Romeo Lee and Battlefield Insectizoid

BY MADS BAJARIAS | In another bout of idleness, I found myself in the mag:net galleries and drawn to Romeo Lee’s entomological tripfest “Oh! Sama Kasama Snow White.”

Lately, I’ve seen a rise in matters entomological in the media. First off, there’s the buzz about bees mysteriously disappearing around the globe. The phenomenon is so widespread that scientists have created a phrase for it: Colony Collapse Disorder. Among the possible culprits being investigated are global warming, pesticides and electromagnetic radiation. Yes, your cell phone could be killing the bees and keeping nice flowers from being pollinated.

A recent issue of TIME Magazine had a story about Colony Collapse Disorder. It seems the bee population crash has reached crisis levels in some parts of China forcing orchard owners to use human-assisted pollination—having workers painstakingly hand-brush pollen to individual flowers. This seems like a fun job except when you have to get on a ladder to reach individual pistils on a shaky branch 15 feet off the ground.

Then there's one scene in M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent movie, “The Happening,” where a quotation could be seen on the blackboard of Mark Wahlberg’s character’s classroom. The quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, states that humans can only survive a few months if bees were to disappear off the face of the planet. This quote spread around cyberspace and at one point was used for a Discovery Channel advert. The problem is that no one has proved Einstein really did say or write that statement.

In any case, speaking of Hollywood bugs, flies made an appearance in “Wanted,” the Angelina Jolie splatterfest. The new recruit played by James McAvoy was instructed by godhead Morgan Freeman to shoot the wings off the flies to prove his worth as a killer. Of course!

Then there's Isabella Rossellini doing bug porn with "Green Porno," a series of short films she wrote, produced and acted in about the sex lives of our buggy friends.

And lest we forget: Insects in the War Against Terror. The Pentagon is said to be pursuing the possibility of insect-like nano-robots to hunt down terrorists. And while there's friendly bugs, there's enemy bugs. It's been reported that the US military has been spending tens of millions of dollars in developing pesticide-laced military uniforms that can help protect their wearers against sand fleas. It's not only the Taliban that has been hassling the remnants of the Coalition of the Willing, but millions of tiny blood-sucking parasites.

This brings us to Osama bin Laden, who makes a cameo as a kind of three-faced deity in Lee’s canvas.

What's Lee up to? Is there an environmental theme here? Is he equating bin Laden's elusiveness with the mystery of the vanishing bees? Is he lumping bin Laden with Snow White and the duck that's officiating the civil union between mutant flies (fictional creatures all)? And what are the seven dwarfs finding so interesting in the crotch area of the robed duck-minister? Best maybe not to go there.

Who the hell knows what Lee is up to. But a giant-insect marriage officiated by one of Scrooge McDuck's nephews while enveloped in a blob with leech-like mouth parts and surrounded by candy-colored dots (happy pills?) under the benign gaze of a three-faced bin Laden sure looks fun.

Who knows what Lee is up to here, but he's having a good time.

UPDATE: Someone just sent me a link to some awesome photos of ugly bugs that somehow remind me a bit of Lee's adorable duo above.

Embrace the Grotesque and Get Freakish

BY MADS BAJARIAS | There is something in Romeo Lee's "Leengua," showing at mag:net Gallery until May 31, that pulls me in. Its not a pretty picture by conventional means. It's not the type you'd see hanging on the walls of the Citibank boardroom, for instance.

What fascinated me about "Leengua" is the mix (its always a mix, isn't it?) of disgust and grinning that it elicits.

Disgust at the deformed figure sprawled on a couch, body fluids dripping on to the ground from a hulking tumescent tongue that seemed to grow out of its crotch. Mixed in with this bloated vision is the grin-inducing candidness with which she cleans her teeth with her fingers (we all know how it feels to try and dislodge food bits from a hard-to-reach corner inside the mouth, right?) and the nasal mucus rumbling down her face like a mudslide. Her gaze contentedly turned to one side and upwards, away from the dripping mess of her torso. Maybe she just finished a hefty and satisfying meal. Despite the nightmarish quality of her body, her exposed toes and neat toenails express a surprising vulnerability.

In literature, a character that induces a mix of anger or disgust and empathy is called "grotesque." A character that is purely disgusting—one-dimensional—is a monster. Looking at "Leengua," it strikes me that distinguishing the grotesque from the merely monstrous is important in a certain idealistic way.

Grotesque figures, like eccentrics, show a strength of character because they refuse to conform to the standards of normal behavior or appearance. John Stuart Mills famously wrote, "The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour and moral courage it contained."

He went on to say "that so few people now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time." That was in 1859.

In pop culture, we constantly witness the wholesale culling of those believed to be grotesque. If they remain a side-show, they are tolerated. Unpredictable eccentrics are fun to watch, until they threaten the security of the manipulative. In a reality show-dominated pop culture, when freaks outlive their usefulness, they are fed to the monsters.

Where am I going with this? The best examples of art teaches us that being grotesque isn't being monstrous. Being freakish doesn't mean being villainous. Art, in its best forms, teaches us that learning to appreciate the grotesque in ourselves and in the world make us better human beings. It enriches us.