LOTUS EATER: NOTES FOR A QUEST

Always having been interested in masks, in personae, following the footsteps of Pierre Louÿs (Les chansons de Bilitis), of Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth, and of Max Aub (Jusep Torres Campalans, but also the feat that is Antología traducida) and, naturally, of Pessoa and his heteronyms, I myself have practiced this art, like Pavel Hrádok. Thus, I am delighted to heed the call of Ángel Mateo Charris to announce his Polynesian discovery, Lotus Eater, for the launch of which he has garnered the sympathy and complicity of none other than the Swedish American, Sven A. Kirsten, the author of such encyclopedic tomes as Tiki Style and Tiki Pop, both published by Taschen. In this regard, I must say I have always admired the ability that the painter from Cartagena has to find the right accomplices whenever he embarks upon an international super-production: whether it is Gail Levin in the case of his forays into the enchanted land of Edward Hopper accompanied by Sicre, or Luc Tuymans on the same premise with the same companion, but in the northern mists of Léon Spilliaert, or now, Kirsten, THE specialist in these stories about the South Seas.

From time immemorial, Hergé, that is, Tintin has been one of Charris' essential references. And while not his best volume, we have Flight 714 to Sidney to prove that the great Belgian illustrator also made an appearance in the South Seas, where he was preceded by Herman Melville, Stevenson, Jack London, Pierre Loti, Joseph Conrad –let us recall Charris' African incursion, based on Heart of Darkness-, Paul Gauguin, Victor Segalen, Somerset Maugham, Matisse - who did not take brushes but rather a camera-, Jean Charlot who, after Mexico, set off for Hawaii… Also, filmmakers such as Robert Flaherty and Murnau –who coincided in Tahiti with Matisse while filming Tabu in 1930 - or, closer to our times, Francis Mazière. Photographers: Roger Parry (his Tahiti, published in 1934 by Gallimard, is a small masterpiece: see, for example, the images titled Une des goélettes qui relie les îles à Tahiti-, Coucher de soleil avec une ombre chinoise et une goélette and Coucher de soleil devant la passe de Papenoo), his local Tahitian colleague Lucien Gauthier, Walker Evans, and the folks at National Geographic (for example, Luis Marden and Maynard Owen Williams), those at Life (for example, Ralph Crane and Eliot Elisofon) and those at Vogue (for example, Toni Frissell and his spectacular photographs of surfers in Hawaii from 1938). And of course, scholars and explorers such as Margaret Mead and Thor Heyerdahl. Or, returning to the "seventh art", the Cinerama filmmakers of our childhood, with South Seas Adventure (1958), the ensemble piece that dazzled us when, at Christmas 1961 (once again, thank you, virtual archives of ABC newspaper), translated into Spanish as Aventuras en los mares del Sur, it debuted at the Albéniz, that theater turned movie theater near Puerta del Sol, an establishment that, back then, held the exclusive on an invention which, hélas¹, would end up being short-lived. In this regard, Charris, born one year after this Madrid debut, has no recollection of the event or of the film. In my memory, Polynesia is also the defunct Kon-Tiki bookstore near the Lycée Français on Marqués de la Ensenada. Then there would be the visits to Mauna Loa Hawaiian Bar, which is still open on Plaza de Santa Ana, the equivalent to the defunct Waikiki in Cartagena, frequented by Charris, who has by now been to numerous locales like this, especially in the United States, where they were such a big hit.

