ElSoca and Fabian, the Cuban duo who have recently taken residence in Miami, have a fondness for things that perish. Known for their meticulously rendered “bio-drawings” where image and text are combined and constructed using insect wings, flies, roach wings and various other critter particles, they create lyrical, thought-provoking works on canvas, paper and site-specific installations that often integrate existing architectural elements. Crushed, battered and dissected flies have become the principal material used by the artists to spell out a myriad of phrases about life, love and the pursuit of freedom. In a playful act of irony, these commentaries make reference to the artists and to the life of say, the actual flies, whom released of their perpetual vicious cycle of life and death are transformed into the protagonists of ElSoca and Fabian’s body of work.



Imagine the following scenario: The artists look through piles of garbage scattered around the city, literally catching flies that congregate around heaps of trash, food, and other highly unpleasant decaying materials. Once the flies are caught, the artists spend endless hours crushing them (which are applied “wet”) or leaving them to “dry” and then dissecting their wings only to adorn white, freshly cured canvases. This process transforms the fly into a mythical character and a sense of self-awareness [on the part of the fly] emerges. In a long-winded text recently installed at Magnan Emrich Contemporary in NY, the artists applied their distinct media on the walls of the gallery to create a story line:

I am a fly that thinks. I am free and have a right to my own opinions. . .
I rack my brain thinking and that is how lofty ideas flourish. There are ideas that are beautiful and worthy of all the sacrifice in the world. We bleed to death for the passion we feel toward them...

In Nada Como Un Dia Tras Otro, a work on canvas shown last year at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, the artists’ first solo show in Miami, a hunter points his rifle at a single fly poised at the opposite side of the figure. Eloquent yet succinct, this work exemplifies the minimalist approach favored by the artists. Unlike American artist, Fred Tomaselli’s large works on canvas, where similar media is applied to create fantastical, baroque scenes depicting floral, nocturnal landscapes made of pills, insects and other hallucinatory paraphernalia, ElSoca and Fabian’s, aesthetic language maintains a tighter relationship between content and media thus, more direct. However, like Tomaselli, ElSoca and Fabian, deceitfully seduce the viewer via the exquisitely stylized calligraphy-like text, which at first glance might appear to be written in ink.

Humankind’s relation with its fellow fly-hood is a complex one. Our association with what a fly symbolizes is always connected to a creature, which meanders through the underbelly of society – relishing in the stench of garbage dumps and hovering closely over piles of fesses. In popular culture, Hollywood’s portrayal of this insect is depicted via Jeff Goldblum’s character, as a giant, grotesque and catastrophic monster, after an experiment has gone terribly wrong.

The fly is also witness, “ a fly on the wall”, ever present in our daily lives, particularly the lives of those in the Third World (i.e. Cuba) that deal with the quotidian nuisance of their presence. The daily ritual of swatting flies from their bodies was literally transcended to the daily ritual of art making - the “materia prima” for their artistic expression. Propelled to success as a result, ElSoca and Fabian arrived at such a novel idea (of using flies to make artwork) when they noticed the trace of ink left behind on the wall after repeatedly crushing them in an effort to get rid of them. From flies on the wall to flies on canvas – their [the flies] trajectory is a victorious one. To be part of the historical tradition in Western art on canvas is no small feat!

Trained at the pioneering ISA - Instituto Superior de Arte (Superior Institute for the Arts), where their collaboration was borne, ElSoca and Fabian received critical acclaim early on for their performance-based actions and installations, often involving audience participation. Later, they joined the renowned performance group, ENEMA, led by one of Cuba’s most influential contemporary artists and ISA professor, Lazaro Saavedra. As most of the artists of the 90’s generation, (and unlike those of their predecessor in the 80s) a biting and almost spiteful sense of humor is the principal vehicle through which social and political issues are addressed in the work.

Hemorragia, 2001, integrates the performative aspect of their work and introduces the materials they would end up employing in much of their current work. It is an ambitious project where process and material become the integral aspect of a work that is in constant flux. Executed and presented in Cuba at the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, stacked blocks covered in a plastic material form a large wall-like structure. Inside each block are live organic elements – tiny insects, animal life and cut slices of food particles that co-existed inside each of these hermetically sealed small cubicles. As time passes, the inevitable process of growth and decay begins to take place. However, while some things are in the process of decay others are borne out of the detritus of what was once alive. By day 3 or 4 of a weeklong installation, the entire piece has been transformed, taking on a life of its own. Reacting to the warm temperatures of its environment, the piece emanates a strong odor and the organic material’s own temperature causes the plastic to become fogged. Sporadic designs begin to emerge as the haphazard movement of the live material move across the plastic cover. A chaotic order of sorts ensues within each of these compartments until the work self-destructs.

The End , executed in Cuba in 2003 and presented at the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, integrates the performative aspect of their work and utilizes some of the structural elements used in much of the artists’ installations. It is comprised of a tunnel-like structure, 10 meters in length. On either side of the winding passageway, stacked blocks covered in plastic surround the spectator. As the passage narrows from 3 meters to 50 cm in height, the spectator senses the uncomfortable feeling of the work literally closing in on them. Whoever ventures to continue passed the enclosing, narrowing opening toward the end, is forced to crouch down and finally squirm on the floor (like a worm or a “gusano”) only to find themselves trapped. All the while, a camera imbedded inside one of the blocks at the very end of the tunnel captures the spectator live, as he/she struggles, trying to maneuver their way back out. The underlying subtext of “gusano” is not lost – a word colloquially used by Cubans to refer to those who left the island. On a more universal context, the “gusano” may refer to the physical state we are inevitably destined to become. This type of interaction between the work, the audience as participant and the audience as spectator is emblematic of ElSoca and Fabian’s performative work.

The first work they created in Miami at Florida International University in 2005 through the Cuban Research Institute was part of an ongoing series, titled, Invernadero. This series takes on several variations of the same concept. For this particular event, the artists created a simple box-like structure. Filled with clear garbage bags that the artists filled with air from their lungs, they sealed and confined themselves within the work. Their bodies increasingly began to experience processes that became evident as the clear plastic walls of the structure began to fog, through their sweat and breath. The clear walls were gradually transformed into a communication device where the artists begin to use their fingers to pose thoughts and questions to the audience. This time the artists have trapped themselves inside their work, until release comes through the limitations of their own bodies or via the public’s intervention.

Much of the work they have done outside of Cuba, however, has focused on expanding the visual and textual vocabulary using insects and perishable matter. Ironically, being outside the fly-infested environment of their hometown in Cuba, has posed a unique challenge for ElSoca and Fabian, who have had to employ more time and effort in catching flies in a place whose natural environment does not supply the same conditions for flies to be as readily accessible. Instead, however, the artists now order the flies via the internet - in bulk and already dead, ready to use. The manner in which this affects their art-making process has interesting socio-economic implications, or at the very least, it is an interesting commentary on the reality of their new working environment

In the same installation at Magnan Emrich referred to above, the text runs along the walls and to the door to the bathroom where the story ends like this:

And with these thoughts we build a path. For it is beautiful to give up one’s life for a big idea. Though we run the risk of being crushed over and over again. Regardless of whether this idea is noble and contributes to the betterment of humankind and the world. Warning!
There are times when weak thoughts emerge only to follow the wrong path...(WC)
Finally, I manage to understand that it all has been a grand manipulation, others did the thinking ... while, and I am just a simple crushed fly among many others used to fill up an empty space
... or a blank canvas.