About
One of my favorite kinds of storytelling structures is the kind where the superficial storyline is simple and direct and causes the actual guts of the story to blossom in a beautiful way. Two good examples: Slumdog Millionaire and Thumbsucker. Slumdog’s structure is fun and simple: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in India accuses a poor contestant of cheating. The actual guts—the story of a young man’s life—is unveiled through the interrogation of the protagonist. Thumbsucker’s structure is even simpler: a suburban high school senior attempts to finally stop sucking his thumb. The actual guts dive into his family relationships and even a commentary on the effects of Ritalin.
My blog’s structure will be the same—something simple to guide my interest in sharing my personal life and career as an artist. What’s my idea? In brief: I want to be the US Representative to the 2023 Venice Biennale.
The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious international art exhibitions in the world. The exhibit attempts to survey the current pulse of the contemporary art scene. Sometimes described as the Olympics of Art, the Biennale includes a large park of privately curated exhibits in individual national pavilions. For the United States, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) is responsible for selecting the artist who will setup shop at the US Pavilion in Venice.
My goal is to create enough buzz and get that great cirriculum vitae over the next eleven years, so by 2021 my name is everywhere and by January 2022, ECA will have no other choice but to select me as the American artist for 2023.
In essence, I want to share my journey through life, both as a typical guy just living day-to-day and as a young artist navigating through the art world. Having a fantastic goal like the Venice Biennale 2023 is the perfect ridiculous and surreal vehicle to drive my stories.
So be prepared for nonsense, laughs, advice, suspense, and heartache. I’ll weave personal stories through factual events like gallery exhibitions and studio happenings. I’ll reveal the dramatic, necessary, surprising and unorthodox steps towards the big prize at the 60th Edition of the Venice Biennale.
Jeffrey Augustine Songco (b. 1983) is an American multi-media artist. He was born and raised in New Jersey, USA to Filipino parents. After a childhood of ballet and musical theatre on several stages, Jeffrey focused on the visual arts. In 2005, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art from Carnegie Mellon University. His practice spans various media including digital photography, sculpture, drawing, installation, and performance. He continues to develop and create artwork under the guise of multiple identities.
Jeffrey is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts at San Francisco Art Institute. He is also a contributing writer for Art21 Blog.
Please visit his website at http://songco.org.
