a blog about Philippine visual arts

For Jeffrey Salon, the Kids are Not Alright

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:31:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Stripping them of their natural colors, coherent lines and even shall we say, good intentions, the works of Jeffrey Salon have been committed to children and to all things emanating from them. Admittedly, quite disturbing these painting may be, his insistence that this message cuts across and should be commonly understood remains uncompromised.

Salon feels time is ticking away and he may not have the privilege of time to even witness these children growing up decently. Their collective future may however be imperfect and grim but for Salon and his art all is not lost.

Innocents at War

Having acquired the knack for illustration early in his life, Salon has always been experimenting with contemporary street-smart images, as he unravels with the versatility of his brushstrokes. Amidst a canvas riddled with bullets, a cloud of uncertainty resulting from nuclear explosion shrouds whatever lies ahead to these two kids. We see them on the verge of desperation and Innocents at War speaks of the painful truth of violent effect on these kids. At an early age, these kids become distraught, traumatized and yes afflicted by what their urban warfare surroundings dictate. Not a pretty picture alright but Salon could not help depicting it. A very alarming scene that even the kids on the painting may not be allowed to view it. Void of sketches or any reference materials, Salon remains unease because even he does not know it he may even paint a worse version soon.

Shadows of Memories, New Heroes' Wish

Meanwhile the work Shadows of Memories, New Heroes’ Wish rebounds on a more romantic tilt. In a hopeful boy, Salon seeks a more positive light as he puts an end to all these prevalent (to paraphrase the Desiderata’s last lines) “sham, drudgery, and even his broken dreams.” This work represents everything that has won for him in major art competitions. Showing Salon’s soft heart and how it could translate to clear blue skies and happy smiles. Like parables, the message is simple and meaningful: what children want may not be a good and comfortable life but affection from a parent or being able to play freely.

If one notices Salon’s deep concern for children’s causes, it is because of a certain Rodrigo Benitez. A man of the world now disgruntled, Benitez was senior artist who sought refuge in his hometown in Bicol. A classmate introduced them and this chance encounter by his house by the sea, a sort-of-Tuesdays-with-Morrie would happen. Through endless hours, they would discuss anything under the sun except art but Salon would recall and reflect them in his works. Time lapsed and city life got Salon busy with his art, Benitez passed away last year. This still hurts Salon to this day. As he continues to fight this younger generation’s struggle, it is also important for him he does not sound as stale as old tobacco as he defends children in a style that is not staid or looks like a propaganda piece.

Peace Deployed

Peace Deployed is embarks as a serious critique of how the military has behaved or (misbehaved) these days. Salon stands for children’s rights all these are mirrored on the skin of this cold stoic soldier. Simple strokes bring home his thoughts of a war against their suffering and oppression. Notice how Salon plays with the details by employing the complex concepts like honor, love, peace, humility, and hope layered in an ethereal manner.

Salon does well in blending the child’s innocence with a heavy subject matter. Mixing the power of realism with an artistic sensibility that is not too forceful yet you know that you should be on his side. These days, children are being bullied not only in schools and in almost every aspect of their lives -- be it in their very homes and communities.

The abuse of media and all its nasty bits has also been Salon’s major undertaking of late. Today’s television and newspaper have espoused sensationalism that children may not be safe at all even in their very homes. Before they even reach their teens, they have been exposed to the radiation of violence and sexually explicit materials.

Temptation Island: Pearl of the Orient

What distinguishes Salon is his adept sense of composition, his musicality in seeing how his work would be rendered. Loaded with meaning you never really knew what he was telling, you just know he was telling it differently and wonderfully. In Temptation Island Pearl of the Orient, the body becomes the canvas and his message is clear.

In the end, it is all about that grim bitch called poverty that occupies these children in desolation in life. Poverty from concern from government, poverty in looking after one another, resulting in this culture of silence that makes him want to paint to affect his viewers, that we may do something for those young enough to be Salon’s own.

The subject of children has always been a sellable art. How many of these pieces are being displayed in mall art galleries. Although all is not lost, Salon’s sheer artistry could easily paint a pretty picture -- a perfect mother and child, a family strolling in the park, and these will sell at his commanding price. But Salon doesn’t need splats of colors nor fancy lines. His monochrome set marked by attention to hidden manifestations despite life’s atrocities, with a tearful red paint flowing, half his battle is already won.

(photo images from Joy Delgado)

Ricky Ambagan on His Last Hour of Summer

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:16:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

To deeply appreciate Isang Ikot is to contextualize what Ricky V. Ambagan did at the last hour of summer. Armed with his trusted digital camera, he took the last bus trip to Baguio in time for him to capture the first impressions of daybreak at Burnham Park. In all its available light and movement, after a succession of images, just when the sun was too harsh, he rode the next bus home.

Only the artist in Ambagan can become emphatically obsessed with the reflections of ephemeral light, as it moves on surfaces with the fluidity of water. The need to capture various moments in ever-changing, mingling of colors drove up to its saturated hues, it had to be at the sunny summer capital. He had to make the trip, to revisit the man-made lake named after Baguio’s master planner.

Hilera

Light Moves in Strange Ways

It was said that when Claude Monet found the perfect radiance in Giverny, the supposed founder of Impressionism never left this village on the right bank of the river Seine. He would eventually built his house and garden to accommodate the radiance around it. Similarly, being immersed in the urban setting, Ambagan had to steal the efflorescence of Baguio and offer it in a formal gallery setting/set-up.

One may not notice though, Ambagan’s distorted style is not mere transient impressions. Even his titles have a pun-intended informality such as Pamamanhikan which frames a boat in front of similar like-minded rafts, like a man proposing commitment to a woman and her older gentry. The fleeting effects of sunlight at different times in Hilera and Paghahanda glow that only the sunlight of Burnham Park can provide.

Paghihintay

Consider Maagang Pagdating and Silong, where the boats and even the trees are incidental, a mere part of what Ambagan attempts to be his full-blown pictorial possibilities. Combining all the split and splat of different colors produces a rich mist. As evidence, this craving was too intense that only he could dabble at such a scene on a temporal time upon returning to his studio to paint them.

Ambagan has painted the purity of sensations as in Paghihintay which plays red and blue in used opaque colors. You can almost jump at the offered seat. A closer study of his paintings will show that colors were often used straight from the tube or mixed on the canvas. He also scumbled colors in Tanaw and Lambingan using thin, broken layers of paint that allows the lower layers of color to shine through.

After two solo shows that depict the useless deluge of the maddening crowd of the city, Ambagan has opted to this eerie-like solitude, and as he says this time he lusted the hour before congestion seeps in, which is coincidentally that magic hour that photographers marvel about. As much as he wanted to embrace life’s harsh and raw realities last time around, he let’s go now, or more like a pause, a sort of crossroad to the decisions and creative directions he is about to embark.

Follower of the Sun

In this third solo exhibition, literally Ambagan continuous to seek his own light. In a totally new fashion, in an approach that isn’t highly polished nor graphic, and their subjects were neither classical nor historical, he has completely rejected the absolute value in a realist painterly style commonly associated with a Southern province. Like a true maverick, his is even a more dramatic departure from representational convention and even the painters from the alma mater that has bred and influenced him.

Ambagan has always favored momentary action regardless of people and tension, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of the people. However as he belies absolute truths he defies himself, these 11 pieces are more relaxed compositions, where the boundary between subject and background often resembling a point-and-shoot snapshot with a soft-box light, are gracefully flashed by chance and spontaneity.

Maagang Pagdating

Looking at them side-by-side one has seen the Burnham Park of yore literally full circle. Although the images showed signs of strain and weariness having been there for more than half a century already, for Ambagan, the sheer confidence of his brushstrokes shows how familiar is he with this place and having gone here many times, however his familiarity is not one that breeds contempt. We suspect he is not yet done with Baguio altogether. This time around there are no browns or earth colors, not even local tone nor shadows even in his canvas. Only the blueness of the sky mirrors of the surface or the green of nature on water giving it a sense of freshness and abundance.

Tanaw

One might ask, what’s an old master heart clinging in his young adult body? It could be his need for freedom and meaning moves him too quickly. And now that the rains have arrived, one wonders what he will do or where he would go next.

Eye Witness For Kirby Roxas

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:03:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Sometimes I see then paint it. Other times I paint it then see it.

Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.

Jasper Johns

In his almost a decade of art practice, it is exacting for Kirby Roxas to constantly engage his public in a discourse. Like a jabbing boxer, how he dabbles in his own contemporary realism marrying the rational with the macabre; painstakingly employing various media like old geographic maps, obsession with random security numbers for whatever sequential requirement they entail, and even geometric forms traced by masking tapes to induce his kind of social relevance, he so consistently infects to his audience.

Ever probing, Kirby is well-versed in the medical sciences having studied physical therapy before he shifted to fine arts. Thus explains his methodical approach his concepts for exhibitions.

Sometimes these visual consultations sometimes emanate from the unlikeliest of opportunities and circumstances. Foreseendenials, his sixth solo exhibition at the Crucible (which opened on the day following Osama Bin Ladin’s death), it was in a recent high school reunion that Kirby met up with a former classmate who now works as an optometrist. Before that fateful night was over, he had already figured what would constitute the art pieces now on view.

