Como es arriba, es abajo

As Above, So Below

Past and present are condensed by the energy of the work, the physical properties of the materials, and the creative process of Benjamín Ossa. The exhibition at NG Art gallery is presented in two ways: the first, determined by the artist’s analytical capacity to investigate and explore materials until he can transform matter, heat, and color; the second, is the result of desire, where Ossa offers his body to generate an instance of contact and action that revives a moment from the past—an alchemical rite—laying bare the flaming sculpture. To this end, the photographic image—a record of the artistic action—engages in dialogue with and complements the sculptural body, precisely by unveiling the body and endowing it with a character of permanent future.

The phrase “As above, so below” comes from the Hermetic texts, mystical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, found in the Emerald Tablet and composed at the beginning of our era. This maxim posits that there is a principle of mimetic reproduction of things and events, seeking to corroborate the present with the past, since it is their traces that endure in objects and reanimate them. Benjamín Ossa’s exhibition at the NG Art gallery explores certain traces: encapsulated moments from the past and the present. It is the result of physical phenomena, research, and, above all, the enjoyment of moments of experimentation between subject and object, between artist and materiality. All of this is determined, a priori, by the caprices of heat and its whims.

There is something quite primitive and stirring about heat, fire, and the curiosity that flames provoke in us—this is undoubtedly linked to human evolution and the improved living conditions it brought about. It took centuries, even millennia—why not?—to understand, manage, and perfect our relationship with this natural force. In our own America, volcanoes—heat and fire—have been worshipped and depicted; their magma, an imminent danger of total obliteration, is a fire we imagine spreading and scorching everything it touches, dematerializing it, changing its state in an instant from the original solid to the resulting liquid (a state now known as viscoelastic).

However, to better understand the objects in Benjamín Ossa’s exhibition As Above, So Below, we could say that it presents two distinct aspects: one analytical and the other centered on desire.
Obviously, the first refers to the artist’s process of creating the work. What do I mean by this? The pieces are created using acrylic panels measuring 200 x 140 centimeters. For this, Ossa selected specific colors: violet 200, red 411, blue 425, blue 226, green 439, yellow 409, and orange 460. All of these were mixed in large vats, melting the polymers according to the artist’s color choices; for example: 60% blue 226 + 20% red 411 + 20% violet 200. I will not reveal the formulas any further because that belongs to the alchemy of the studio; nevertheless, it must be emphasized that we are in the analytical phase, in the chemistry of creation, and likely the most structured part of the work—though no less experimental for that.

What has the analytical phase made possible? A moment of understanding the materiality of heat—beyond the fire we invoked at the beginning—and grasping how heat is involved in the processes of shaping an object (or a “being,” if we take it a step further). Heat changes the structure of polymers, transforming small particles into a viscous liquid—liquid by definition, but not entirely. This, combined with the time allowed for it to unfold, prevents the colors from blending completely. The magma is activated and immediately cools to set those colors and textures.
This is where time takes on importance, a defining characteristic of Ossa’s work. His reflection on temporal determination ranges from the meticulous work in his drawings to his pieces that incorporate light elements. That instant stages what is above or below, what we must imagine beyond the sculpture and the photograph. The photographs capture a movement that has not yet fully solidified in the sculpture. The viscoelastic result continues to work after the artist has picked up the sheet and set it down, not only in terms of its folds and creases, but also in the chemical processes it involves, producing bubbles within the material.

That moment thaws and regains its movement at the moment of desire, during the creation of the work. The plastic almost takes on the significance of clothing, reminiscent of Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés and Penetráveis, or Eugenio Espinoza’s Unruly Supports series. Both Oiticica’s and Espinoza’s work are often classified as conceptual art, a genre far removed from the tradition of Latin American art. These bodies of work allow us to understand an action—in principle, an individual one—an artistic body that commits itself, yet simultaneously demands a collective duty, whether physical or intellectual. Whether in Ossa’s photographs or sculptures, Espinoza’s canvases, or Oiticica’s plastic or soft bodies, there is a moment that condenses to scrutinize, above all, a desire for movement that escapes analytical frameworks—such as the one we must undertake as a research exercise— but which is secondary to what the artists ultimately aim to do: invite us to be moved by their gestures.

Before concluding this essay, it is clear that this series of works is connected to an earlier one, which marks its tenth anniversary and is arguably one of the most significant works in Ossa’s body of work: A 250º en 1:30 segundos, presented in the exhibition “No hay forma de perder el tiempo.” It consists of a set of sculptures produced using the same process: lightweight objects made of intensely colored plastic—this time without the chromatic mixture described earlier—that retain Ossa’s imprint in their post-firing modulation, accompanied, in turn, by a photographic record of that solidification. At that time, the sculptures—all monochromatic in a vibrant, synthetic crimson—were suspended in an almost imperceptible manner. That series was more phantasmagorical. The photographs, while constitutive parts of the work, did not carry the significance they do now—a specific weight that defines the body and which, in the anonymity of the artist’s face, propels it toward a collectivization of a risky gesture: modulating living materials through heat.

As we can see, this research is not merely a grammar of color, but also an exploration of vital points that are expanded and replicated. Thus, each sculpture possesses an articulated support; that faceless artist is present not only in the imprint of the active material, but also in the metal axes that form a slender buttress which contains, elevates, and presents this series of nine sculptures. As Juan Acha noted in the late 1970s, due to semantics and pragmatics, we have forgotten the visual and grammatical richness we have built thanks to our visual perception and our corporeality. This exhibition appeals precisely to that.
Finally, the body that supports Ossa’s work marks a moment of lava, which comes to a halt in the cold context—today in Panama City. Each force exerted by Benjamín against the molten matter, against the gravity that both endure, are two moments—the past and the present—that lodge as an imprint in a liminal moment.

Matias Allende Contador.