stencilled in the lamp. This last device is recurrent in the artist’s
recent output, namely spelling out keywords such as ‘sex’, ‘fear’,
‘work’ or ‘death’. In what could be regarded as a subliminal
correspondence with similar means employed by Bruce Nauman, he now seems to
share with the American master a common interest in the ominous neurosis creeping
into our everyday existence, its brutal solitude and the ensuing psychological
violence. The procession stops here, at least for the moment, in what could
be seen at first glance as an ill-fated descent into an abyss of bad karma.
Luckily, his vanity keeps him from sinking deeper. Recent sightings caught him
strolling nonchalantly through the streets of his new adopted hometown, carrying
a mirrored suitcase as if it were a secret weapon able to perform the supreme
alchemy of turning everything into art. Even with all the scars and downfalls
he still believes he can provide the most crystalline reflection of the universe.
Somewhere between body and soul, the work of Rui Calçada Bastos celebrates
subjectivity much in the heroic manner Walt Whitman did in Song Of Myself:
“I have said that the soul is not more than the body/And I have said that
the body is not more than the soul/And nothing, not God, is greater to one than
one’s self is.” (2) This all-encompassing inner world contains,
as the poet chanted, multitudes and contradictions. The artist seems to be quite
happy to keep on exploring its shifting geographies. His almost naïve allegiance
to beauty and craftsmanship further persuade us he has placed himself, per chance
or fate, in a great lost lineage of Romantics. Thus, if one were to sum up his
approach (or should we say way of life), a fitting expression could be ‘emotional
storytelling’. Willing to sacrifice his intimate logs to the brutal exposure
of the beholder for the sake of art, this leap of faith – and exhibitionist
compulsion… – is only attainable through a devotional belief in
the very essence of what things once meant. Something we might still find imprints
of, should we not be blinded by cynicism, in the realm of clichés. One
last remark: this text is strictly personal. How could it be different?
Notes:
(1) Slang currency for ‘homeboys’ and ‘neighborhoods’.
(2) Verse 48 in: Leaves of Grass, 1st ed., 1855.