We are All Even After All (Acrylic on Canvas)

Cross-eyed, Wall-eyed, and the Black-eyed

Revolting/revolving around one’s constant search for truth, fate, and the indigenous psyche of the Filipino, the centerpiece appropriates the Snellen Charts. Named after the Dutch ophthalmologist Hermann Snellen, the standard 13-letter test dates back in 1862 and has been a fair gauge in examining one’s visual acuity. For Kirby, the science of optometry seems another form of optical dialogue in painting. Cleverly spelling on the canvas Pagbalikbaliktarin Mo Man Ang Katotohanan (No matter how you continuously reverse fate) Irreversal Individual emphatically alludes to the beauty of our impermanent lives. Slightly hinted in the background, Kirby affirms one’s mortality and eventual demise. As the man seeks his own redemption, he vehemently reflects this existential inquiry to a mirror directly before him. A somewhat simultaneous jeopardy happens as roles are reversed and the viewer looking long and hard on the canvas is now in the same dilemma as the one depicted in the image.

His repetitive death wishes that are constant in his previous works would obviously be present in these pieces as variations in twists of one’s own fatality. An identified grim is evident as the prevalent gothic element of decay and uncertainty of his subjects forces him to make his brushstrokes even darker this time, as if the grayness witnesses the pollution of our culture with starkness all around us.

Instinct to Distinct (Acrylic On Canvas)

Fate, Faith, Pait

The running texts in the two smaller pieces accentuate his earlier premise of lifeless physicality, more of memento mori than doomsday placards. Again banality becomes another version of him.

As a man stands in front of a monolith of tombstones on the background, we clearly decipher in We Are All Even After All the inquiring Papaano Mo Haharapin Ang Iyong Kapalaran Sa Araw Na Itinakda Sa’yo (How will you face your luck in the day that is destined for you). Using the Snellen Charts again, one must realize that your allegorical near-sightedness could be a product of our own greed or one’s far-sighted view could be the corruption of the other.

As if an intended reply for the viewer, the next work, Instinct To Distinct, recites as Nasa Bawat Isa Makikita Ang Pagbabago Di Mahahanap Sa Yong Paligid (It is in each other that you will find change not in your surroundings). Being part of his community as seen in the political rally in the background, Kirby believes we all have a common destiny as a people and as an artist one must first capture its inescapable collective imagination as the spirit of change moves from within.

An artwork can only become meaningful once it has been given a second hard look. For this exhibition, a reading of the elements in the said charts and tests is crucial. Although his pieces may not be medium specific, they are historical in context. As soon as you recognized its personal and social message, one is drawn inward like in a hypnotic trance.

Acquaintance Test (Details)

Blinded by Science

The common myth is that the Ishihara test is a type test for the color blind. After first successful experiment was done by Dr. Shinobu Ishihara at the University of Tokyo in 1917 and as more people took the challenge, the Ishihara test did not actually recognized color blindness but only referred to those who could not decipher primary colors from one-another thus suffer more specific with red-green color deficiencies.

More than just blots in the spectrum, Kirby accurately did 31 plates in Acquaintance Test and graphically comprehended Dito Mo Makikita Ang Tunay Mong Kulay (It is here that you will see your true colors).

Emanating from his deep concern with our sense of being and belonging, Kirby texts clearly run schmuck, as if on target in the middle of the gallery space and the creative conscious somewhat saying “Have you been good lately?” like a Hallmark greeting card. The colors are may be accurate but subtle. Going further, Kirby professes we need not distort one’s innate beauty in make art adapt to the times and in dispelling what is currently perceived as art today.

Scientifically employing these charts and tests with thought-provoking intentions of what living (or dying for Kirby’s case) in our culture means, I fear mall-goers may just passively ignore and pass by without even seeing the show. Worse, they may even dismiss the exhibit as another fancy optometrist clinic.

Foreseendenials (fortune-foresee-denials: even his exhibition titles must have a special patent play of words) may have concocted an optical solution to a perplexing national migraine. Less than finding the proper antidote, at least Kirby makes one see what and where the future brings for a moment. And from where Kirby stands, he may even have a better vision than the one with the glasses who now sees us from his high office by the Pasig River.

A Colorless Soul for Judeo Herrera

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:45:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

“The sad plight of farmers compromising whatever is left to our agricultural sector in their farm lands only to be laborers on a daily wage earner is a cause for alarm. Not only did they left their families as well as their fields become untended but their dignity is tarnish as they struggle hard in a jungle of a city where there are no trees but of concrete as gray as decay of their existence.”

Thus wrote Judeo Herrera of his monumental work entitled Konkretong Gubat ng Mga Pangarap which was his entry in the recent Tanaw: National Art Competition of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Konkretong Gubat ng Mga Pangarap

Ongoing at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, unfortunately the work is not among those hanged. And the exodus of farmers leaving his hometown is at an alarming rate prompting him to paint such predicament.

It is a welcome respite or one may even be grateful that Judeo has never left his roots in Tarlac. He represents all those non-Manila-based and non-Fine Arts school educated painters who try to break into the Philippine contemporary art scene. His staying put in his hometown may have some good vibes after all. Personally what Judeo offers is a fresh perspective, one whose brushstrokes may be more organic than the temporal contemporariness of the art spaces and the genre works in the galleries in the malls.

Contrary to its limiting nature, for him joining art contests with themes provides for Judeo the most liberating act there is. You really can’t separate the images of Tarlac from his works as it has always been his playground as his work represents how he approaches whatever grim matter there in his hometown with a fresh perspective. His style may be too blatant, as one both versed with realism and abstraction, he seems quite obsessive with his splats of paint and his use of “this ash-like tint” in his works.

From a simple theme of a farmer’s exodus to the city, with an explosion of his sub-conscious lies a certain fluidity which is constant among his images. The foreground is what the subconscious is to the viewer. Judeo is one of the few artists I know who’s well-versed with watercolor and oil-acrylic. This is just the initial mark of his brilliance.

However more than a talented artist that he is, one appreciates Judeo first as a good son. He had to forego his schooling to try out his luck in the KSA as a designer and he has applied his paintings, making each piece unique. Observing him at various phase of his artistry, for someone who has maximized colors early on, the element of this mixture of black and white is a welcome respite. Having worked in Al-Khobar, could he be affected by his short stint in Saudi Arabia had a drab effect on his paint brushes?

He explains further: Keeping in mind the overall appearance na gusto ko lumabas dun sa artwork, I usually start with an abstract background. Yung movements nung texture sa abstract background nagsusuggest nang direction or personality nung subject ko. Having learned decorative art painting sinubukan kong i-apply s artwork ko yung techniques na natutunan ko abroad. Iniiwasan ko gumamit ng skin tone. A friend told me there is no local color, ibig nyang sabihin kahit na anung kulay pwede mo gamitin sa kahit anung bagay. It’s the value that counts.

Heart of Generosity

Kids are always part of Judeo’s initial forays with experimentation. In fact these were his first works using this style. Mothers, you can never get enough of them. Consider Heart of Generosity. Unlike other parents, Judeo was fortunate unlike those other artists who didn’t have mothers to support behind their back.

An Alliance Beyond Culture and Dependence

There is so much wealth of subjects for Judeo than one wonders has he become too personal for comfort. In the Alliance of Beyond the Culture of Dependence proves otherwise, social themes are also part of his consciousness. The pull of nationalism is nothing new to him as he is from Tarlac which is more than just represented as one in the eight rays of the Philippine flag and by an event known as Death March during World War II. An entry at the recent AAP-PAF, one would think socio-political view he does not prefer the rigid clenched-fist approach to solving poverty. He is more positive in narratives which are visual than symbolic more uses metaphor.

Judeo adds: I’m having fun at my new discovery as if making both non representational and representational painting at the same time. And as I try to enjoy the painting process this is what comes out, if it I like it and it turns out good kaya tinuloy tuloy ko na. The painting itself is composed of layers of paint kaya you really have to be patient na hintayin mong matuyo bago ka pumahid ng panibago. Thus when you will look into it closer mapapansin mo yung details nung pagkakapatong patong ng mga kulay.

Pragmatic

Pragmatic is my personal favorite, about love and its deeper meaning. Casting shadows of airplanes and other material well-off, one aspires to provide for a love one but what if she decides alone to fend for herself and leave him behind? Most especially when one is young and carefree. But what about commitment, dreams of having a together, of one’s talents to new hopes for the country.

Judeo’s works may not even be decorative or described as pretty. What makes these pieces come alive is its narrative is deeply rooted on his experiences channeled through his own artistic terms; from an artist who is not a product of your typical western fine arts degree or from the current city art scene. His not showing commercially does not mean he is not willing tto accept an invitation not to be part of where the action is.

A subject void of color which is almost stainless in effect may not be of sadness or of blandness but of liberation. Judeo’s careful attention to his hues, how colors are well coordinated against his images as his imagery continuously evolves, his involvement digs deeper and his palette becomes more gray in urban treatment.

More than just producing two presidential aspirants during the last presidential elections (if you were in another planet one even made it to Malacañang), Tarlac has been a community of young masters like Judeo are churning out masterpieces as they add to the luster that is Philippine art while painting in the peripheries. It may be off the center, through persistence and dedication, their collective efforts may yet unravel something big and brighter for all of us to see.

Kalye Kolektib: Retelling Brown Homilies

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 10:54:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

The recent move of the President to make December 30 a working day for the first time in history did not only draw criticism from the general Filipino working class but also from a multitude of faithful who not only salute the martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal but revere him more than just our national hero in his a messianic destiny in Mt. Banahaw.

When Pope John Paul II first came to Manila in 1981, he even declared in one of his speeches that “we should all rejoice that the Philippines is being compared as the new Jerusalem where the new world peace of the world would emanate. It is also here where the mystical kingdom of God would eventually arise.”

