WORD IMAGE WORD IMAGE WORD (w/ musical guests)
The launch of “EL LIBRO DE LA SOMBRA O RECORTES DE LA MEMORIA” at the San Francisco Public library was an epicurean feast of images, words and music. The event, held entirely in Spanish, celebrated the publication of an epic labor of love between the essential artist Franz Fischer and distinguished wordsmith and educator Jose Antonio Galloso. Over the course of one year the two blended words and images with the slow discipline and pleasure of classic collage, cutting and pasting each work and image page by page. Fischer, from Chile, and Galloso of Peru undertook this cross-cultural artistic project with profound intention. Galloso elegantly explained the context and content of this publication in-between the debut performances of “del group experimental “PACHAR KACHAS” as self described latinoamericana, jazz, dub-reggae, funk fusion.
The marriage of image and word is a complicated endeavor, both bear a unique role in communication. Images hit us; we see and almost immodestly feel be it a tranquil meadow full of flowers to the contorted face of pain of a mother crying over a dead child in her arms. We are captive to image in a way we are not to words that require we participate, read or listen and are drawn in. The image is a slap words a descent, not that image and word always connote a negative experience. The desktop screen savers across the world depict images to bring us back to some tenderness or tranquility- an ocean scene, our puppy etc. And words, love stories, song lyrics and poetry can elate our hearts to states unmatchable. How to couple these heavy hitters, word and image, how to not let the supremacy of one out shadow the other, is a complicated task. One which Galloso and Fischer undertake with an impressive level of balance and collaboration, one we at Eth6 can aim for!
