chapter7 luminous umor

Luminous Umor

The exquisite collaborative drawing/paintings of Juan Carlos Quintana and Michele Muennig, also known as Miju, beckon us from the grand universal gambling house where the stakes are always high. As in all such ventures the payoff is often worth the risk. Imagine these extravagant images decorating the burnished and corroded walls of a cosmic riverboat casino. The artists have declared that these works are the manifestation of the shadow’s shadow, the specter of the great unraveling that is both the past century and our present one wherein our very existence is haunted by the persistent sense of anxiety, ennui, and nervous exhaustion. Yet these works are not necessarily apocalyptic in tone or presentation, imbued as they are with the bittersweet melancholy of childhood, the wistful glee of fairytales suspended in amber, and a luminous umor1 that emanates from a gorgeous dark laughter that eviscerates the complacent mien of contemporary life. In such a disorienting world I am reminded of a line from the poet, José Lezama Lima, “. . . and those who woke up danced with those who were sleeping. . .”2

As a collaborative project these works partake of the wonderful improvisatory process that is the artistic keystone of the 20th and 21st centuries (yes, I know it is still early for “Century 21”, but I think I can hear the incantatory sounds of jazz and blues emanating from the future like background radiation of the primordial blue note). Improvisation works hand in hand with a conscious submersion in the diving bell of chance, giving birth to the twin voice of oceanic dreams. As surely as the communicating vessels of dream and waking life, so eloquently explored by Breton, point toward a dialogue and the resolution of such culturally-imposed dualities, those same vessels may also be the alembical filters of the equally rigid dichotomy of male and female psyches. I imagine the two artists whiling away a winter’s night playing this game of chance, conversing in images, occasionally glancing out the window at a hare dancing while backlit by the luminescent neon hoarfrost that dusts the forest. And who is this rabbit that makes its appearance in a number of works? Is it the same “rabbit in the moon” that in its role as trickster enjoys shape-shifting treks into the Black Forest wielding Des Knaben Wunderhorn4 in one hand and Alice’s Looking Glass in the other?5 Or have we ourselves passed through the magic mirror and are now looking at our non-selves with the most deeply philosophical nonsense and gravitas that one can muster when asked to accompany Osiris down the Nile River to “Go – collect 200 dreams”? Once again, Lima writes, “. . .Final contradiction: To enter/the mirror approaching us.”4 Careful, you may run across a girl, her hair coifed into a topiary rabbit, standing before a table, meditating on the delirious grain of wood. It was only hundred years ago that she had painted internal organs on her bedroom wall in order to remind herself that we are composed of manta rays and jellyfish and now she has graduated to chiromancy. Quite expert I hear.

At times the beautifully layered washes and transparencies induce a vertigo akin to the passing hypnogogic images one sees as they literally fall asleep. Just as suddenly we awake in a mysterious oneiropolis, Traumberg or Ciudad de Sombras, where the walls are decorated with the residue of past times, anatomical illustrations, or the faux naïve hysteria of upstanding baboons in prayer. Has the reverential gentleman trapped a dragonfly in his cupped hands, oblivious to the headless cyclist bearing down on him, sprouting tree branches from his arms? Reverse the orientation of the drawing and a warbling songbird has captured a dragonfly, drowning out the bilious catechism of Hansel and Gretel. In another drawing we gaze down upon a cityscape, vaguely reminiscent of Alchemist’s Prague, while from the other side above a haunted plaza hovers the ambiguous yet studious figure of a Trotsky, Martí, or Zapata, dangling a medal of pearls and suspended eyeballs, plotting insurrection while researching the formula for miniaturizing authoritarian gasbags and generalissimos . Either way we as viewers reap the benefit of Quintana and Muennig’s skilled depiction of an enchanted world in which the imagination performs acrobatic tangos with desire and inspiration.

Which leads me to the mysterious island perched at the edge of the world where an obelisk partially composed of Toussaint L’Ouverture, Edgar Allan Poe, turkey vultures, and window-washer beetles, flies its banner crowned with the star of Lepus. A full-leafed tree shades the monumental grounds, suggesting correspondences with the Philosopher’s Stone, often referred to as “The Philosophical Tree” whose congealed sap was seen as the tree’s “fruit of silver and gold.” The situation is more dire at land’s end. We don’t know whether to laugh or cry for that poor “sap”, our sausage-wrapped Icarus about to plummet through the aether, hanging on for dear life ála Harold Lloyd. Does his predicament mirror our collective fate? Think back to the Böcklinesque image and reality of people marooned on a freeway overpass while Katrina’s floodwaters rose and inundated New Orleans, her citizens abandoned by a thoroughly bankrupt administration. In another image even childhood takes on a menacing form in the goosestepping clowngirl marching arm-in-arm with her rabbit comrades in a sad parody of a dentist’s drill team.

With these images Muennig and Quintana have embarked on the quintessential philosopher/poet/artist’s quest to convert the detritus of a moribund reality into the infinite interior landscape of wonder. That the works have the capability of instilling a sense of surprise, amusement, and curiosity is a testament to the ineffable charm of the marvelous. Let us join the artists in wandering through this beguiling and spectral world.


David Coulter
Berkeley – June 2008