NILO CASARES /// MEMORY & BLOOD (SPANISH AND ENGLISH VERSION)

(please scroll down for english version of the text)

NILO CASARES /// MEMORY & BLOOD

(ES)

El asiático Volkan Diyaroğlu nace a orillas del Mar Negro, un mar mil veces navegado por la familia del poeta Hesíodo, quien nos legó el conocimiento de que en el principio era el Caos, Caos que se vio sometido al ordenamiento del Tiempo, cuya hija natural, e incestuosa madre de las Musas de todas las artes, es Mnemósine, la Memoria.

El origen limpio de la Memoria dice mucho en su favor, aunque nos ayuda más a comprender la naturaleza de las artes su procedencia de una relación incestuosa (las Musas, debe recordarse, son hijas de Mnemósine y del padre de esta, Zeus, con quien se encontró durante nueve noches), por eso en el arte todo vale, todo, siempre que el resultado lo merezca; no interesan los procedimientos, los soportes o los materiales con que se fragüe la obra, si ella me entra hasta las tripas, me las revuelve y se queda ahí una temporada.

En el caso del pintor Volkan Diyaroğlu esto se eleva al extremo porque su pintura resulta absolutamente corporal e inmeditada, tanto es así que podríamos decir que pinta con los pies, porque se enfrenta a la tela siempre desde una visión cenital (desde el Olimpo, si seguimos la tradición que le da origen), y todo lo que pasa por su cabeza se ve limitado a los estrictos márgenes (orden) que imponen sus pies. Ese pintar con los pies, esa pintura corporal; porque si pintase con las manos lo haría sobre caballete y el resultado sería otro, y sobre todo le restaría ímpetu para ceder la impronta a su cabeza; siendo un pintar acotado por anteojeras (las anteojeras de sus zapatos), se transforma sin querer en un revolcón sobre la tela del que alumbran huellas, formas, gestos, acasos, hallazgos, geometrías y superposición de cosas que parecen habérsele pegado a las manos, de tan llenas como las tiene de pintura fresca. Pinta tan rápido que no da tiempo a la Memoria a secar y por eso se le adhiere lo que, por el mismo suelo del taller en que pinta, se le viene encima o tropieza o pisa al ir de uno a otro lado para tenerlo todo listo. Corre por el taller, viene y va por él, en un intento por escapar de esos pies en desgobierno que, aunque limitan su visión, no le impiden seguir pensando desde una cabeza que ignora dónde se encuentra.

En el principio era el Caos.

¿En el principio estaba todo en su cabeza?, ¿pero dónde? Piensa.

Viene, va por el espacio; sube y baja por sus ideas; recuerda, proyecta, revisa, intenta. Traza geometrías desde el mismo espacio que es su cuerpo deseando imponer su presencia al presentarse sólido como un hexaedro, imponente como una mole arquitectónica (la arquitectura es la prolongación estricta de nuestro cuerpo, y el intento de ordenar, desde nuestra cabeza, la naturaleza bajo las leyes del hombre); pero la cabeza vuelve sobre el principio y quiere tomar posiciones.

Bien, la deja figurar un rato.

Se impone el orden y va estableciendo caminos desde los que llegar al final del cuadro, porque este pintor, como todos los pintores, tiene la meta de terminar el cuadro a toda costa, aun si fuese necesario dejarse la piel, volcar su sangre sobre la tela. En ese momento la cabeza llega a un acuerdo con el resto de su cuerpo y deja que el flujo sanguíneo lo vaya ordenando todo, pero claro, cuando ya parecía estar todo en su sitio, descubre que la sangre es la forma estricta del Caos; vuelta a la dialéctica, ante la que no hay solución porque muchos de los cuadros a los que nos vamos a enfrentar aquí, siendo cada uno de ellos cósmicos (fruto de la cosmogonía que se intenta describir) han construido un hemisferio caósmico que aparece con la fuerza enorme de la pintura, porque (el pintor Volkan Diyaroğlu piensa para sus adentros) si la Memoria ya solo reside en nuestros computadores, en sus circuitos impresos, fuera de ellos está el caos, solo cabe una respuesta de resistencia: frente a lo seriado (impreso), lo único (pintura) y original (cósmico).

Así la pintura que aquí se presenta, en apariencia es Memoria y testimonio. Memoria, cuando recupera la propia historia de la trayectoria del autor a través de la introducción de pegotes de su obra pasada (sus seguidores pueden rastrear pasajes de su recorrido artístico en muchos de los cuadros aquí expuestos y retrotraerse a momentos muy significativos de su pintura). Testimonio, en tanto que receptora de los objetos que pululan por su taller, constancia del preciso momento en que los cuadros fueron realizados, porque la pintura es intemporal, pero las cosas impuestas sobre la tela son del exacto Tiempo en que fueron arrojadas e intentan ser un anclaje con la realidad y vociferar que entre tanto Caos puede haber una puerta que nos ayude a transcenderlo.

