ARNDT Catalogue Manila

JOSE TENCE RUIZ
Recalling the seven arrows of the Christian martyr, St Sebastian, seven bars
covered in aluminum skin pierce a chunk of hammered lead. This lump,
suggestive of a prostrated body, is harnessed by a tangle of velvet belts that
seem to act both as a protective cloak and a straitjacket. At its feet are cement
slabs that carry a play on the Filipino words lumot (to molder) and limot (to
forget).
In the Philippines, religion keeps a strong foothold and the country’s artists
have been reacting since time immemorial. There are those that have and still
employ their talents to create its iconic imagery, and there are those who like
Ruiz, which criticize its processes and have braved to bring the debate to such
difficult terrain.
Ruiz is particularly attracted to contradictions that appear in organized religion.
Raised as a Catholic, he has many times reflected on the complex set of rules
a belief system imposes on its followers. The sculpture, “Excruciate Ecstasy,”
revisits the theme.
“Rules are like rope or wings. They can be your protection but they can gag
you,” he says. These can give you a sense of rootedness, but can similarly
immobilize. But people ironically crave for them, because life is chaotic and
religion has a way of stabilizing.”
His sculpture also touches on the duality of pleasure and pain. This is something
with which the Christian faithful negotiates within a universe of established
rules. Sacrifices have to be made to achieve deliverance. “All struggle moves in
and out between this two: ecstasy and pain,” he observes. It is a dichotomy he
finds baffling. It is the jumping point from which his sculpture proceeds.
Ruiz makes reference to the baroque imagery of St Sebastian, who has been
depicted in the height of spiritual ecstasy as arrows cut through his flesh.
Influenced by Ipoustéguy, Barlach, and Boccioni, he however makes use of
distilled figuration, a manner that has made an impression on the generation of
Filipino artists to which he belongs.
But make no mistake. This work is not a reckless diatribe against the Christian
belief system. Rather it is a considered and reasoned reaction to a reality within
it. The artist after all recognizes the symbiosis between art and religion, the
former advancing the message of the latter, a relationship that thrived in Europe
and thrives up to now in the Philippines.
What his sculpture does try to unravel are the idiosyncrasies that exist in that
system. From such realization, one could perhaps move towards a rethink.
That however entails Socratic humility, that one knows nothing. As Ruiz says,
“one does not own anything absolute. Everything participates with its own
contradiction.”