In 2015, Charris introduced his Los mares del Tiki ('The Seas of Tiki') series in Barcelona (Trama) and Santander (Siboney), a partial advance of which had been shown the previous year in his hometown in Una de aventuras ('One about Adventures') (Centro Cultural Cajamurcia), and another part of which shall be seen this fall 2016 in Valencia, at My Name’s Lolita, and later in Cartagena, at La Naval. There are some fantastic pieces in this series. A 'Tintinesque' airport, along the lines of the one in September Song (2002), the painting that represents the artist in the collection of the Reina Sofía Museum; Tintinesque and syncretic, given that, while the painter started from a photo he took on one of the Marquesas Islands, the moai are obviously from Easter Island, and reappear in another painting, mixed with a monumental and somewhat Cycladic Henry Moore and one of the Gilda sisters, also set in stone. Gauguin's grave. The eulogy to Somerset Maugham, whose books I have not read in years. A pool that is reminiscent of César Manrique on Lanzarote. A portrait of Hemingway, “who was not there”, one of Murnau, who, as mentioned before, was, another of the guru Sadhguru, of Stevenson (with the Livingstonian title: Mr. Stevenson, I Presume?) concealed behind a local mask and of his friend Carlos Pazos “in Tikiland”. A solitary Aviador ('Aviator'), sitting on a pier with his back to the viewer facing the sea, an aviator in his free time - the title is so important in this case - which reminds me of those observers of hydroplanes by Deineka, the Hopper of the USSR, over on the shores of the Black Sea in the former Soviet Union. A Larbaud / Barnabooth-style pith helmet in the night, which they used as the invitation at Siboney. A mythical tiki bar. An Église in French, a modern work of unknown style. An interior view of a Hawaiian latticework by the great Vladimir Ossipoff –quite a discovery, and my thanks to the painter for having shared it with me- mixed with a Noguchi table. A child next to a schooner, dreaming, in Las islas del tesoro ('Treasure Islands'), an image that obviously brings Stevenson to mind, but also Baudelaire and his Invitation au voyage, or the native of Bordeaux, Jean de la Ville de Mirmont, and his Horizon chimérique, a book which almost no one now remembers, except for fans of its musical version by Gabriel Fauré. A Polinesio ('Polynesian') contemplating a cove. A Maison Tiki. A volcano - yet another from the man who gave us the account of his Días en Volcanovia ('Days in Volcanovia'). A bright blue New Zealand tribute to Captain Cook. Another tribute, along the way, to the aforementioned National Geographic, of which Charris is obviously an enthusiast. Some Saqueadores ('Looters'), whose loot includes that Oceanic art that fascinated the Surrealists but also the occasional piece by Brancusi. And Universal (1939), measuring two meters high by three wide, with its map of Oceania by Miguel Covarrubias, including Easter Island, and its pre-war, espionage, feeling, very Casablanca-Gibraltar-Istanbul-Lisbon in a way... A good harvest - a nice load - it is indeed, brought back from a trip taken in winter 2013-2014, which, on the other hand, was not the first that the painter had taken to this part of the world, given that he had already been to Hawaii in 2008. Regarding the journey and its side effects: there is also a “Castilian” irony in that, in Borox-Borox, bringing to mind the atomic atoll of Bora Bora, which has inspired his work on occasion, the artist evokes the town where, he tells me, most of the glasses for the Hawaiian bars on the Iberian Peninsula are made…

Now, there is yet another twist in the plot, which Charris told me about while dining at a couscous restaurant on Boulevard Saint-Germain along with Gonzalo Sicre, Lina Davidov and other friends, showing me some pictures on his cell phone, which left me astonished: the appearance of Lotus Eater, the painter from the Marquesas Islands, “portrayed” precisely in one of the most decisive paintings from last year's exhibition, a piece in which he is seated, playing the ukulele in front of an Edenic landscape, with a tiki mask covering his face. Play of masks: now what Charris proposes are paintings by his alter ego from the Marquesas, about whom we are also given highly valuable hints in his text herein, “The True Story of Lotus Eater”. Apparently, this alter ego's name is not actually the one he uses to sign his works, but rather Valentín Ossipoff, although, despite the coinciding surnames, his colleague and discoverer points out that there is no relation to the great aforementioned architect. In addition, he is not Russian either, nor a native of the islands, but of...Uruguay, a Uruguayan Jew (like José Gurvich, for example, born in Lithuania and author of such beautiful paintings of the Jewish quarter of Montevideo), settled in Nuku Hiva. Hall of mirrors...

