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星期五, 十二月 17, 2004

Book Review: José Carlos Somoza’s The Art of Murder

Not recommended on the train, else risk missing your stop.

Imagine now, the possibilities of the world of art. How far can we go to create something spectacular? How much can we stretch the meaning of art?

The Art of Murder is José Carlos Somoza’s exploration into such possibilities in the immediate future. Translated from its original Spanish version Clara y la Penumbra (Clara and Shade), this book ventures into the currently non–existent technique of hyperdramatism — using a human being as a canvas for painting.

Hyperdramatic works are alive and may be exhibited, rented or sold just as their conventional cloth–based equivalents. They are arranged into a pose decided by their painters and remain as such for the duration of their exhibition period by achieving a trance–like state of quiescence.

Before being brushed with oil paints, hyperdramatic canvases are primed. In this preparation, they have their brows, lashes and other bodily hair removed (depending on requirements by their artists, sometimes hair and pubic hair as well). Muscle relaxation drugs are provided to improve flexibility, medications to minimize bodily needs — such as eating, sweating, salivating, urinating and defecating; and assortments of body creams to protect the skin from oil paints. Then the canvases go through the process of stretching, where painters physically and emotionally challenge or attack them with variances of force, vocal degradation, violence and brutality. These processes enable the canvases to conform to whatever their artists wish to make out of them, thus hyperdramatic art represents more than just painted human beings.

The teenage girl stands naked on the plinth. Her smooth stomach and the dark curve of her navel are at eye level. She is looking down with her head tilted to one side, one hand shielding her pubis, the other on her hip. Her knees are together and slightly bent. She is painted in natural sienna and ochre. Shading in burnt sienna emphasizes her breast and moulds her inner thighs and her little slit. We should not say ‘slit’ because this is a work of art we are talking about, but when we see her, that is what we think. A tiny vertical slit, stripped of all hair. We walk round the plinth and observe the figure from the back. The tanned buttocks reflect patches of light. If we step away, her anatomy acquires a more innocent look.

– The Art of Murder, page 1 –

The plot opens with an introduction to one of Bruno van Tysch’s work — Deflowering, of which the above mentioned teenage girl, Annek Hollech is the canvas. Bruno van Tysch is the current Dutch hyperdramatic maestro exhibiting his collection, Flowers, in Austria. When Annek is found murdered in the woods of Vienna on 21 June 2006, the case triggered frenzy investigation efforts by the Van Tysch Foundation in charge of the welfare of the maestro’s works, the Austrian police and several European governments involved in the lucrative trade of hyperdramatic paintings.

Somoza’s crime writing skill is not an apparent strength in this book. What catches most of its readers is his extreme intelligence in providing them the very plausible suggestion of hyperdramatism.

As I read on, I was endlessly intrigued with the idea of a live canvas, how he or she will be able to provide more depth, expression, translation and dimension to an artist’s field of imagination. I almost ignored the investigation of the murder case altogether because there are simply too many distractions as Somoza continuously lock my attention to his bizarre ideas of hyperdramatic art.

There are canvases involved in out door exhibits and therefore requires a bubble shield for protection from harsh weather conditions. Others are moving paintings, or called performances, where they change their poses or positions from time to time according to the desired plans of their artists. Then there are art shocks — illegal extensions from performances — hyperdramatic acts involving certain degrees and types of pornography, violence or brutality, normally created only by special request. Human ornaments are hyperdramatic students aspiring to be professional hyperdramatic canvases but failed to impress any artist to use them, therefore they are painted as functional furniture, utensils and decorative objects.

It is befitting to credit Somoza for reminding his readers that in this possible future of using human as an art medium and therefore a tradable commodity, humanity may be undermined for the sake of art, at least by some. This is what The Art of Murder is about, as it depicts several obvious scenarios — the destruction of Annek Hollech and the subsequent works or art was executed in the name of art itself; the usage of adolescents and children as canvases; and the sometimes inhumane actions required for priming and painting a canvas.

It doesn’t take a genius to uncover the mystery behind those killings, even for a non–crime reader like me.

Rest assured though, that if you do read this book, you’ll enjoy its brilliance of a whole new perspective which may cause your own questioning of what is an acceptable level of morality and humanity when it comes to creating ground braking works of art.

posted by Pick Yin @ 12/17/2004 02:15:00 下午