SANER ‘LA LOCURA DE UN HOMBRE DESCONOCIDO’

On Monday we dedicated a post to Inti, and now its time for more news from another protagonist of the “Barroco Mestizo“: Saner. This mexican artist has come out with two videos related to his latest expo at the Museum of Contemporary art of Sant Luis de Potosi: “La Locura de un Hombre Desconocido” (The madness of an unknown man).

On one hand this is a visual presentation of Saner‘s work, but at the same time it is a colorful animation which accompanies the content of the exhibition.

The Madness of an Unknown Man.

We are all unknown. Nobody truly knows us. Nobody knows us as deeply as we know ourselves, and sometimes we don’t even know ourselves. We live in a masquerade where the exterior knows one face, and the interior knows another. We interpret a different character in each and every daily scenario that we are faced with: at home, at work, in the street, with friends, with the family… in this sense life becomes a tragicomedy with traces of humor, drama, suspense, terror, and fantasy.

Many people don’t notice the character that they interpret during their whole life. They just live, work, and love. They perpetuate the species and give continuity to history. Secondary actors, extras, and props. Only a few take off the mask in order to express their interior world and to show us who really breathes behind that character. Only a few truly become protagonists in history. These few who dare to confess the unknown are often labeled crazy and only time converts them into visionary geniuses.

We are all unknown and many of our secrets follow us to the grave. We all share a world of ideas and images but each one of us sees reality from our own persepective. This point of view is inevitably unique. Nobody else walked in our shoes or lived our emotions as we have; like a protoganist in our own fiction. Our paths and our entire life mold this vision and give color to what we see before our eyes. We can accept the world as they say it is, or we can decide to create what we ourselves experience.

Those few who dare to give form to their own colors and share their own visions despite what is socially established, despite what little can be expected of the unknown man, often become kidnapped by madness and loneliness. But when someone knows what their mission is, there is no exterior, no madness, and no loneliness that can withhold them. Everything conspires in their favor and everything is necessary. Their mission is bigger than themselves and the closer they get to it, the further away everything else becomes. The deeper they go within themselves, the crazier they seem to others. Lonliness against the sound of sirens and a shining destination on the horizon. The point of no return exists and it is a place where creation is life and fiction is reality; it is the great, magical act of the artist, and the others, the spectators, can only appreciate, enjoy, and celebrate this shared, crazy generosity of the uknown man, who is now a visionary artist.

Édgar Flores Nández, Saner, unknown man, friend, madman, artist… is one of those men. He has been creating his own fiction for years, shaping his own path, and making reality a dream that to many would be impossible. For the majority of people, that is where the madness resides; in the faith that one professes in his/her mission. Although the majority may think this way, the madman they call Saner continues against the current, pursuing his dreams and sharing them on paper, canvas, and walls.

Javier Iglesias Algora.
Artist and director of Belio Magazine.