A confluence of disciplines, of 3D modeling, of woodworking, of sculpture, of painting even, the three works that form Pablo Biglang-awa’s new show has a self-evident push and pull, not least from the necessary tensions that are a matter of course in anything like this that endeavors cross-pollination, except the push and pull here is more pronounced out of being more determinedly intentional. Each object, for instance, was imagined digitally but all were put together through arduous manual assembly, using plywood as base matter, sawing then gluing the parts together, at some point using a router on a jig to create imperfect circles, leaning into the human irregularity that comes from working this way, the lack of precision that makes it more organic, the heft that gives it warmth.
Cold/warm. Perfect/imperfect. Precise/imprecise. Smooth/grit. Natural/artificial. Math/instinct. Digital/analog. Biglang-awa is gleefully playing up the dichotomies, sure, but not just in the process, and in the philosophy behind the process, but also in the sentiments of the work. The vertical Sentinel, true to its title, has an imposing presence, but is a visceral articulation on who watches the watchers, a metaphor on surveillance and imprisonment. Eternal Yolk is a paean to the indestructible self, on how our sources of infinite nourishment tend to protective shells that break easy, fragile and indestructible in the same breath.
On the other hand, Biglang-awa is also seeking to harmonize these opponent energies, these estrangements if you will. And harmonize is an apt word, if only in the sense that there’s a sonic, almost musical quality to the works, their faceted physiologies looking like vectors from which sound bounces off. The title of the diptych, Last Song Syndrome, even alludes to this. The piece at first blush seems to mimic the concentric repetition of tree rings, implying a passage of time coming to a close, we can only see tree rings, after all, after the tree has been cut down, and in many ways that’s what it is. But slant it at an angle and they also mimic what we have imagined radio signals to look like, and when they recur in the two other works, the echoes come off as transmissions.
The title of Last Song Syndrome isn’t referring to any particular piece of music, though, but rather to the sound of Solingen scissors hitting wood. The scissors belonged to Biglang-awa’s mother, who used to be a dressmaker, and the wood is the hard Narra surface of her worktable, on which he would press his ear as a child and listen to the hypnotic repetition as she cut dress patterns. It would become, rather insidiously, the rhythm of his growing up, reverberating vividly like a favorite song over the years. Geographically placed, Last Song Syndrome is the locus, but in the force of its nostalgic reflex, it is metaphorically and emotionally and ostensibly the heart of the show.
Dodo Dayao
