translated from Spanish: Criticism of book “Sinesthesia” by Nicolás Poblete: Is this Art?

“I remember Francis Bacon often saying that through his work he gave art what he needed. In my case, it’s about what Yeats would call the fascination with difficulty: I try to do only what I can’t do,” Lucian Freud.
Nagoya. A Chilean artist named Durán. Art, inspiration, primitive tribes. An innocent question at first that embodies criticism and irony: “What do I want…? What do I want to find out?”
Synesthesia (Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2019), the new book of the writer Nicolás Poblete (Santiago, 1971), investigates the disturbing world of Bio-Art, where art navigates between questions, hedonisms, drugs and “subliminal” and organic experiences. The search for the artist, as well as his statute, is problemized not without sun, flirting between transcendence and mere tourism.  
 “Durán listens in the acoustic vault in which he is immersed, his eyes now half-closed; despite having experimented with many drugs in his life, none compares to this; its power is immeasurable. There is an dilation in his pupils and a disembodied feeling along his limbs, he would not be surprised if it was an anteroom to levitation, without eagerness to exaggerate” (p. 16). 

“Durán closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. On its upper lip a fleeting vibration; not a forced laugh, not even a smile, but an allusion to the possibility of humor: It is the will to be made, to become a completely free one. But maybe will is not the right word, in the end I might call it despair, even if it doesn’t seem like this. A really good artist has to be able to make a game, to transform art into play, because already photography has been installed, recordings, technology. The artist is conscious, man already knows that it is an accident, that he is a futile being and that we must play even if there are no reasons” (p. 94). 
Durán represents a clisé: the snob-artist, but also chameleonic, controversial, praised worldwide, debasibly sensitive, because it seeks introspective connections and learnings in altered and hyperbolic states; which has no filial, political or social roots with its country of origin. So says Poblete:
“Amalia Lacroze of Fortabat had asked Durán if his work was intended to “cultivate a certain Dadaism,” and Durán had responded cryptically, the upper eyelids semi-closed, angry or greedy (actually beyond the question), in front of the face interested and confused of Amalia, not exactly. My idea is not to cause a scandal at any cost, but that depends on the sensitivity of anyone who observes my work. If with what someone considers a scandal I manage to raise a conscience in at least one person, then I have overcome Dadaism, he argued without much conviction Durán, in front of the perplexed but, above all, respectful, face of Amalia” (p. 20).  
“(…) how easy it is for him to genuinely interact with a worker and accommodate a proletarian language; how easy to surprise with his observations the most upstart of santiaguian art collectors. Durán could go back and forth and seemed to be desired, contested everywhere” (p. 24). 
“Yes, I do understand what you say, Javier will murmur days later, when Durán relates that and other stories, so many stories, in front of the group of friends, in Santiago de Chile, his “patria”, or his “place of birth”, yes, better that denomination. It is difficult to call a land rarely trodden, except in the heterotopia of an art gallery, in Daniela’s workshop, in the heated room of a private university, in a restaurant, or in the department of a capital suburb” (p. 16). 
“It has darkened and Durán is alone in Daniela’s workshop: she is meditating and remembering her time in Japan. More buyers, potential customers, are likely to show up, even at night. When someone really arrives, Durán will call to ask for prices, it is ridiculous to have to deal with it” (p. 157).
Writer Nicolas Poblete
The author introduces us to that frivolous and elitist circle, of galleries and curators, as opposed to the masses, where MoMA or Tate Modern are synonymous with respectability and status; and where the confusing is comparable to the sophisticated. Perhaps most abominable is the banality of language, because in these times of technological glare and pyrrhic fame, everything can be said without saying absolutely anything. The form transfiguring the background under the postmodern protection of critical discourses. 
Between dialogues, masks and impostures, the world convened by Durán seemed to attend the spectacle of a farce shared by those who, like him, aspire to exceptionality, which is but floating in an egocentric and self-sufficient air, because go to the supermarket or clean bathroom or kitchen, it is not a matter of artists, at least not of famous and successful artists. In this sense, Daniela’s character is the counterpoint of the protagonist. Not so favored by luck and glamour despite his respectable career, he must deal with everyday and personal emergencies. Or perhaps Alme, an enigmatic woman with acondroplasia, model of Daniela, who observes that world with skepticism and real sense of experience and exclusion. In this sense, the gender distinction that Poblete makes is remarkable: while Daniela and Alme offer nuances and complexities, ridiculing, analyzing or simply observing their daffodil male peers; Javier and Durán represent either the coarse ruse of the love galleon (in the case of the first), or the extravagance and lack of empathy (in the case of the second). However, the novel shows the contradictions not only of the narrow artistic circuit but of the arribism typical of Chilean society. 
“And he told Tristan about Durán’s visit, do you know him? Would you like to join me at the exhibition? He found himself describing to Durán how surprising he was, how controversial and visionary. And also the unbearable. I remember the interview, Tristan said. No, he didn’t see her on TV, but someone posted a snippet on Facebook. Of course, the interview with Durán makes sense, minute by minute: I imagine you’ll agree with me: if those who reject us are stupid people, everything ok. Alme and Tristan laughed” (p. 119-120).
“(…) nobody but Daniela. She knew of the existence of this seriousness, but, even as she assessed Javier’s contours and imagined how the precise mix could be made to capture the tone of those curls in a fabric, Daniela understood that her opinions were nothing to Javier without the backing of the shares; and that’s why Daniela smiled, yes, it was the tickling, while now she was asking Javier to lie down in bed. A man like him had to have other ideas, how it would be that his only skill was the missionary’s position” (p. 135). 
For what? Why? Isn’t there Art without eyes that see it as Art? Misunderstanding, vulgo, violence and religious bigotry. The question of the meaning of Art and its ethical implications seems to haunt the novel as a mantra that slips away, that is not left to be unclear, all this in less than two hundred pages, where the reader can laugh, reflect, problematize, but also be outraged. 
In narrative terms, a fast-paced flow, words and sentences accumulate in Nicolas Poblete’s text to experience overflows and flooding occur in Nicolas Poblete’s text. There is quality, of course, certain descriptions, polyphony of voices, but there is also spontaneity to build a narrative without tapestry, full of cultural references and exotic territories (Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Japan), with that globalizing strangeness, with this narrative momentum that is only given in experienced writers, who master techniques, rhythms, atmospheres.
Synesthesia it has that, in cinematográfica terms, it binds us to a Gaspar Noé or a Lars von Trier: the grotesque satire, the politically incorrect and a feeling of permanent dizziness.
Nicolas Poblete, Synesthesia. Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2019. 178 pages. 

The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.

Original source in Spanish

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