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| CHAGO or The Dreams of the Alert Wakefulness |
| CHAGO or The Dreams of the Alert Wakefulness
There is a fundamental premise in the work of Santiago Armada —or “Chago”, as we all know him: humor is nothing without a form, and form is nothing without content. For “Chago” it is not just drawing lines and characters more or less funny, but a fully artistic humor, because limits among genres are relative for him. Now, in his new exhibition called “Risa de los enigmas para desreir humores”, where you can see combined the different periods “Chago” has been through, the creator shows he has not been resting on his “graphic laurels” but he has given no rest neither to his inspiration nor to his paintbrush. There is a wide conception of forms, making and design in him that work either as graphic humor as expressive drawing. Because the images created by “Chago” bring people by the hand to very extensive fields of laughs and smiles, making them face images and situations solved in very original ways with a language of metaphors and signs that make people meditate, imagine and identify themselves many times with aesthetic effect and a non-aprioristic message. “Chago” is highly recognized within our graphic arts. Let us just remember his character “Julito 26”, born and developed in the green of the Sierra Maestra Mountains, which represented the early days of the Revolution in power. Then would come “Salomón” and the paradoxical, twisted characters, as well as the philosophical situations that represented a symbolic criticism and sibylline humor, in which he show deep concern about the structure of the space, permeated by transcendental and complex aspects of subject matter. In all of them (see, for instance, the collections “Camaleones”, “Lintérnagos” and “Lo amorfo y descorazonador”) there is a frequent use of singular colors and textures of alien matters, collages and even transparencies that accentuate the complexity of what he wants to tell us. He brings together humor, sensibility and knowledge in an original way, combined with contemporary art solutions. Because “Chago” reflects on his works the dreams of the alert wakefulness as part of an artistic will that turns certainty and uncertainty into reasons to provoke us. Maybe that is why he entitled his exhibition this way. No doubt the most important think when reflecting before “Chago”’s work is to be able to understand that the artist “daydreams”, since he himself recognizes that humor comes up, more than any other art expression, from the conscience and from the intelligibility of the world. “Chago”, in addition, impregnates his works with the restlessness and eagerness of human knowledge. He gets into every individual and in the social, and digs beyond the mere superficial observation we do everyday when we make a self-examination or when go out. His characters and shapes are there, along with a whole baggage of obsessions, tensions and longing, in which he reflect, masterly and using original, free graphics, his smart way of dealing with the actions, thoughts and “hungers” of human beings. When he publish the book he entitled “El Humor Otro” (1961-62), “Chago” had already left the classic path of graphic humor to take that of “the expressive drawing with or without humor” —as the critic and painter Manuel López Oliva points out—, thus beginning to work on the constants of the heuristic drawing, in which his ideas gradually transformed into signs and symbols. Or, like Samuel Feijóo said: “His graphic philosophy emerges as one of the most significant and original aspects of the drawing and the caricature in Cuba. (...) His graphics are already violent and authentic, conceived by his thoughts, and its form is new and clever and strong. He innovates, invents, feeds. But above all, disturbs the asleep.” Later would come the period he called “El Humor Ninguno” (1963-64), a sort of dialectic definition (an assertion denying and confirming itself at the same time), that the author himself considers more a questioning humor that and answering one, a humor that demands the participation of the audience, their experience, their psychological motivations and their knowledge. Later on, in 1965, “Chago” redefines all of his humor as “HUMOR GNOSIS”, through which he attempts to translate into sensitive and cognitive images all that people can perceive in a direct or indirect way. We should not be surprised, then, that the elements and motifs taken from scientific knowledge are emphasized in “Chago” work or even that he tries to capture with realistic objectivity his “objects”. “Chago” has even said: “Science inspires me. Many times, it has been my fundamental source.” The artist find in Knowledge a wealth that makes him trigger his creativity. At a given time, the human figure disappears from his drawings (1968), as a consequence of previous concerns and he creates forms based on a certain degree of abstraction or objects (like condoms), albeit without losing contact with the living world around him. Because these forms think and make us think. Hey are ghostly or tangible “beings”, that insist from their shapelessness or discouraging reluctance. Some speak, some remain silent, since “Chago” also finds in silence a way to say and meditate, and provide us with the despicable omission of certain realities. Let us say too that “Chago” is a powerful erotic fabulist. He shows his characters to the people as they are, without any moral prejudice cover. His thinking and expression are always brave. He does not idealize, but reveals aspects that sometimes we would like to hypocritically dodge. Within this collection there are the series “Camaleones y otras hierbas”; “Calibán y prole”; “Desaforados, conformes”; “La Chanson du Condom”; and “Lo amorfo y descorazonador”, in which the titles of each work, in addition to the images, suggest by themselves several possible interpretations, making us meditate, or trying to at least give us a clue to the problems that for many maybe have a clear or arduous solution. Then, what is humor for “Chago”? According to him, it is “a way of GNOSIS, of reflecting and figuring out the world; that is to say, it is a way for and from knowledge, through sensitive images that express what the mysteries and evidences reality, humankind, society, life and the universe could store”. In short, “Chago” attempts to reach through his work the laugh of the unbiased, serene knowledge; that same laugh, or smile José Martí, our national hero, referring to Cervantes and Quevedo in a very short note written in 1894, brilliantly intuited as a real possibility: “laugh (…) and smile should be reached through supreme knowledge and serenity” (1) Toni Piñera August, 1986 (1) Taken from: José Martí. Notebook Nº 18. Works. Volume 21, page 409. |
| CUBARTE 2006 |