Such is the mysticism of Mt. Banahaw and ongoing at the Nineveh Artspace in Sta. Cruz, Laguna is Jeru-Jerusalem, the second group exhibit by the Las Pinas-based art group Kalye Kolektib, appropriately tackling this theme. Nineveh could have been a more perfect venue considering the holy mountain was nearby.
I am Rex-al by Robert Besana

Tierra Santa or Vulcan de Agua

Emanating from the Kalye’s regular discussions, the show’s title Jeru meaning new, the exhibition is more than a Mt. Banahaw 101 as it alluded to what many prophesized that our country, with Mt. Banahaw at its center, as the new Jerusalem. Now a 2,188-meter national park, it will be the sacred place where the final judgment of man will come after the so-called Armageddon eventually happens.

Already an extinct volcano whose last eruption was in 1721, many devotees consider Mt Banahaw more than a storehouse of psychic energy but home to at least 17 religious churches that even has Christian names such as Ciudad Mystica de Dios and even celebrate an elaborate Catholic mass and own up a version of our national anthem as a prayer. But it is the mountain’s more than a hundred stations that center on a pilgrimage from the base of the mountain to the crater of the peak. Each pwesto may be any natural rock formation: boulders, waterfalls, pools of water, caves. It is believed that after death, the soul journeys up the mountain following the pilgrimage path. All pwestos are Biblical allusions, Kinabuhayan, Dolores, Santo Kalbaryo, Kweba ng Dyos Ama, and Balon ni Jakob.

It is Kalye’s view that our natives were not hard to convert to this folk Catholicism as they were already parallelisms in our early religion. “When the colonizers came, in fact, the Santo Nino that was shown by Magellan during the first mass in Limasawa may have similar features to that of the likha that was already being worshipped and prayed for by the natives. Understanding the ways of the ancestors will help our self definition as a people,” Kalye member Besana points out.

Early Catholic priests and nuns warned that going to Mt. Banahaw does not have the blessing of the Catholic Church. Even to this day, Filipinos are prohibited to visit faith healers because they said to be of the devil. Despite this word of caution, Filipino folk followed their faith than what was instructed in the pulpit.

In the book Soul Book, by Fernando Zialcita and Gilda Cordero Fernando, mentions “even non-Christians, priding themselves on their scientific and empirical backgrounds, may have criticized colonialism for destroying our indigenous belief systems, yet they look down on the way of the folk/ordinary, “not-so-educated” Filipinos as superstitious.” Devotees in Mt. Banahaw believed “it better to make the pilgrimage now, as a rehearsal than after death when the soul might lose its way. Significantly enough, the crater is the final destination. For our ancestors, craters and caves are entrances to the spiritual underworld.”

Suplinahan by Alfredo Esquillo Jr.

Brushstrokes of Faith

In Suplinahan, Alfred Esquillo essays that that one primarily communes with Mt. Banahaw to be cleansed by its waters. Also called Vulcan de Agua, Mt. Banahaw boasts of its many springs and waterfalls, the highest of which is in a 52-meter waterfall at the crater itself. For Esquillo, the splash of water both whips as it purify you. As one repents for his past sins, the body is relieved from the water’s current making you at peace with God. An allusion of a dove emanating from the splash doubles from this image to a higher meaning of equanimity. Notice how Esquillo’s work blends to that of Kalye’s overall aesthetic scheme of works.

The purifying dove again reappears in Espirtu Parakleto by Dennis Atienza. Story goes that when Jesus died, most of His apostles gathered for the last time. Looking at each other, they were as confused as to the redemption of their faith as well as the future of their direction as a group. Jesus took this opportunity to validate His claim as Lord to them that He sent the Holy Spirit in a form of a dove to cheer them up and unified them. For Atienza, this work was also his other way to show that our God is not boastful, not far, nor huge. He assumes a form that we all could identify with.

Espiritu Parakleto by Dennis Atienza

Contrary to what and how a person predominantly believes in, Talatandaan by Kirby Roxas literally outlines the human brain amidst the looming talisman eyes. As what one sees with his eyes you immediately is drawn liken to a computer that programs it for you for consumption and safekeeping. We may not be conscious but Roxas attests in this sort-of “creatively instructed manual” that any belief passes through one’s mind through our eyes more so if it is a big idea as religion. The credence is even Biblical -- as it is said believe and you will see. In Filipino folk symbolism, God is represented by an eye, inside the trinity shape of a triangle with one absolute message -- all things emanate as a rational, omnipresent thing.

For Archie Ruga, one should at first become vulnerable in emptying yourself as one enters the pwestos or altars in Mt. Banahaw. In his emphatic work Presentasyon shows his profile carved as the opening of a cave. Being the youngest in the group this work is a self portrait. Although already proven himself as a fine arts graduate, Ruga should be the most blessed having learned the most in the presence of established visual artists in Kalye as his mentors. This is the altar of his art, as it could be his own pwesto. He is wont to reap the most in this exercise as he has taken everything in stride. Ruga shows promise in his adaptive visual style.

Santong Boses (above) and Santong Byahe (last photo) by Kalye Kolektib

In his essay “Retablo of Credences” cultural anthropologist, Dr. Prospero Covar testifies, “millenarianism is a basic feature of Christianity. This has everything to do with Second Coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Man’s sinfulness delays His return. Thus another influence of our indigenous faith shows the choice of cultic figures such as our revolutionary heroes like Rizal having been deified and being worshipped; in the same manner as warriors eventually became gods in Greek mythology.”

Robert Besana’s I am Rex-al is a case in point as he focuses on this the central theme in Mt. Banahaw in upholding Rizal as the Christ, as some faithful even compare his life to Jesus, as our national hero as the new messiah. The name Jose Rizal literally means Jove Rex Al, God the King of All. For Besana, all religion, as in all culture, everything is assumed; all have their own place under the sun. Every people have the value acquired or validate their expression and for the 60 cults at the base of Mt. Banahaw, Rizal is their katuparan, or redemption of their fate.

Where the Streets Have No Name

Although this may only be their second formal exposure but for Kalye Kolektib members Alfredo Esquillo Jr, Robert Besana, Dennis Atienza, Alvin Cristobal, Kirby Roxas and Archie Ruga, the creative energy is just a continuation of their endless discussions in their constant pursuit in peeling off the many layers of our post colonial being. Especially for Esquillo, Besana, Atienza and Cristobal who have been close friends in their early teens in Las Pinas. It was primarily the influence of Esquillo that guided them in this endless search (even passion) in finding what comprises our pre-Christian and pre-Islamic composition that has been buried amidst this age of fast-paced globalization of our already smaller digitally interconnected world. The three all look up to “Esqui” as he was already winning art contests after another using the themes Kalye is well-versed with at present. Unlike other art groups that concerns themselves with personal stuff like love and the plurality of found objects, Kalye focuses itself with identity, faith, destiny, inquiry to myth-making.

“More than an art group, I see Kalye as a reunion. Having started out as friends” Esquillo contextualizes. He envisions “eventually we see the group as being community-based. Kalye because we all have diverse experiences in the streets however one direction or nagsasanga-sanga sa ibang endeavors.”

More than as a graphic device, Kalye incorporates contemporary prayers as texts. Adapting and even translating what were the belief forms used by the Spanish friars to subjugate our three hundred year-old blind conversion to religion. Kalye attempts to reclaim our main folk territories by turning around this influence of these religions to our own terms and even spiritual redemption. Kalye’s thesis is that our folk have retained much of our ancestor way of life. Their themes revolve around identity and spirituality, the response is visual which the group is strong.

Another powerful and unique artistic focus of Kalye is the shapes of their frames. For this show they have incorporated the glorieta where the heaven assumes the dome-like curve as the earth is represented by the solid base below. Integrating this into their artistic cause is Kalye’s use of the estampitas that viewers can bring home with them. Instead of the usual exhibit catalogues, they freely distribute these “art pieces” for everyone to take home. This eliminates the divide between the artist-audience as viewers are given estampitas to own . Kalye is testimony that as we do not have a word for art because our indigenous expressions are reflective and every thing we do is interconnected and there is no distinction between art and life, the way folks do.

Sta. Lucia by Alvin Cristobal

"Kaya nga Kalye to differentiate from being lofty and high brow. Mas malapit kami sa tao,” adds Roxas who may not be from neighborhood but was invited to join in.

Compared to other art groups everything is collaborative, however theirs is more inward, what they call kalooban, as oppose to outwards which is common to young contemporary artists these days. On their own they have already carved a niche in the current art scene having won major art competitions most specially Esquillo who is more like a big brother to the group. He opens his studio (informally called Esquinita) and serves as their home base. Within the group, all is democratic and open to criticism and to the functions of new media of expression. Their process is simple but as Cristobal mentions, they are all excited because you wouldn’t know what will come out until all pieces come together.

Esquillo puts it best when he says that they may use the formal spaces in a gallery but they see themselves more public in perspective as individually they have their own artistic preferences but collectively they want viewers to be visually aware that this is our culture and beliefs and it is something we can learn from or even lived for.

For Kalye Kolektib, what is Pilipino is his personhood or his pagkatao. As Mt. Banahaw keeps away those who are not yet ready for its secrets, unless you know who you are or what your faith has become of you. Through their art, Kalye is paving the road to those who want to see the light.

Jeru-Jerusalem is part of Nineveh Art Space 7th anniversary exhibition.

