Interview with the Fictionist of The Erotic Space Around Art Objects: Selected Art Stories (1996–2026)
By Cymbeline Villamin
Book Description:
For philosophers like Plato, eros is a universal force that can be a vehicle for transforming consciousness towards peace, perfection and divinity. For psychologists like Freud, eros is the life force including the desire to live and thrive, sexual instincts, and basic impulses like thirst and hunger. From mythology, Eros, the Greek god of love had to overcome betrayal, envy, cruelty, deceit and even death to be united with his beloved Psyche. Reflecting the power of eros, Eileen R. Tabios in her short story collection, The Erotic Space Around Art Objects, radically eroticizes the “space” for interpreting visual art to create unique and unexpected narratives. The author radiantly shows the subjectivity and passion of aesthetic response in ways that elicit wonder while revealing a restless, multifaceted mind exploring the depths of humanity.
Marianne Villanueva, a short story master and author of Residents of the Deep, says about the collection: “Lush, erotic, feverish, philosophical, hallucinatory, audacious, passionate—this book demands surrender. Every scene is like attending a glittering cocktail party peopled with exotics who thirst for completion, who recklessly deny themselves nothing. Vivid and heartbreaking.”
In addition, Jean Vengua, artist and author of four poetry collections, notes: “Eileen R. Tabios’ stories are not predictable, and they swerve into poetry, even as a musical note might bend into blues. What makes these narratives blue? The fact that love exists, suffers and enjoys, alongside that which is distant, cold, calculating, imperative. ‘Keep your eyes open,’ commands the object of one artist’s desire in the story, ‘Blue Richard.’ In the midst of struggle—in the midst of cultural disjunction, diaspora, and subjection—the artist is drawn to the authoritative voice that makes everything seemingly easy, simple, fluid.”
Cymbeline Villamin (CV): You frame eroticism not as an explicit act but as spatial condition, something that exists around art objects. When did you first recognize eroticism as a function of distance, framing, and attention rather than depiction?
Eileen R. Tabios (ERT): I can’t recall the “when.” I can only say that I’ve understood as far as I can remember that attraction is a relationship as well as that attraction is mental or psychological. So eroticism is not just the physical (including the object) by itself but how the person considers the physical manifestation. Such consideration requires what you summarize as “distance, framing and attention.”
CV: Across the collection, artworks seem to observe, remember, and even seduce their viewers. Do you think art possesses a form of agency, or is this agency projected by desire itself?
ERT: I don’t know. Even if the answer likely is that it depends on the people involved because agency is subjective, I don’t know for sure because logic might suggest that the artworks’ agency/ies would be based on the viewers’ interpretations since those objects are supposed to be inanimate. But (some) objects seem to have their own spirits. One can sense such “spirit” in the energy that’s discernible from great artworks—that’s from direct personal experience of viewing a lot of art for most of my life. There also are cultural traditions that believe spirits reside in inanimate things, giving them what you call agency. For instance, there’s animism and folklore; the latter includes Tsukomogami from the Japanese that offers stories of old household items developing souls and becoming supernatural beings.
Such doesn’t mean, though, that the viewer’s desire doesn’t play a role. If objects have spirits, their agency must still depend on some receptivity on the viewer’s part, a receptivity that is likely influenced by desire.
CV: Your ekphrastic stories resist simple homage; they often trouble, challenge, or destabilize the artworks they engage. What does ekphrasis allow you to do that criticism or art history cannot?
ERT: Ekphrasis is an art and thus is a freer, more expansive medium than criticism or art history. Art, by privileging imagination, is not as constrained by inherited contexts and/or history. Art even can bypass scholarship (though is not in contradiction with scholarship).
CV: Power between artist and muse, lover and observer, dealer and creator recur as an erotic force. Is eroticism, for you, inseparable from asymmetry?
ERT: There are inherent differences between the roles you describe. It seems to me those differences, part of those roles’ significances, are more crucial than notions of equal proportionality.
Besides, the folks involved are not robots or AI but are human. To be human is to be imperfect and that imperfection—which is not just a flaw but a strength for humanity—allows for imbalance.
