Inspired by a 1992 painting of the same name, this piece depicts a pair of lovers captured in the middle of a dance, their hands gripping each other tightly, clothes swaying with their movements as the narrow space of the vertical canvas forces their figures even closer to each other. This is a moment captured before the inevitable as their faces approach each other, a near-capitulation to their desires that the artist has chosen to leave hanging as a question, or a suggestion, or, perhaps – as a tease. In a society as strait-laced as the predominantly Catholic Philippines, perhaps this suggestion toward intimacy should be enough to skirt provocation without directly inciting it. This reaction, however, goes beyond the artist’s intentions: the invitation coming from this is to understand BenCab as an artist deeply invested in the human condition – that his depictions of subjects ranging from a woman living on the streets, to a family embracing a returned loved one, to a couple engaged in dance – all belong to the same complex patchwork of human life: an assertion of the philosophy that anything human is a fitting subject for art.
In a society as strait-laced as the predominantly Catholic Philippines, perhaps this suggestion toward intimacy should be enough to skirt provocation without directly inciting it. This reaction, however, goes beyond the artist’s intentions: the invitation coming from this is to understand BenCab as an artist deeply invested in the human condition – that his depictions of subjects ranging from a woman living on the streets, to a family embracing a returned loved one, to a couple engaged in dance – all belong to the same complex patchwork of human life: an assertion of the philosophy that anything human is a fitting subject for art.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Inspired by a 1992 painting of the same name, this piece depicts a pair of lovers captured in the middle of a dance, their hands gripping each other tightly, clothes swaying with their movements as the narrow space of the vertical canvas forces their figures even closer to each other. This is a moment captured before the inevitable as their faces approach each other, a near-capitulation to their desires that the artist has chosen to leave hanging as a question, or a suggestion, or, perhaps – as a tease. In a society as strait-laced as the predominantly Catholic Philippines, perhaps this suggestion toward intimacy should be enough to skirt provocation without directly inciting it. This reaction, however, goes beyond the artist’s intentions: the invitation coming from this is to understand BenCab as an artist deeply invested in the human condition – that his depictions of subjects ranging from a woman living on the streets, to a family embracing a returned loved one, to a couple engaged in dance – all belong to the same complex patchwork of human life: an assertion of the philosophy that anything human is a fitting subject for art.
In a society as strait-laced as the predominantly Catholic Philippines, perhaps this suggestion toward intimacy should be enough to skirt provocation without directly inciting it. This reaction, however, goes beyond the artist’s intentions: the invitation coming from this is to understand BenCab as an artist deeply invested in the human condition – that his depictions of subjects ranging from a woman living on the streets, to a family embracing a returned loved one, to a couple engaged in dance – all belong to the same complex patchwork of human life: an assertion of the philosophy that anything human is a fitting subject for art.