Chris Inton and His Air-conditioned Life

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:13:00 +0000

|By Jay Bautista

Inside the Singapore MRT’s glass-encased, well-lit, air-conditioned entity, one cannot help but loose oneself while unconsciously looking out at the dark urban wilderness of skylines with neon lights. For someone who may have experienced working abroad, this scene is typical. There’s something about being in a moving transportation like the MRT in a foreign land that makes passengers think blindly (or in this case, not think at all). This sudden appeal wrapped around one’s senses makes one almost numb, as he is cradled with the hush inside it while a lullaby-like timbre of an efficient train cannot be more soothing enough. As he looks patiently outside in a speedy-like sequence of a film being fast forwarded, we are certain his longing for home would be the current movie in his playlist.

Since 2000, Christian Inton has been living in Singapore and presently works as a senior graphic journalist for Reuters. He habitually experiences this scene on his daily train commute to his workplace. Against this melancholic metropolitan abyss, In Transit 01 is a study of contrasts of the continuing allegory of Filipino diaspora.

In Transit 01

In its accompanying piece, In Transit 02 is given more details in depiction and meticulously rendered in more realist colors. As foreigners abound the MRT in Singapore, the vast blackness out of the window seems like a reversed canvas filled with the same happy broken dreams and sad void longings for they all left behind. As rapid as the MRT zooms away in one sequential direction is their fervent wish to be home in their native land. that as fast as the MRT. Thus, in relation to how one perceives the two figures clutching their bags like security blankets, the presence of the smoke of velocity or the cloud of doubt could either be an enigmatic shroud “overcastting” with good intentions or a hale of fumes, confusing both the viewer (which could be you) who is seated in front of them. The MRT becomes more of a temporary escape more than a vehicle taking you to another destination. Being in the MRT may also seem a like respite to the preoccupation or quagmire we, including the viewer, are all in. The clouds or smoke which Inton has done could be very decorative, although one wonders if both have missed their destinations or would be asking if it was really worth the “longer train trip” at all.

In Transit 02

The numbing effect of blurry clouds on the main subjects in anonymity lures one in being abroad (or Singapore for Inton) with a possible vague myth of a better life. As one is drawn captive to both artworks, looking long and hard, one notices that we are all in this together -- the viewer in you who is in the MRT, and as you watch them, they watch you in the White Canvas gallery in Singapore or better yet, in one’s monitor such as what you are using now in Manila.

Tres is currently exhibited as part of the Philippine Art Trek in

Singapore

Ateneo Art Awards 2010 Shortlist Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:32:00 +0000

From the Publicity Department

The Ateneo Art Gallery, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary as the country's first modern art museum this year, is pleased to announce the 12 artists short-listed for the Ateneo Art Awards 2010: Shattering States. They are:

Frankie Callaghan for Dwelling
Silverlens Gallery
9 September to October 3 2009

Joey Cobcobo for 7 Heads and 10 Horns
Avellana Gallery
6 May to 30 May 2009

Kiri Dalena for The Present Disorder is the Order of the Future
Mo_
30 January to 7 March 2010

Mark Salvatus for Sungduan 5: Daloy ng Dunong
Museum of the Filipino People, National Museum
30 September to 15 November 2009

Riel Hilario for Aniwaas
Art Informal
3 to 20 September 2009

Pow Martinez for 1 Billion Years
West Gallery
4 June to 6 July 2009

Jan Leeroy New for Corpo Royale
The Drawing Room
27 February to 17 March 2010

Kawayan de Guia for Katas ng Pilipinas: God Knows Hudas Not Pay
The Drawing Room
21 November to 12 December 2009

Patricia Eustaquio for Dear Sweet Filthy World
Silverlens Gallery
17 March to 17 April 2010

Michelline Syjuco for Draped in Silk
Yuchengco Museum
1 July to 29 December 2009

Rodel Tapaya for Thrice Upon a Time: A Century of Story in the Art of the Philippines
Singapore Art Museum
14 November 2009 to 31 January 2010

Leslie de Chavez for Buntong Hininga
Silverlens Gallery, Slab and 20 Square
22 April to 22 May 2010

The Ateneo Art Awards are given to Filipino visual artists below the age of 36 who in the past year have shown outstanding work which, in the opinion of the jury, has contributed to the development of contemporary art. The three winners of the Awards will have the opportunity to be selected for artist-in-residence programs at Art Omi, New York, USA; La Trobe Visual Arts Center, Victoria, Australia; Artesan Gallery, Singapore; and Common Room Networks Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia. The Ateneo Art Awards are presented by the Ateneo Art Gallery, Shangri-la Plaza, Metro Society, Y-style of the Philippine Star and Unionbank, and sponsored by Picasso Serviced Residences.The works of the short-listed artists will be exhibited at the Grand Atrium of the Shangri-la Plaza, Edsa corner Shaw Boulevard from August 6-16, 2010. For more information, please contact Ian Jaucian, Ateneo Art Awards Project Coordinator, at 426-6488 or email ijaucian@ateneo.edu.

Distorting Some More in a Cooler Place

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:05:00 +0000

By Jay Bautista

As it is now, as it was evident then, the 1906 plan of American architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham (who also did the plan for Manila after designing Washington DC in 1902 before San Francisco in 1907 and Chicago in 1909) for Baguio did not fully materialize because there was just too many people increasingly occupying the city. For whatever their reasons may be, personal or economic, historical figures would show that from having 489 residents in 1903, it ballooned to 30,000 in 1948. To date, Baguio’s population is easy 300,000.

More than just the statistics, unmindful of the city’s centennial year, Ricky V. Ambagan’s creative task was to spend an early summer there and capture the images of the city for his second solo exhibition, Mga Langgam Sa Baguio. A collective body of 27 works of various sizes with the biggest at 3 x 8 ft and mostly 3 x 4 ft resulted from this endeavor.

Tanaw 2, 3x4ft

Continuing his signature style of distorting realism as an imaginative manner of justifying a particular approach to life for a multitude of assemblies, for Ambagan, it is the place and not the throng that dictates such phenomena like Quiapo, Monumento, Kapasigan, and this time Baguio (named after the indigenous plant bigiw).

“More than the numbers” as he would put it, “by physically rubbing elbows and sweating it out with them, I could feel their pulse which is very significant if you are serious with the context of your craft.” Quite close to his heart, Ambagan has always been fascinated with Baguio and its Cordillera culture: “I have always gone back and painted Baguio and its nearby communities like Sagada and Mayuyao on my mind. It is the nearest place you could go and be in touch with our pre-colonial soul. It keeps me grounded.”

Baguio’s Oil

Typical of an artist bred by his milieu, the influence is obvious. All his life Ambagan has been living in crowded places -- he grew up in a compound with an extended family of relatives; he has lived in Pasig -- one of the most densely populated cities in the metropolis; he has studied at the largest high school in the world. Even this show is exhibited at the heart of one of the most crowded public places you could find.

Like an obsessed chronicler of his time, Ambagan frequents to wherever a huge amount of people gather. He has gone to various places sometimes aboard the Metro Railway Transit (MRT) for a different perspective. Meticulously documenting the amassing of our populace, he follows where they are and why or how they are there. He wanted to grasp the “interplay” of the real and symbolic in their desperate yet dignified lives.

Silong, 3x4 ft

For Ambagan, there is more tension in Baguio than most of the sites down here. Giving more texture in the pieces paving them with a more rustic finish, Ambagan does not want you to be a passive viewer. In Higante 2, from where you are standing in the gallery, the painting unsettles you, as the strong current of paints perturbs the jeep just by the mere viewing of it.

“Distortion really depends on how I see the image I chose. Minsan sa pagpinta na doon ko na dinedesisyunan. Kaya may degrees ang distortion, Nakabatay sa eksena.” This premise is evident in the works Humahangos 2, Kalaro, and Hikayat.

Conscious of how he paints, Ambagan wants his pieces thick, dirty and rough as seen in Wen Manang, May Pag-asa, and Suke 2 where his sense of perspective pervades. At close range one can observe only extreme layers of paints on top of each other however as the viewer steps back, one sees “the forest from the trees,” a better and grander view greets you. Ambagan feels that his canvas is not finished unless he fills it up with texture, so a simple bicycle scene on a Sunday morning could be embedded with hostility as well.

All is not dark and grim with Ambagan who may have been affected by the cool climate of Baguio this time. In fact in this show he introduces one light source in most of the pieces as a way of paying homage to Philippine old masters like Fernando Amorsolo and Fabian dela Rosa. In Suke, Pagbabalik, Pila, and Dagsa ever the sentimentalist that he is, he rediscovers the Philippine sun. Our painting must be created outside the as western mold for us to claim it as our own and it was Amorsolo who set the rules in his/our own terms.

Except for one late afternoon scene, you have to note that all the works have the same time of day, as Ambagan captured them somewhere in between 8 to 10 in the morning. With the side by side layering of black and blue, notice how the shadows in Humahangos, Silong, and Tanaw had become violet when reflected as shades from their varied tints. For this he had the impressionists in mind particularly Claude Monet who made a dent in his artistry.

Higante, 4x6 ft

True to his purpose, Ambagan’s work uplifts and documents the secret lives of our common folk: the vegetable vendors in the sidewalks, whom you can’t even get a discount if you do not speak the international language of Ilocano; the guys who rent out bicycles for P100 per hour so you could roam around Burnham park. They all come vividly alive in Ambagan’s canvases.