Aunque al final todo deviene sangre a borbotones que sale de los pinceles de un artista por el que corren litros y más litros de pintura, y deja a lo cósmico hecho pedazos; al seguir un estricto programa de pintar con los pies para que las manos no gobiernen la cabeza. Y así, sin pies ni cabeza, inaugura una pintura caósmica.

NILO CASARES /// MEMORY & BLOOD

(EN)

Asian artist Volkan Diyaroğlu was born on the shores of the Black Sea, a sea sailed thousands of times by the kinsmen of the poet Hesiod, who bequeathed to us the knowledge of what in the beginning was Chaos, Chaos that was subjected to the ordering of Time, whose lovechild and incestuous mother of the Muses of all arts is Mnemosyne, the personification of Memory.

The clean origin of Memory says a lot to her credit, yet it is her genesis from an incestuous relationship (remember that the Muses are the daughters of Mnemosyne and her father, Zeus, who visited her every night for nine nights) that helps us better understand the nature of the arts; that is why all is valid in art; everything, as long as the result warrants it; we are not concerned with the processes, the media or the materials used to forge the work, if I can feel her in my gut, if she moves inside me and chooses to reside there for a spell.

In the case of painter Volkan Diyaroglu, this is taken to an extreme, as his painting is absolutely corporal and unmeditated, so much so that we might say that he paints with his feet, because he always faces the canvas from a zenithal perspective (from Olympus, according to the tradition from whence he derives), and everything that passes through his head is limited by strict margins (order) imposed by his feet. This painting with his feet is a corporeal sort of painting; because if he painted with his hands, he would do so on an easel and the result would be completely different, and most importantly, it would take away the impetus to transfer the impression to his mind; it being a painting that is limited by blinders (the blinders of his shoes), it is unwittingly transformed into a tryst on canvas, revealing traces, forms, gestures, randomness, findings, geometries and the superposition of things that seem to have stuck to his hands, drenched as they are in wet paint. He paints so quickly that the Memory has no time to dry, and thus it all sticks; whatever he happens or stumbles upon or steps on as he moves back and forth to get it all ready. He runs through the studio, coming and going, in an attempt to escape those unruly feet that, while limiting his vision, do not impede him from continuing to think from a head that is unaware of where it is.

In the beginning there was Chaos.

In the beginning was everything inside his head? But where? He thinks.

He comes and goes through space; he climbs and falls through his ideas; he remembers, projects, revises, attempts. He traces geometries from the same space that is his body, yearning to impose his presence by presenting himself in solid form, as a hexahedron, imposing, as if it were an architectural mass (architecture is the strict extension of our body, and the attempt to organise nature, from inside our head, according to the laws of man); but the head returns to the beginning and wants to take sides.

Fine, he lets it reckon for a while.

Order is imposed and pathways are gradually established to reach the end of the painting, because this painter, like all painters, aims to finish the painting at all cost, even through sweat and blood, spilt on the canvas, if it comes to that. At that moment the head reaches an agreement with the rest of his body and allows the blood flow to sort everything out, but of course, once everything seemed to be back in place, he discovers that blood is Chaos in the strictest form; back to the dialectic, in the presence of which there is no solution, as many of the paintings which we will encounter here, each of them cosmic (product of the cosmogony that they attempt to describe) have constructed a chaosmic hemisphere that emerges with a tremendous force from the painting, because (the painter Volkan Diyaroglu thinks on the inside) if Memory now resides only inside our computers, in its circuit boards, outside is chaos, and only one response of resistance can be had: against the stamped (printed), the unique (painting) and original (cosmic).

Thus the painting presented here, in appearance, is both Memory and testimony. Memory, when it calls up the very history of the author’s own trajectory, through the introduction of remnants of his past work (his followers can trace the passages of his artistic itinerary in many of the paintings on exhibition here and revisit very significant moments in his art). Testimony, as the receiver of the objects that wander around his studio, a record of the precise moment in which the paintings were created, because painting is timeless, but the things imposed on canvas are from the exact Time when they were cast onto it and attempt to serve as an anchor to reality and proclaim that in the midst of so much Chaos, a door can exist that helps us transcend it.

In the end, however, it all turns into blood spurting from the brushes of an artist through whom litres upon litres of paint flow, leaving the cosmic in ruins; all by following a strict regimen of painting with his feet so that his hands do not govern his head. And thus, without making heads or tails of it, he inaugurates chaosmic painting.