CV: Several stories invert the traditional gendered myth of the muse. Were you consciously interrogating the Romantic inheritance of inspiration as benevolent, feminized, and self-sacrificial?
ERT: Probably. But if so, probably more subconsciously than consciously. Consciously, I was more interested in feminist empowerment and how it critiques historical considerations of the muse was more of a side effect than the primary goal.
CV: Control and certainty are repeatedly questioned in the making of art and in intimacy. In your experience, when does control become an aesthetic necessity, and when does it become a form of violence?
ERT: Making art and intimacy (as in relationships) are two entirely different matters.
For art-making, perhaps the artist wants to maintain control. Indeed, the artist should not be fearful of acting like a god; the artwork is created by the artist. Even the metaphorical and not just literal “crack” in the object could be the artist’s decision. I know of a painter who incorporates gravity in her art-making process by placing an amount of paint on the edge of a canvas and letting the amount fall down the canvas to create marks—a function of gravity. But while the painter cannot control the effect of gravity, it was the painter who decided to allow gravity to influence the work. So one could argue that the painter, even by incorporating an unanticipated result, did not lose control of the work. Additionally, if the painter did not care for the result, the painter can reject the work as a failed attempt such that the painting never goes out into the world as an art object in the painter’s name.
On the other hand, for (intimate) relationships, there should be mutual consent as to how the relationship unfolds. Without such consent, one party commits or risks committing violence on the other.
That said, things are rarely that simple. For art-making, issues of ethics can arise—for example, much has been said about appropriation. In relationships, one might willingly consent to certain choices to provide a partner pleasure and it can be that decision, rather than the choice’s action itself, that provides pleasure.
CV: Pain, obsession, and longing are not treated as failures of love in these stories, but as generative conditions. Do you believe suffering sharpens perception, or is that belief itself a dangerous romanticism?
ERT: I don’t want to generalize on the question. The answer is Yes but it can also be No—it depends on the participants and their natures.
Suffering does not inherently sharpen perception. But, like all experiences, it can be generative.
CV: Objects in your stories—the paintings, catalogues, ropes, surfaces—often replace bodies as sites of attachment. Is this substitution a survival strategy, a betrayal of intimacy, or another mode of devotion?
ERT: I don’t think so. Or, I don’t intend such. I don’t consider them substitutes but just additional elements—additional layers to the devotion. I do like multi-layered work and my own writings have that multilayering tendency.
CV: The collection spans three decades of writing. How has your understanding of eroticism changed over time, particularly as it intersects with aging, memory, and authorship?
ERT: Aging has affirmed how general culture defines beauty by privileging youth, especially the youthful image. It’s not coincidence that many women have observed how, after reaching a certain age, they become “invisible” to others.
But eros is not the same as the physical, including physical beauty that might degrade with age. Still, I don’t deny the reality of the physical, such that I would observe that aging can move more of the erotic to the mind rather than the body.
That’s certainly true of the written work—an erotic piece of writing transcends the physical life of the author.
CV: Your narratives often refuse closure or moral resolution. What does unresolved desire offer literature that resolution cannot?
ERT: What you call “unresolved desire” allows for the subjectivity of the individual reader. People respond to the same elements in different ways. If literature doesn’t provide a narrative closure, it can allow the reader more interpretive freedom and perhaps increase the possibilities for how that reader might respond to the work. I welcome readers of all types but I don’t write for lazy readers. By "lazy," I mean that my ideal reader doesn't receive literature passively but interacts with the work on a deep level. That interaction probably does require more "work" or psychic engagement. I've been heartened by readers who note that "work" but ultimately feel their effort was worth it in terms of what they ultimately got out of the engaged experience.
CV: Many characters struggle between being seen and being consumed by the gaze. How do you differentiate between being witnessed and being possessed?
ERT: Notwithstanding how some characters allow “being consumed by the gaze,” being witnessed and being possessed are still two different matters. One can witness without seeking possession. The character being seen also is not without agency, and can reject unwanted approaches.