As in his first show, an obvious favorite and consistent representation in Ambagan’s pieces are jeepneys. In Baguio, they are bigger and more functional – the wheels, the passenger seats and even the special ladder that makes you climb and enjoy the double-decker seat, dust-free. Although in Baguio they are even more stoic in color and very accommodating with the minimum sitting capacity of 20 passengers. There are also four checkpoints (of course there is a fee for every pass) to contend with that they have to hurdle on their way to that destined bagsakan in Manila. If they get delayed further, they miss the weekend rush of the people to the market. There goes everything – puhunan and tubo. In this lovely city of pines known for its ukay-ukay or cheap bargain finds, are their dreams included in that as well?

Ambagan may have depicted simple themes, very familiar subject matters in the local genre but not in a typical, commercial kind of way. An in-your-face realist, Ambagan’s sense of proportion is clockwork training marked by years of mural making and painting walls that adorn resorts and interior walls of restaurants. He has an eye for what makes a well-balanced significant feature.

Back to his patriotism, Ambagan likes to paint his inspirational idols on t-shirt making it a canvas within a bigger canvas. A statement within a statement we see Jesus Christ and Jose Rizal in Buena Mano, May-Pagasa, and Harinawa.

Buena Mano, 4x6 ft

Session Road to Distortion

Ambagan’s loosely and broadly-handled color palette creates a sense of immediacy which reflects the contemporariness and active stance of his subjects. Looking at the pieces, Ambagan seems like a badly-behaved poet, one who knows all the right corners and when to make that left turn. Knowing all the thugs, the goons and the whores of the city, he is well-versed with the saints and sinners in the streets.

The actual painting proper is a three layered procedure -- base strokes, lightness, pattern or the distortion part. Different layers require different brushstrokes. I have seen him use at least ten different brushes in one of his sessions. Showing his meticulous self, only Ambagan knows when the artwork is appropriately done or if it he still needs ample time to add more details or finishing touches to them.

Starting from a white primed canvas fabric with grounds like gesso and chalk. The absorption of the colors is dependent on how much the canvas is primed on its materiality. Second layer uses the grays and other subsequent colors for the eventual wet-on-wet or wet-on-dry technique (alla prima technique). Marked by Ambagan’s unconventional process, by this time, coats of the colors become indistinguishable. Opting for a natural mat finish, Ambagan has to unlearn academic rules saying he should varnish but Ambagan constantly rebels.

Mga Langgam Sa Baguio, 4x6ft

His art is fleeting in this lively fluid and sketchy technique. You might find him conservative in this aspect as Ambagan’s method somewhat like the style of the impressionists, but it is slow and laborious. Each layer had to be dried before he touches them again. Even more confident this time around, the signature distortion is there but his brushstrokes are thicker. This will give you an idea how long it took him to prepare for this show.

“Distortion is about change in approach in art in my desire to something positive. However distortion is more than technique, the more gravity, the deeper the meaning there will be. Also I don’t like repeating a painting I have already done. Distortion gives me the freedom to say something again in another manner,” explains Ambagan.

Ambagan has celebrated Baguio in a way that he knows -- with traffic, wires, filth and all. It may not be ideal to some but it the Baguio nonetheless that he saw at a particular point in time. An aesthetically assertive painter, for Ambagan art is about dialogue. Being one of and with them, the proximity of his imagery on canvas is as if you are next to the crowd he paints. There is a merging of the spectator as we (viewers in the gallery) are part of the spill of people from the artworks. Distinct lines have been blurred, as the characters are all one with the audience as Ambagan is part of the stories he wants to tell.

Mga Langgam Sa Baguio opens on June 11, 6pm at the Galerie Anna, 4/f SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City.

Luz Ocampo: The Last of the Master Wrappers

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:16:00 +0000

By Jay Bautista

As expected the 84-year old Luz Mendoza Ocampo was busy with her hands when we paid her a visit in San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan. In fact you don’t even have to get her address, you could just ask around and you’ll end up at her doorstep.

Already considered a National Treasure by her hometown, this Gawad Manlilikha Awardee is the last living pabalat or pastillas wrapper-cutter of her generation. With no trained successor in line, the craft might soon die a natural death. Not even her own blood – her children or grand children – are interested in holding up her scissors and tracing through the colorful papel de hapon on her own designs that have endured as old as her dying craft.

She blames television and the very fast pace of life as the main reason why she is all by herself now. Back then, as a 12 year-old, 5th grader, Lola Luz started cutting pastillas wrappers as a hobby to help her mother. She thought it would help sell more pastillas if every wrapper is “individually and attractively designed.” Taking inspiration from various shapes of flowers, leaves, and other subject of her surroundings, the Mendoza brand of pastillas had that distinct “sweet” taste of success.

It usually takes 10-15 minutes to make a bundle of six wrappers, however at her age now but still without aid of eyeglasses, she averages “only” a hundred wrappers a day. To date, she has 50 patterns to the art including the famous magbabayo, bahay kubo and dalagang bukid.

The tools of her trade are simple yet varied. She has a wide array of small knives, ribs of umbrella (tangkay ng payong), and surgical scissors to snip every nook and cranny of her preferred Japanese paper (papel de hapon) wrapped around the pastillas. Eventually, as an alternate, she would also carve intricate designs on fruits like dayap, suha, kundol, and santol.

Sweetness Has Its Name

Founded in 1763, as the second largest town in Bulacan, San Miguel has preserved enough old houses to be compared with other heritage towns like Vigan, Taal and Pila.

It is in these quaint and well-decorated homes, filled with local floral and fauna motifs on their ceilings and inlays of the roofs and ventanillas, where Lola Luz first got her inspiration to her pabalat.

Famous residents such as composer Nicanor Abelardo, Maximo Viola good friend of National Hero Jose Rizal who funded the Noli Me Tangere lived here. In fact, General Emilio Aguinaldo slept in the house of Capt. Mariano Tecson the night before he negotiated a truce with Spain in what is known as the Pact of Biac-na-Bato.

In fact the town is filled with culture and history that pastillas de leche is the town’s source of pride. In fact payumo literally means “sweet” that families engaged in this business have over the years handed down and improve the recipe to their descendants. This industry of making “soft, and sweet confection of fresh carabaos milk and sugar” has provided livelihood to many families and sent lots of children to school. To date, there are 200 producers in San Miguel alone who continue this tradition.

The Way of Folk Art

Philippine folk art like pastillas wrapper-cutting is very difficult to define and often contradictory. For example practitioners like Lola Luz are self-taught but they are expected to have apprentices. Described as primitive or naïve, everything is done handmade however they are ethereal. Inspiration springs from what is available and from alternative sources. Usually they are not part of the mainstream production of things. In an effort to preserve the town’s unique culinary traditions and techniques, special classes in San Miguel’s public schools are offered in fruit and vegetable carving and pastillas-making.

It is said as part of the town’s lore that pastillas is too sweet that it must be given as a token of gratitude or must be shared on special occasions. By ordering pastillas to Lola Luz every so often (and picking them up in San Miguel yourself), may probably be the best way of keeping her art alive and saying thank you to her after all these years.

Your Friendly Modern Painters Live Next Door

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:54:00 +0000

By Jay Bautista

For art historian Erwin Panofsky, a significant work of art must be able to distinguish as to what the viewer sees or what he termed as appearance from whatever pre-conceived meanings or any second or deeper reading of the image on the art work itself. It is to this basic premise that Vincent Padilla and Grandier have conceptualized their two-man show, Ambiguous Iconography, at the Galerie Anna.

Future Ascending by Grandier

Padilla continuous with his obsession with overweight subjects as slobs represents the excessive nature most of us may probably imbibe. In exploring this common culture of overindulgence, Padilla reflects this to us in an in-your-face reminder of what we could possible be. He has remained confident, effective and fun with this distinct style.

There is something in the air of Antipolo that makes artists out of its residents and in Padilla, being the youngest member of the Salingpusa art group, the influences are still evident although he has managed to have his own particular brushstrokes. In Barong Tagaalog and Baro’t Saya, he places an opaque texture and a very detailed callado-finish of our traditional Philippine attire against the voluptuous body of the bearer. An ambiguity indeed and the contrast and the direct contact of the jusi with the one’s skin send shivers to those who view it. Admittedly, even if you are wearing our national costume it doesn’t guarantee your patriotism. It could just be skin-deep for many have already used, abused, and overused the manner of wearing them with unpatriotic thoughts in mind like corruption, lust, sloth or greediness. Padilla even coined it as “public free service.”

Baro't Saya by Vincent Padilla

In Laughing Bondat, “slobness” is more than being a glutton or obese, that you may not even be fat but you could be a certified blue slob with how you perceive or are perceived by people. Even in thoughts one can be full of deceit and caprice.

For Grandier, one’s sense of uncertainty may not necessarily equate to ambivalence. As one advances in life, confusion may not necessarily mean indecision on his part. The more man exists the more he is confronted with questions and even more choices. “One cannot ignore the present harsh realities we encounter around us, the burden of living and surviving affects us all. Amidst these circumstances, we are left to ourselves to comprehend and determine our course of action.” Grandier emphasizes.

How Grandier depicted man’s ambiguity in the melancholic piece Present Scheme proves the point. As fate would have it, as he was preparing for this exhibition, recent events like the victims of typhoon Ondoy got him on another level of anxiety. Like a true artist, one witnesses man’s vulnerability and impermanence of one’s existence as we observe the said work.

Past Descending by Grandier

With absence of negative image, Grandier relies much on the realism of photography as an approach for his message to come across. In Past Descending, evident in the withdrawn emotions, darker hues and the shadow of concern abound as the hyper-like expressions makes an effort to reflect in a mirror-like manner the many tensions within him. As it connotes, the past are what he perceive as earlier contentions and learning points in one’s life. It could be our degrading environment, useless governance of our public officials, or as basic as the security of one’s family.