Simple, bright and happy paintings that represent, as the painter told me by email on October 7 last year, “an end to Charrism once and for all”… no less. Putting an end to a manner, to the trite, the familiar, the weariness of himself. Starting afresh, a bit like what Gauguin, that specialist in long-distance escapes, always longed for.

A Paquebote ('The Packet Boat') –the Paul Gauguin, precisely, the PG, which sails between the islands, making port with all its cabins lit: the first image that the readers will see when they have this book in their hands. A reminder of the fact that this Paradise is exploited for tourism and that the old culture of the Marquises continues to be reproduced today ad infinitum, sometimes more fortunately than others, for tourism purposes and that packet boats like this one set the pace for commerce by the craftsmen and women of the archipelago. A Puesto ('Stand') on a pristine, geometrized, beach, organized for the mere pleasure of being, of lying on a patterned cloth reminiscent of Matisse. Water is also, obviously, the main feature in a couple waterfalls. One of them bears a French name, Chute d’eau, next to which there is a tiki paired with an emoticon, all within a setting of vegetation and orchids. The other, vertical and synthetic, surrounded by vegetation that would have inspired fabric prints from the fifties - like the kind that Manrique or Millares, for example, painted for Gastón y Daniela - reminds me of the glimpse of a Carioca in Floresta de Tijuca, near Rio, when we visited there with José Manuel Ballester. From Francis Mazière's two Marquesan films from 1955, we know of the abundance of waterfalls and pools on the islands: the pools, precisely, are delightful in the second such film, Teiva, enfant des îles. More water: the monotony of the rain, reminiscent of Machado, but contemplated in this case not from the protection of a schoolroom but from a Somerset Maugham-era veranda: the rain slanting as if to wipe out the coconut trees and orchids of the landscape. These latter, as seen here, remind me of certain splendid ones photographed by Elisofon in Hawaii, for while, as a child, due to my family background, I was more Paris Match, thanks to digital archives (unfortunately virtually inexistent for the Paris magazine) my imagery of the fifties now has more of a Life slant to it: some of the staff photographers from that magazine were incomparable, including the fantastic Elisofon in his work with color in dealing with tropical nature, whether on this side of the world, in the Caribbean, in Acapulco, Senegal or the former Belgian Congo. Nature, at farm level: a goat, a rooster, a hen... Wild nature, but on a small scale: close-ups of insects in front of one of those plant backgrounds that Lotus Eater does so well. Nature as a work of art: an almost Cinerama panoramic view of the gleaming Jardines Pomaré. Treasures offered by nature: a pearl. Nature, too, with its dangers, its cataclysms: a Volcán ('Volcano') that the Pauwelsian Hergé would have liked in the aforementioned Flight 714. Hergé was a collector of modern art and also a closeted abstract painter; Hergé, to whom the discoverer of Lotus Eater is, as mentioned before, so indebted. 

Among the most decisive and vibrant pieces - an adjective that Charris quite appropriately uses in his text about his colleague - the large-scale version of Chica comiendo una manzana ('Girl Eating an Apple') must be spotlighted, in which our gaze, after spotting the main figure, depicted in synthetic fashion in a style that could almost be classified as Miro-esque, delights in the wonderful background of blue mountains that seems to recall another particularly fortunate phrase from the same text: “an endless symphony of greens and blues”. Slender silhouettes are outlined against this background, those of two coconut trees, brothers of the imperial palm trees by Tarsila do Amaral, a sister or at least a cousin in spirit, on one side or another, of Lotus Eater, although we must not forget that lone, more modest, less imperial and more Republican palm tree (República de Cartagena) ('Republic of Cartagena'), that is the focus of El canto del grillo ('The Cricket's Song') (1993). I have often shown this image at conferences because, ever since I first saw it, it has stuck in my mind, an image that I suddenly find likened to a view of Almeria by our mutual friend Bernard Plossu. It is funny how, when looking at these works, this time through the anthropophagite Tarsila (a painter who I doubt Lotus Eater has ever heard of, but who I know for sure is one of Charris' favorites), my thoughts turn, for the second time, to what Stefan Zweig called “the land of the future”.

