A Change of Guard

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Thursday 18 November 2010

Found objects tell stories in art [about a Cambodian immigrant in the U.S]



AUTUMN CRUZ / acruz@sacbee.com
Chusak Majarone grew up in the slums of Bangkok, and while his parents worked, he collected discarded items as treasures.

By Queenie Wong
qwong@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010

The Cambodian immigrant had a somber tale to share, and – about 30 years ago in Massachusetts – a young Thai artist working beside him as a janitor in a clothing factory hung onto every word.
The immigrant's family traveled to Thailand, he told the artist, after his father dreamed of a flooded countryside where red and black ants battled each other, fish ate the stars and strange creatures dragged people away. In 1974, the family were ambushed by the Khmer Rouge while moving through the Cambodian countryside. His mother and father died, but his wife and children were rescued by the Thai army.
The man didn't know it, but his co-worker Chusak Majarone was recording his stories in an art journal. Majarone would spend nearly six years re-creating the man's journey in a series of mural-size paintings and drawings that have been hanging in the Urban Hive, a co-working space on H Street in midtown Sacramento, since October.
The exhibit, titled "One Man Dream," includes 96 pieces, completed by Majarone, a 56-year-old Sacramento resident, between 1980 and 2010. They're not all about the Cambodian immigrant, but each piece does tell a story – historical, personal or imaginary.
Hanging on the walls of the brick building are paintings, drawings, collages and mixed media work. Toylike sculptures of skateboard cubist guitars, a flying ship and water fowl fill the floor space. Joseph Cornell- inspired boxed assemblages made from found objects such as vintage photographs, magazine clippings or plastic figurines hang in the hallway.
"You pick up an old toy and see if it can talk," said Majarone.
A discarded photograph, too.
In the boxed assemblage called "Last Dance 251" sits a sepia-tone photo of a man dressed in a pin-stripe suit. A tiny glass bottle filled with gold specks, metal sheets with the number 251, a brown-and-black wheel, a plastic ball with the number 39, a dancing woman, tiny IV bags and a wooden train surround the portrait.
Majarone said he wanted to bring the man back to life the moment he found the photo.
The stranger was a 39-year-old wealthy entrepreneur, Majarone told himself. Handsome, he often attracted women. When his car collided with a train on a railroad track, the man fell into a deep coma. His address included the number 251.
Numbers among other symbols such as houses, targets and birds often reappear in Majarone's work.
"What is your Social Security number? Where do you live?" he asked. "A number can take the place of a human."
The crescent moon face seen in "My House" and "Prison of Mind" represents the artist himself.
"I can't compete with the smiley face," Majarone said jokingly.
Growing up in the slums of Bangkok, his fascination with objects most people would discard as junk began as a child. While his parents worked, Majarone explored the streets, picking up anything that caught his eye. He still collects objects today at antique shops, flea markets, on sidewalks, along roads or at yard sales.
At the Urban Hive last week, he pulled from his pocket a walnut with two tiny holes.
"If I put that walnut in a bowl of walnuts, it will disappear because it's competing with another walnut," he said. "But if I put that walnut in a bowl of glass, the walnut stands out because it no longer is acting as a walnut."
Influenced by cubists, surrealists, Dadaists and abstract expressionists, Majarone said he believes art doesn't have to be expensive, polished or complicated. Instead, he said, art should be easy, simple, recognizable and common-sense.
He didn't always feel that way.
More than 30 years ago, Majarone saw a poster of Pablo Picasso's cubist guitar hanging inside a coffee shop in Thailand. He wondered why the twisted guitar was better than a realistic painting of a beautiful landscape.
Then, in 1975, he moved to Massachusetts to avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War. He saw Picasso's "Guernica" hanging in New York's Museum of Modern Art and was so mesmerized that every weekend he returned to gaze at the painting.
While studying for a bachelor's degree in fine arts from UMass Dartmouth, Majarone said, the more he learned about other artists such as Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg, the more abstract and surreal his own work became.
The exhibit, which Majarone described as his "swan dance for Sacramento," ends Friday. It's the artist's first and only show in the city before he moves with his wife and two daughters to Hawaii.
Asked why some of his pieces are so different from one another, Majarone – a former chef at Randy Paragary's "28" restaurant – replied: "Would you like to eat spaghetti all day or mac 'n' cheese year round? All of these things are like food; you have to consume them with enjoyment."
If Rauschenberg was still alive, he would invite him to dinner.

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