After ten year as an art director, like an old true love, he comes back to painting. Noticing the personal and social changes in his career have started to seep in, Grandier is at an emerging phase of his artistry, the show is another way of testing another artistic style or a creative act of questioning.

Barong Tagaalog by Vincent Padilla

With crumpled paper representing his meaningful experiences, Grandier comes out hopeful with Future Ascending as the ironic clear depiction and positive gestures of his main representation, as opposed with the other two works. “We have to make sense as to the clutter that surrounds us” Grandier eventually points out.

Padilla and Grandier are the chroniclers of our time and maybe in our neighborhood. By forced circumstance, they do not have much choice but to do what an artist is obligated to do – to paint the dilemma as a continuous struggle for resolution and fulfillment.

Philippine Art and Its Discontents

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:37:00 +0000

By Jay Bautista

Good things happen on Friday the thirteenth. We have been informed that the blog you are now reading won in the Art Category in the 3rd Digital Filipino Awards. Formal awarding will be this afternoon during the two-day E-Commerce Summit scheduled November 12-13, 2009 at the Hotel Intercon in Makati City.

the place I hate yet loved by Mark Andy Garcia, 2008

Like a true blogger, allow us to accept the recognition by way of how it was given to us – on our blog.

Let me remind everyone that it was in a painting competition that we had our first international recognition. At the Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes, Juan Novicio Luna won the silver medal at the Madrid Art Exposition of 1881 for the seminal work, Death of Cleopatra, which he made while studying in Rome. Held every three years at the Salon in Madrid, the 26-year old Luna would even win the first gold medal for the masterpiece Spolarium three years later.

Blue Moon by Jaime Gubaton, 2008

A year and a half, or should we say after more than 30,000 hits when we started out this art blog, with the responsibilities of museums ever decreasing through the years while the constant increase and eventual expansion of commercially artistic centers for contemporary art emerges, the role of art blogs have become even more relevant and has changed the geography of the art scene and how it operates. In this age of auctions and artists without even a career benefiting from it, art blogs should be committed to advocating Philippine visual art scene not generally covered by the mainstream media, or what we usually find in the lifestyle pages. There seems to be a dearth of not just critical writing but of serious reporting on well-conceptualized, innovative, and significant contemporary Philippine art both by young and consistently evolving artists, as well as established Philippine masters who continuously hone their craft and search for their meaningful representations.

Kanluran by John Paul Antido, 2008

Through our art blog, we encourage critical dialogue between the discriminating tastes of both the art collectors and patronizing public with the creative ambitions of current practicing artists. As we are open to feature experimentation and fresh approaches in art, we see paintings and sculptures should be fully embodied and its social function is not lost on its academic discourse or materialist culture.

Our art blog makes Philippine art accessible to everyone with just a click away. As people are so busy either making the next deal or finding the next meal, we assure you that as you support Philippine art, you devote in a different attitude, a new way of looking at things. It is an exchange that enriches your life, as it has on ours.

Ricky V. Ambagan: Distorting As If Life Depended On It

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0000

By Jay Bautista

“The whole point of Social Realism (SR) is to get away from orthodoxy. To us (artists) that has always been the challenge. It’s been a constant reinvention. It is SR in the Age of SM.”

Jose Tence Ruiz
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

November 8, 2009

You have to admit there are some pockets in the city where the concentration of the people is just too unbearable -- Quiapo, Monumento, and Kapasigan to name a few. Either for deep religiosity, sheer commerce or mere plain wandering (and wondering) around its streets, it is here that you come across some of the most anarchic and unaccommodating people as subjects. These are spaces your mother constantly nags you not to traverse. In fact, for the most sensitive in us, these may be altars of your darkest fears. Filth, theft, or badly designed billboards on neglected historical landmarks, all abound on them. Like a short kindergarten field trip, all that you need -- and not need to know -- in our country are all here. Like the MMDA-inspired aqua and fuchsia signage that served as invites for this show, one is alerted not to trespass or as translated to nakamamatay.

It was while walking in these same sordid streets, among the nameless throng, that Ricky V. Ambagan deeply reflected on his own individuality as to his directions as an artist. Collectively entitled, Mga Langgam Sa Syudad, these fresh fifteen oil on burlap paintings are the result of that walk and intension for Ambagan’s first solo exhibition. In a country where the arts get little attention outside the art gallery system, discriminating collectors and in the midst of artists who only understand themselves, Ambagan wanted to “capture a moment or freeze an instance” in the lives of this multitude whom he believes will not ever to see his artworks. If they don’t see the show then they will be his show. In honoring them he is the one being honored.

The allegory in which our desperate people in the city to being compared to a mass of ants first come about in the piece entitled Unahan. Here all is not positive with ants as Ambagan is referring to them as people have their own kind of “sweetness” to thrive upon – money, fame, lust – and Manila is one big sugar-coated mecca that they all troop to. Despite their hardworking and patient nature, however once you disturb these ants with their preoccupation with sweetness, they immediately bite back even if it will be like suicide.

The Filipino dream is plain and simple -- to go to Manila to work in order to buy a land in their hometown to retire to. In Luwas, where the ant-like virtues in many of us are attracted in the “sweetness” that is Manila. Notice how people in this painting may band together but are alienated from one another. Everybody seems to be too preoccupied on where to find a more decent job or get the next meal. Or simply how to survive the day. Despite being overcrowded, Ambagan paints you hope as evident in the vast clear clouds in between vendors and buyers.

Unang Paglalakbay 2

You are Watching Me Watching Them Watching You

What excites Ambagan is his penchant for impermanence in these mass-based sites he frequents to. More than 99 channels in a cable television, the streets scenes changes from the last time he was there. The streets resist order, closure and even still moments.

To further feel this urge to document the raging pulse of these city dwellers, with an open mind and a digital camera in tow, Ambagan, felt it natural to photograph these locations which always had heavy concentration of scoundrels, thugs, rogues, and urban denizens generations after generations. His mission was to document the sign of the times not only “with warts and all” but to detail “even the warts and all.” Whether he violated his subjects who don’t know they are being photographed, with the prevalent art practice using in hyper realist mode, its use for painting from photographs has been a long and ongoing debate. Although nobody told him, it wasn’t an easy time every time, as he would be scolded, laughed at lampooned, however a few were delighted.

With the help of modern technology, he unloads the images at home, which he will use as reference in painting and eventually distorting. Like the digital camera, the computer is another tool as to how he would want the image to look like. With a few tweaking and conscious manipulation using the mouse, the image serves as his guide for the actual painting to commence. Whether the spontaneous process is legal, he rises above the controversy in the quality of his execution. Like the paint brush, the camera his palette knife are all part of the multi-media act.

From photographing to the imaging in the computer down to the choice of material for painting, Ambagan is painstakingly meticulous. Even the choice of burlap (peanut sack) more than canvas is commendable as he desires to achieve the texture and the rawness of his subjects. How he adores roughness by his thick smears of paint in disjointed vivacity is very much evident on the pieces. He likes the images to move in a grace-like manner while he busily sketches them futher. He also wants to follow the lines and curves wherever it leads him adding more lines and colors could be a possibility.

Ambagan considers distortion as just another dimension of a painting. At this point, he wants the piece to talk back to him on how it will be finished. The interaction is decisive since the images may opt to be dirty as he found them in the streets or satirically purely clean like what they hope for. How the essential brushstrokes are thickly done will be gut feel by the time he is at work on it. When Ambagan paints it is not frivolity rather a story should be well told, a discourse to be analyzed, or it could simply be a play of technique or illusion to one’s eye. Ambagan is very hefty on the respect between the artist-viewer relationship which makes him even more brilliant. The painter views the subject who one day will view the work of the painter.

Luwas

When Distortion is Actually Straightening Out

A fine arts graduate of the University of the Philippines and member of the art group Manchados, Ambagan is well-versed with the various styles and approaches to paintings. “If you will just stay in your comfort zone and copy whatever is the trend and sellable, then why is it you paint?” he points out. Call him degenerate, he only wants to elevate the discipline of the art, to raise it on a higher plane.

To paraphrase writer and critic, VS Pritchett, “artists are the most boring people in the world because half the time you are talking to them, they are thinking or even painting already in their mind.” Ambagan confessed there was never a time did not paint, even while watching TV or taking a shower, he is obsessed with “mixing two coats of paint taming a monster of an idea on the canvas.”

It was probably on the Light Railway Transit (LRT) that he first chance upon his initial “hazy but distinct” approach to contemporary visual art. In fact Unang Lakbay 2 won for him one of five juror’s choice at the LRT Art Competition 2009 last June. He likes to think while everything is moving in a wave-like manner, and images are in a trance or being danced away into a different oblivion. Looking at the scenes passing on a speeding train has its benefits for him, it is as if he is being treated with a futurist canvas of abstraction. He then becomes more focused and most creative when there are other activities simultaneously happening and as the train arrives at his destination.

Mga Langgam Sa Syudad

Not only are the pieces in this show well-thought of, even heavenly blessed with having survived Ondoy and Pepeng and the sins that they imparted to us but because only Ambagan could sincerely and purposely come up with such. The culmination is in his biggest work and eventual title of the exhibition, Mga Langgam sa Syudad is a 5ft by 5 ft showcase of living energy of a people waiting the arrival of relief goods to be given to them from a big imposing truck at the same time take them to back to their homes again. What Ambagan lacked in conflict he makes up for his use of proportion. His subject are may seem out of focus but the reference may be the constricted space they share as poverty looms the framed existence of these paintings.

