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Uzi was one of the the Maker's best art students. No, the verb "was" is not used here because Uzi has passed away. He just simply quit school for a while "to make some money". The Maker has probably revealed too much already by saying that. Uzi is by nature secretive of things personal to him. To see his art, just go to his site, uziemperado.com. And then you will see why this is a good follow up to "008, Darwin vs Zombies", the Maker's last column.
Uzi is one of many young local artists who sell their art planet-wide and are doing relatively well. They demonstrate the potential of a global art market affecting local art communities everywhere for better or worse. Congressman Bukad had been studying "bad guys" lately. Just like the Maker, he wanted a better understanding of how and why they "click" especially among young people. The Maker suggested the art of Uzi would be a good stop along the way.
You might have seen Uzi's art already driving through the city streets. He makes figures, mostly heads, of a charming monstrosity. They have an elegance typical of art usually seen on glossy magazines like Heavy Metal which are really pimped-up versions of the traditional comic book. This is art which traces its lineage to Frank Frazetta who once illustrated the animated version of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and the by-now-forgotten-but-enjoyable animated movie "Fire and Ice".
Uzi's "people" are figures in a frenzy, frozen in a scream which reminds us not of the famed painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. No, this is a different scream, more contemporary. It is the scream one may have heard issue from a metal-rock musician. There is a bit of Zen in this scream. It is a scream which empties the mind more than it expresses an emotion, perhaps pain, anguish, fear, or that un-translatable German word angst. This is a dispassionate scream, perhaps falsetto if one ever wanted to hear it literally.
These are art "the children" do now. And there is a global market for it. The Maker suspects this is because this "scream" has become universal among young people everywhere. They embellish T-shirts, skateboards, surfboards, pants, notebooks and street walls. The Maker once came across a very pretty young girl sitting on a sidewalk in Hollywood. She was selling her drawings for a few dollars. They were very similar to Uzi's art. The Maker wondered: We must be approaching another Gothic Age.
We understand "Gothic" to mean a dark sort of art peopled by gargoyles and monsters. (This understanding is not technically correct. But it will do.) In Western Art history this art preceded the Renaissance which reached its height in the 1500s. They accompanied a social upheaval characterized by great fundamental changes in the social, economic, political and technological life. Very much like the type of changes we now encounter especially in the sense of technology and its dark inevitable consequence, global warming. Thus, Uzi's art does makes sense. And older people like Congressman Bukad and his Maker felt the need for a better understanding of the roots of this imagery.
Of course, both felt the need for this for absolutely different and disparate reasons. Congressman Bukad was a pragmatic realist who was researching a new way to win elections. He had been wondering whether he should cross over to the side of Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas or stay with the administration party. By now he was almost sure what his final decision would be. In his mind, he conjured a good-vs-evil-image of him, broadsword in hand as he smote (biblical word) his enemies. They were the multi- headed hydra from the Book of Revelations. The heads would have to be labelled for the benefit of those who are hard to understand: poverty, corruption, ignorance, hunger, malnutrition and ill-health, landslides, typhoons and other calamities, all the monsters that plague the country. In the good congressman's colorful imagination all would be frozen in that mind-emptying scream of metal-rock. Picture perfect.
The Maker for his part found all these quite amusing. He just wanted to understand how information travels in the Web. He needed to find where in this virtual universe would be the place for art. But he had taught himself well. He knew that art is not isolated from everything else. The dichotomy between art and science, technology and philosophy, did not sit well with him. He would have none of it.
