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| ‘My We’, by Filipino artist Louie Cordero is inspired by the recent spate of violence and occasional murder of people failing to accurate sing Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ in Filipino karaoke bars. The installation comprises four cast figures and an all in one karaoke machine that features on repeat, the words to the sinatra classic superimposed on video and tabloid headlines. |
| You know how some people love watching movies like Saw, or dramas like Criminal Minds, NCIS and CSI where you sometimes catch glimpses of really gruesome human mutilation? Gore is something that I find hard to figure out. It is gruesome and yet people are still compelled to look at it. |
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| Fortunately for someone like me, who cannot take gore, the psychedelic pop colored insides spilling out of these bodies lessened the revulsion and kind of made it appealing to look at. |
| Filipino artist Louie Cordero’s impaled sculptures seems to have captured that fascination people have with gore, but at the same time presenting it in a way that is easy to stomach as well as addressing the issues that led to it. |
| I am not sure if at this time it would be too weird to share with you the fact that these figures resemble the artist himself. |
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| Louie Cordero offers an idiosyncratic take on the violence that happened and human kind’s often ignorant way of isolating ourselves from it. Underlying the fabric of society in the Philippines today where remnants of post colonialism and the gap between the priviledged and the poor still exist. |
| By no means be mistaken that he trying to trivialize violence, rather he seeks to capture our interest and filter it towards more pressing issues- like the relationships between beauty and gore, control and overindulgence and overwhelm and ignorance. |
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| More about the Artist |
| Louie Cordero has always been an artist that is very responsive to the ‘current’ state of his surroundings, stemming from a country with a long history of violent colonialism. His work consistently reflects the Filipino syncretism of indigenous traditions, Spanish Catholicism and the influence of popular American culture. Originally a comic artist his work first came to light in the his comic fanzine ‘nardong tae’. |
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| It chronicles the story of a moustached boy named bornek who is hit by alien poo coming from the sky. An extraterrestrial being who had excreted all manner of excretions and hurled them at the earth in the form of a comet. Borek ends up being bonded with the feces and tries to lead a normal life. |
| He eventually destroys his university after succumbing to the anger as a result of being ostracized and becoming the butt of everyone’s jokes. This act earns him the label ‘Enemy no. 1. |
| The comic was first published in 2003 by abang guard productions and Bornek was released as a limited edition vinyl figure. |
| The third edition of the singapore biennale (SB2011) opened its doors to the public on march 13th and will run until may 15th, 2011. Artitute visited the exhibits led by artistic director Matthew Ngui and curators Russell Storer and Trevor Smith. The SB2011 open house program is organized by the singapore art museum (SAM) of the national heritage board and supported by the national arts council, singapore. 63 artists from 30 countries are presenting 161 works across four exhibition venues – the national museum of singapore, SAM and SAM at 8Q, old kallang airport and marina bay. |
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