Not to downgrade his sense of nationalism but it was the European masters Edward Munch and Edgar Degas that Ambagan was heavily influenced and inspired him. Munch’s Scream is Ambagan’s Siksikan, Degas’ ballet dancers could be Ambagan’s pedicab and vendors. To view what he calls “the sweetness of my pieces” is how it speaks of the times and how he chronicles their city which is his too.

When Ambagan won ArtPetron on its first offing he bested among the best some of them are now making name in the art scene. Seeing his works now, tension runs in your spine. At a glance one may consider dizziness like that of a hungry and desperate man but after looking hard the works pull you into a suction-like desolation. His titles may seem autobiographical as claims his 11th hour is near. But that’s the beauty of Ambagan’s art, he aims for the unexpected. This alone makes you appreciate him more.

Like a moveable feast, whatever fire that stir him to paint them and hang on the white walls of an art gallery in a commercial Ambagan’s pieces are too much for one viewing, you have to come back as the elements move constantly and you can be enticed by the images and the depth of the works. Like in a pedicab, he has given his viewers a front seat as if being next to the subject, as if you are there with them in Avenida or they are with you in Galerie Anna. The choice is yours.

Ambagan could have painted a series of mother and childs or coy fishes for his first show and it will be immediately sold out. But he mentions this would not enrich himself. Like an old master at 28 years old, Ambagan the challenge for him now is how to continue working up the streets until the images “become beautiful” on canvas and not to be interesting in real life any more.

There’s a saying “around the next corner, a piece of art is going to change your life,” Ambagan literally painted many corners for this show as he has many more streets to chart. He has only just begun the walk.

Mga Langgam sa Syudad is ongoing at the Galerie Anna, The Artwalk, 4/f SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City.

Arnel Ramiscal: Art as Essential as Breathing

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:32:00 +0000

By Jay Bautista

In an old humble apartment, along a dark alley somewhere in West Rembo in Makati, like clockwork in sync with the crowing rooster by daybreak, moments before the desperate multitude rush to the streets, for the last five years Arnel Ramiscal habitually wakes up and does “this personal karmic thing.”

It doesn’t take more than five minutes to rouse him from his sleep and meditate himself to do his essential yoga. On an empty stomach but with a clear mind, with various stretching, twisting, and squeezing, this usually lasts until an hour.

With an acquired energy so high and an inherent focus rabidly intense afterwards, the same 60-square meter space, where Ramiscal grew up in with his six other siblings back in the 80s, transforms into his studio and workshop.

As the reality of the morning creeps in, Ramiscal’s unconscious takes full control. Observing him at work, he smears, rubs and even incises his canvases and on paper to enable him to continuously filling them up relying much on his instinct. Ramiscal is delighted by mixing various indigenous materials and combining them with oil or acrylic paint, oftentimes with mud powdered pigment to give it that rich texture he longs for in his works.

Inner Tuning, Detail

“Art is but a preparation for that bigger art, the art of living” Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), a Sri Lankan art critic and curator, once said. And to fully grasp the recent works of Ramiscal is to understand him in the purity of his context. Such is his simple art, basic life, and this is the essence of Ramiscal’s third solo exhibition entitled Dungan (Colors of the Soul) which is a common word for “soul,” a word both accepted in the provinces of the northern and southern Philippines.

For the last five years, Ramiscal has adopted and adapted to the benefits of yoga to his art. As a practicing environmentalist and also a performance artist, this graduate of Philippine Women’s University imparts his feelings on canvas by finding the preferred spaces within lines and colors.

Blending indigenous designs with elements of yoga, his continuous round and geometric figures are common in his artworks. Previously known for his tea-stained mocha-colored paintings of various unusual sizes of rustic and old feel, Ramiscal explores in depth for this show, titles like Heart of the Soul, Soul Circuit, Inner Tuning Mystical Union, and Uplifting Vibration give one a semblance of more meditative sense. His big gray round figures may look like a kindergarten’s writing exercise however the scribbled effect is actually painted gray strokes, resembling manually penciled circles in his masterpieces. It is in the process of doing and undoing that he attains fulfillment. By painstakingly doing this, through constant practice, he hears a timbre sound, similar to a hum from a husky voice, which excites him even more.

Mystical Union, 2009

His cross-motifs are culled from our indigenous people like the designs in the textile cloths of the T’bolis and Igorots. Being also a body painter and a tattoo artist, what may strike the viewer, as shown in his biggest work, Mata ng Dungan, which he specially executed for this show, are the cross and box-like images which were literally stitched on plywood. Here he denounces his frustrations in the environment, failure of religion or rampant poverty he witnesses or is part of, is seen in the crosses and squares. What he may lack in lyricism and harmony, he compliments with the forceful vigor of his colors and brushstrokes. He continues to paint dazzling and lurid colors as he paves the way to a more social, as his processes and materials he used, more enticing as there is more truth in the unspoiled, with never ending perspective.

Viewers may find crudeness in his jumbled up images. Some people may find his works rather loose or unordered, however every line has a meaning and every rounded form follows an age-old system. His paintings stresses the value of spontaneity, his gestural paintings exudes positive energy and contentment. As most abstract works are somewhat like gift wrappers in bookstores, so passive and lifeless. Ramiscal is not as evident in the chakra colors he uses.

His charka colors command in his works as he delights with its meaning. With Violet being the highest being one with the infinite and used with grace, other colors such as indigo, red, orange, yellow and green abound his paintings. Compassion and subtlety are key values that reflect in his expressions.

Heart of the Soul, 2009

The art pieces may be subtle but are meant to evoke positive compassion which is not forceful yet unintelligible and inexplicable. Ramiscal is totally unhindered by any western or academic canon, in fact he had to unlearn everything what fine arts has taught him, what remains is his passion to his craft.

Philippine abstract has come of age with the advent of Dungan (Colors of the Soul). Although for lack of an art classification he doesn’t want his works to be considered non-figurative rather let it be the formless response to his creative impulse. There is nothing that is not related to his well-being. Everything has its own purpose and he considers himself as his own artwork.

The exhibit is ongoing at the Galerie Anna, 4/f Artwalk, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City until November 9, 2009.

Frederick Sausa is Back on the Moshpit Called Art

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:43:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA

It is my hope I can bring something up to you that can be relevant as well as informative, to speak up honestly I can figure out the way I was brought up, And I as an eldest after high school dreamed of becoming an artist as just any teen growing up here in our town seeing and hearing big names like Blancos and Mirandas among others. The idea of that money-making opportunity in painting prompted me to pursue fine art, but naturally my family didn't allow me to be like them, so forget painting, forget Botong just help my family. As the years went by, I grew older, my daily earning job still didn’t really help at all, worse, it made me empty.

Rebelling against the norm about working -- there’s no life after all in the factory, selling appliances, smiled while selling fast-food and so on. I would like to think that life began for me when the artist in me is nurtured. I did the usual, attended college, gave workshop to kids, and painted to my heart’s content. Sounds sentimental but I have to find ways to be on the right track again though it took me so long honing my craft. I may not have been endowed with skills like the next door painter but I striven harder to learn more and to be part of the art scene although it sometimes frustrates me as to find the politics of art and its discontents.

Being an Generation X kid, growing up weary and tired of the outside world with no back-ups it was not until I have met my teachers in UP Fine Arts and the college library brought out the best in me. I loved the idea of teachers as artists and the contemporary art books I’ve devoured. Up to now I still haven’t found what I’m looking for but definitely I’m still doing it -- to create art and making a kind of living in between canvases.

Frederick Sausa, 2009

Clinton Palanca once wrote that the ultimate postmodern show is something like Eat Bulaga, wherein you have everything for every possible audience. Some people, most especially people from the academe, may look down on the show but who knows it may even be Eat Bulaga’s secret for it being the longest running TV program in the country. The plethora of segments from slapstick skits to scantily-clad babes gyrating in their overused choreography dance numbers makes our midday meal “worth our while” Of late there are even outdoing of new stunts for the male Pinoy showing various talents.

Emerging thoughts like this run through me like flashes in a pan, as I view the recent works of Frederick Sausa. Honestly, even without looking at Pretty Vacant, his DNA alone -- as an artist in Angono and a member of the “art movement” called SBW make him both relevant and commercially viable as an artist. However Sausa chose not to traverse the easy road of genre paintings or folk art and religiosity. Kumita na raw yan.

Borrowing the title of the album by the punk band Sex Pistols which was banned by Her Majesty the Queen herself, one critic summed in up as “14 tracks roar in less than 30 minutes.” Considered as “the last great music movement” Punk is more than 30 years of angst, rebellion, and counter culture. Simply put, if punk is not dead, so is Sausa?

Pretty Vacant speaks to how Sausa purposely found his own sense to the influx or even deluge of images found in his possession. Now a full time artist, as one observes daily existence in the humdrum of his lakeshore town, the timing is rather ripe most especially with blanc art space as an embracing venue to explore. His paintings are all nothing but the title suggests.

In Hard-Boiled Wonderland (After Donald Lipsky) Sausa fondness for appropriation and decoding values that we got used to. Is he referring to the himself as a lamb in the now out of print classic book entitled The Art Fair?

Untitled may just be spaghetti with meatballs er, dots to you but for Sausa it is more than that as he has been exploring like texts on his canvas. His signature dots are in honoring the space, the omission or more of an audience interaction devise – for you to fill in the void. “Suspension points – sticker type snippets” as he would like to refer to them. His dots are like metallic buttons on a black leather jacket which is as punk as you can get. Blotches like safety pins if you may duplicate all over again.

