| Like
General Idea’s 1988 AIDS graphic, Manuel Pardo’s most recent still
lifes represent the reinterpretation of a time honored cultural icon.
Both are visual representations of a phenomenon, which has violently
altered the way in which the “other” is viewed in Western culture.
And like the General Idea graphic, Pardo’s icons, with their appropriation
of Pop color patterns and cartoon-like simplification, are meant to
draw the viewer in shock at the same time. Eros and Thanatos, Beauty
and the Beast, have become united in one image. Magnificent long stemmed
roses in full bloom arranged in exquisitely fashioned vases reveal
themselves as memorials to the victims of AIDS, the Black Plague of
the late twentieth century. |
| A
dark romanticism reigns within these images, metaphors for a precarious
existence. Seductive roses rest innocently atop monstrous stalks with
dagger-like thorns, which, in a bizarre way, recall the sharp nippled
falsies of the artist’s earlier character portraits of transvestites
(1984-87). And like his series of black widow Majas (Spanish for “belle”
or “flashy dame”) from 1987, the enchanting innocence of these still
lifes masks their deadly intentions. In a similar way, the urns from
which the roses project are no ordinary vases, but rather funerary
urns like those used to store the ashes of our departed. For Pardo,
the image of the still life represents death, or more specifically
the anguishing process of a slow, painful death. Nature Morte, the
French expression for still life, acknowledges this relationship.
Not only are the images “dead” in that they are frozen in time, locked
within the oil and canvas which gave birth to them, but the very concept
of floral arrangements implies death inherently. Cut down in their
prime, the roses are placed in water to endure a long, merciless death.
In their suffering, the flowers glow with radiance and beauty. |
| Like
the Phoenix, who burns itself to ashes on an altar fire, from which
a new, young Phoenix arises in glory, their death symbolizes a process
of spiritual transformation, a rite of passage. The early Christians
adopted the Greco-Roman image of the Phoenix as a symbol of Christ’s
resurrection and represented it in funerary sculpture. During the
Middle Ages, it came to be associated with the crucifixion and represented
the personification of chastity, a symbol of pure love which stands
in opposition to lust, the gravest of the Deadly Sins. In allegorical
still life, the Phoenix can often be seen as decorative element on
the vase containing the abundance of blooming flowers. |
| Throughout
its entire history, still life has been laden with hidden allegorical
meaning. It is commonly seen as a vanitas theme, a visual depiction
of the inevitability of death and, by extension, of the Christian
passion and resurrection. Similarly, the image of the red rose symbolizes
martyrdom. During the Renaissance, the rose was likened to Venus because
of its beauty and fragrance, while the pricking of its thorns were
compared to the wounds of love. The still life is thus a simultaneous
image of physical suffering and mystical celebration. It is from a
duality of purpose that Pardo’s still lifes represent both a sorrowful
mourning of the dead and a joyous celebration of life. |
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