CV: The erotic in your work feels philosophical rather than confessional. Do you see eroticism as a form of knowledge, and if so, what kind of knowledge does it produce?
ERT: If by “confessional” you mean as it relates to my personal life, how would one know whether these stories are confessional or not? More importantly, since I as the author am not presenting these works as autobiographical or autofiction, my life shouldn’t matter to the reader. The reader should just look to what is being read.
If I misinterpreted what you mean by "confessional," then I would just say that to the extent the confessional is based on the confessor's subjectivity, then there might not be such a line between what's philosophical and what's confessional.
As regards whether eroticism is a form of knowledge, sure. But it’s a subjective matter—what and how a person knows the “erotic” depends on the person.
CV: You write across poetry, fiction, criticism, and hybrid forms. Does eroticism change its texture when it moves between genres?
ERT: Speaking for me and not generally, no. The “texture” remains the same because the erotic is a function of the author and the author remains the same me. But its manifestations certainly can be affected by the form and/or genre. For example, the same erotic impetus can show up differently in a poem versus fiction—eros is fluid. And it’s not, I think, a form or genre but a life force.
CV: In a culture that often demands ethical clarity from art, your stories remain deliberately ambivalent. What do you think literature loses when it is forced to justify desire?
ERT: To use your question’s terminology, some of my stories require ambivalence in order to hew to their particular ethical standards. Art has different ethical considerations from the ethics one might associate with other contexts.
To the question of what “literature loses when it is forced to justify desire,” I think that anytime literature is “forced to justify” something, the result depends on the author. That is, the literary result would reflect the author’s life perspective, intelligence, biases, writing skill, among others. The result can’t be generalized because the result can range from a diminution of the literary art to a beneficial effect from authorial expertise or experience that would enhance literary strength.
CV: Finally, if a reader finishes The Erotic Space Around Art Objects unsettled rather than satisfied, would you consider that a success?
ERT: Probably. Because from that unsettlement, a reader might grow. For works to expand a reader’s mindset is not an unusual effect desired by writers. Also, unsettlement as a reaction doesn’t necessarily bespeak a failure on the work’s part. A work fails when it’s met by indifference or apathy. Unsettlement—perhaps even hatred—still means the work had an impact. It’s not up to me as author to determine how the reader should respond. But, as author, I do hope that I create works that compel a response rather than a non-response.
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Eileen R. Tabios has released books of poetry, fiction, essays, art and experimental prose from publishers around the world. Recent publications include a children’s book Tata Efren’s Forever Laughter (with Mel Vera Cruz and Jeannie E. Celestial); the novels The Balikbayan Artist and DoveLion; the poetry collections Engkanto in the Diaspora and Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography The Inventor; the short story collections The Erotic Space Around Art Objects and Getting To One; and an art monograph Drawing Six Directions. More information is at https://eileenrtabios.com
Cymbeline Villamin is a fictionist whose work explores transgressive desire as a site of knowledge, reckoning, and redemption. Her narrative moves through erotic thresholds, between body and faith, memory and futurity, myth and technology rendered in a layered style that invites multiple readings. Love in her work is never ornamental: it is dangerous, insurgent, and revealing.
She is the author of The Witch of Pontevedra, Ang Maghuhurno, and Lovers in Kyoto, all published by 8Letters Bookstore & Publishing. Across these works, Villamin interrogates intimacy as a moral and metaphysical event, where eros becomes a force that disrupts patriarchal order, exposes historical violence, and gestures toward grace. Her stories are often erotic not for shock, but for truth, where the body speaks what culture represses, and pleasure becomes a form of knowing.
Villamin is a graduate of A.B. Literature from Far Eastern University and was a fellow of the University of the Philippines - National Writing Workshop in 1976. She studied Creative Writing at Ateneo de Manila University, where her essay, “Writing as an Adventure,” was published in Philippine Studies (2005). She has contributed fiction and essays to various literary and cultural publications in the Philippines.
Thank you so much Eileen for the honor and pleasure of this interview!
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