Sometimes Lotus Eater becomes more abstract. For example, a concentric Canción ('Song') – how beautiful, how melancholically beautiful, the Marquesan choirs from 1955 that I am now listening to through Mazière-, or Yoga, or a tondo-shaped Cielo ('Sky') that seems to be viewed from a hammock – Matisse, who was there in 1930, also painted ocean skies-, or a synthetic Bosque ('Forest') and a Selva ('Jungle') or a Clearing (María Zambrano: Claros del bosque), or simply some Rojos ('Reds'), or Azules ('Blues'), to which the Marquesan painter might respond like our Joan Miró, in the magical year 1925: Ceci est la couleur de mes rêves.

Quite simply, a Luna ('Moon') on an intensely blue night and simply another calm starry night that sometimes reconciles you with the Vol nocturne, and simply a Hoguera ('Bonfire') and simply a Perro ('Dog') which reminds me of a stray dog far away and long ago that befriended me on a Caribbean beach in Costa Rica, on the Tortuguero side. Another absolutely gleaming, absolutely marvelous beach, measuring two by three, with two native bathers and vegetation that is somewhere between Tarsila, once again, and Lasar Segall (the Lithuanian, the man from the north captivated by Brazil, just as, three centuries earlier, his Dutch colleague Frans Post had been, during the brief period in which his country dominated that sub-continent) and of course, 'Le Douanier' Rousseau, stationary traveler and yet creator of some of the great jungle images of modern times. And yet another Puesto ('Stand') to while away the hours. A New Year's Eve. A bonfire. An Explorador ('Explorer') who resembles some of the unforgettable missionaries in Tintin in the Congo. And a Smiling Tiki, Lotus Eater's likeable contribution to the icon par excellence of the South Seas, but where we have Kirsten, what can I say about tikis, this one, or any?… A beautiful tableautin about Atuona, Gauguin's final landscape on the island of Hiva Oa. And words, parole, parole, parole…

A marvelous discovery, to be certain, Lotus Eater. Even though we lack many of the keys to understanding the mechanisms of his mind, even though most Spanish Charris enthusiasts will most likely never add Polynesia to our baggage of experienced sceneries (that phrase by Mario Praz, which I think clinches it: Il mondo che ho visto), these paintings move us, and we understand the yearning for purity that tugs on them and the desire to flee from “Charrism”, the will of the artist from Cartagena (author, lest we forget, of a calm, delightful painting from 2006 titled precisely El comedor de loto ('The Lotus Eater')) to identify with this colleague, this Homeric lotus-eating brother, this gatherer of happy moments who started painting by chance, to fill the void on rainy days that prevented him from devoting himself to his favorite activity: “to be, just to be, to exist, in nature, at the beach, in the forests, between land and sea”…

On the verge of finishing this text, I visit the sage and sober exhibition on the Îles Marquises at Musée du Quai Branly, which is quite nearby. There is much to be seen here: marvelous examples of traditional statuary, large tapas (fabrics with minimalist echoes) made of plant fibers, about which Mazière provides the exact details of production, accounts by explorers, maps, prints, photographs, glass cases with books by Melville, Stevenson, Pierre Loti and Jack London, and of course a corner with works by Gauguin. But in the last area, devoted to the renaissance of Marquesan culture, I find no traces whatsoever of Lotus Eater, or of any other painter. The contemporary work on display is almost all a remake, generally of good quality, of traditional art: objects that, as indicated on a sign at the entrance to the room that houses them, are intended mainly for sale to Paul Gauguin tourists and other cruise ships. Only Andreas Dettloff, a German born in 1963 and living in Tahiti since 1989, strays from the script, with several pieces on display bearing a heavy load of irony, including one of a mallet from the islands, a raised wood mallet on which, instead of the traditional tiki, disconcertingly, we see... Mickey Mouse. A Disneyesque mallet that suddenly seems to have nothing to do with Lotus Eater but is, however...pure Charris...

 

JUAN MANUEL BONET

Paris, July 2016

 

1 French for “unfortunately”.