Susceptible Ennui is a sampling of a recent inkling of contemporary artists of today and which Sausa joins in celebrating is what is called “catastrophilia.” Highlighting an Andy Warhol fetish for tragedy and hysteria, this painting may be devoid of meaning but it could be value-laden as long as you look though them. Sausa has the makings of a good draftsman, like all damn painters of Angono and he even repeats himself with Bad Girls Night Out which seems like another good painting on a rather forgettable subject.

They say the test of a good artist is how you comeback and re-shuffle images other people may have used into something substantial and relevant. Like a pudding from unused or over used dough. Now that Sausa has gotten our attention, can he finally say what he really wants?

In this tough year for art-making year of 2009, when most of his contemporaries have been part of some list of best new artist, whether it’s the top ten of some metro magazine, or some lucky 13 artists award given by the State or part of some 61 young men and women who will change the world, Sausa piously confesses “I’m still critical to the point of tiptoeing some ideas while rummaging around forgotten and misplaced archives. In the end, its all about “twisted objectivity and pensive satire through visual anthology.”

Leaving blanc you may find yourself asking, does Sausa want you to get pissed at him? No even better. Does he want you to even piss at the canvasses, even rip them off, like some torn jeans of your youth? Yeah that’s better, like being Sid Vicious in his paintings. Sounds a lot like gobbing my Mohawk hair in the safety-pinned jacket to me. And if those three Japanese wooden stool scraps hanged outside the gallery irked you even more, Sausa may just smile.

Reflections on a Room Full of Mirrors

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:32:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA

We, the spectators are an additional factor. Though greeted by that gaze, we are also dismissed by it, replaced by that which was there before we were: the model itself.

“Las Meninas”
The Order of Things by Michel Foucault

Using layered shifting narratives on one-way mirrors as thematic device, it seems obvious and even compulsory for an architecture graduate like Art Sanchez to explore the boundaries of this decorative medium for his first solo exhibition at blanc art space.

One cannot wonder too long the extent of his intention to instill biographical vignettes, critique on mass media and cultural myths as seen with these recent works. Meticulously transferring random surreal-like images as collages taken form various printed sources. Etching further on an already established mirror cut out on canvas which serves as base of familiar or familial representation. Creating simultaneous contrast among the aesthetics of objects, metaphors, irony with the given didactic nature of the superimposed image, Sanchez displaces or literally putting everything out of place. At this point, with the viewer’s obvious reflection on the mirrors, Sanchez extends an invitation to exist with interchanging personas and value laden symbols inherent in them. His thoughts could be your thoughts even more is what makes up Afterthoughts.

In Floating Mood Swings, the reverse mirror cut out of a Rodin-inspired The Thinker presents as a dark background of what remains inside man’s emotion as he struggle for memory and pursuit for his own volition as human. They say beauty is the sum of its faults however the objectives in making mental picture based on available references will imply degrees of meaning on varied presentations.

This multi-sharing of similar but varied points of view to someone from behind is commonly known as the Venus effect (from the earliest painting of Venus looking at her resemblance while angels hold a mirror while others keep looking on her). The audience is more involved in this context as one whose every reflection is captured in this creative study of imaginative perception. As one observes beauty in a narcissist kind of way, one reflects and learns more of the experience for his or herself.

Indeed objects in the mirrors appear closer than they appear. As mirror gathers light rays around the curved surface and reflect them at varying angles, signs are said to be more compressed and provide for an illusion of space as it amplifies the apparent size of any room. This is perceived in the emphatic piece Tests Subjects which features an illustration of how light is captured by the camera by the very man who pioneered photography. Sanchez does with Walter Johnson in art what Johnson contributed to science.

Saturation Point is a running commentary of the critical nature of media particularly television. The reverberation of all things good and bad as glaringly represented by floating people with thought bubbles shaped like mushroom clouds jutting out in explosion or emptiness of the idea as presented on the tube. Here Sanchez becomes a cynic or romantic depending on which side you are but his depiction of this most used appliance rises to being an innovative critique to the point in being graphically screaming. Proving he is not all against the idiot box, his main concern remains how people have become too complacent as not to be scared with 99 channel-overload of information. After all, consumer culture fetishes the dumb, refined, and modern individuals, as with television the playing field has been leveled of depending on your immediate appropriate necessity.

Sanchez remembers the only mirror in the house he grew up where photos highlighting significant events and fun times as a family are inserted on the side like a makeshift do-it-yourself photo album. As the mirror eventually faded with the passing of time, so are the irreplaceable photos tucked in. Taking on this experience, Sanchez believes one grows every time we face the mirror. Viewing his works, metaphorically speaking, one gets the idea that art is itself a mirror -- reflection of society with all its customs, beliefs, folklore, superstitions, religion, even of the artist himself.

Coming from a family of tinsmith, mirror reflections are nothing new to Sanchez as he invites the viewer even to come nearer and eventually become a part of it. In Between Raindrops and Sun Showers series, the struggle of memory against forgetting, Sanchez wanted to relive the myths and his play with the “demons” of his childhood. Such as when it rains while sun is up, there’s a tikbalang getting married. As varied and many faceted as this mirror, the artist has found a comfortable material in expressing surreal phenomena in various dark metaphors with layers of paint into haunting collages.

Lured by its beauty or in our quest for self-knowledge, we look at mirrors more often than we expect, in every chance we get. Before it became known as mirrors, it was referred to as “looking glass.” Event Horizon is about how we look and are being looked at by mirrors in a context of a gallery setting. As we are greeted upon gaze after gaze coming from the different reflections from the pieces themselves in the exhibit, as viewers we all become part of ever artwork – the mirror on canvas, the subjects, the objects and the viewers reversing roles becoming as models. The entire cast as the collective act of anachronism becomes pure form. The installation of blind spots absorbs the viewers with a closer look, as a caution one need not to get lost in them. Are people imbibed and further tricked by this nature of being seen by mirrors? As the Artspace has been converted into room full of mirrors, converting illusion into memory of lasting persistence is a reward in itself.

Like everything resemblances on the mirrors, Afterthoughts does not have to explain the images you see, the artworks adjust themselves to it. Art is more of an interpretation than reflection. In the end, one learns that Afterthoughts is not one such.

Karen Flores at the Center: An Interview

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:58:00 +0000

Father's House/Beautiful Moon/Mother's House

BY JAY BAUTISTA For their gift of nurture and grace, Filipinas have always headed our government cultural institutions. The National Museum, The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Intramuros Administration to name a few are now handled by competent and well-respected Pinays who have shown a significant progress in advancing the cause of Philippine arts and in keeping the Filipino soul of our heritage intact.

Ms. Karen O. Flores is the new Officer-in-Charge of the Visual Arts and Museo Division (VAMD) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) replacing Sid Hildawa, who passed way last year. Karen brings with her a wealth of experience to the post having been a visual artist since she graduated with the Fine Arts degree in Painting at the University of the Philippines in 1989. A known feminist artist, Karen has four solo exhibitions to her name and had international exposure in international art circles in Australia, Japan, United States, Singapore and South Korea. Locally she has been involved with local communities in Sta. Cruz in Laguna, Lipa City in Batangas, Vigan in Ilocos Sur and Negros.

A CCP 13 Artists Awardee herself in 2000, she also writes on art and artists and would be best to know the real impulse and issues facing our contemporary artists as she became part of various art collectives like Salingpusa and Sanggawa art community and recently TutoK art group. She recently received the Metrobank Award for Continuing Excellence and Service (ACES).

We checked on her how she is adjusting to her new position at the CCP and this is what she sent us though email:

We have known and admired you as both as an activist and artist, was there a need of convincing for you to work for the government or at the Cultural Center of the Philippines at that? Or it was more of someone has to step in for the artists? Looks like you have come full circle?

I remember that it was a big part of our discussions in Tutok back in the last half of 2009-- the fact that CCP has invited me to take over the visual arts office. Bogie warned me that it was going to be an excruciating choice, that I would be in effect saying goodbye to making art, that I would have little time for anything else, including my family. He is of course, very right. This is not a career move that would exactly fit right into my present life and work situation. This also meant departing abruptly from my work in TutoK, which is just about 3 years old, still very much a fledgling art group.

But yes, I felt very strongly that someone among us in the visual arts sector had to step into the CCP. At the very least, I thought, someone has to start the ball rolling again since a good number of months had already passed after Sid's demise. I do have a number of matters in mind that I hoped to help reform. After all, if I cannot contribute to change, then what would be the point? The CCP is mainly a performing arts center, and there are still present indications that the visual arts is very challenged to assert itself strongly amongst the disciplines and operations emanating from this Center.

Three months into the job, I realize that the problems are more immense than my initial projections. It's a given that bureaucracy burdens the work process, that budget constraints demand a lot of creative streamlining when it comes to planning and implementing projects. But I find it tougher to deal with the relationship issues that stem from my sudden entry into established office and institutional dynamics. I find it frustrating that I am not familiar nor equipped to handle the CCP Museo-- and that I may not have the immediate opportunity to recruit the right people and secure the basic requirements to be able to take care of the collection. It is a position that denotes heavy responsibilities within and outside the institution, but actually promises very limited power and means to undertake the tasks within those responsibilities.

So then it's best if we turn our attention to whatever psychic rewards the job has managed to bring. My weakest point has always been PR. I'm not naturally comfortable with a lot of people. I still get stage fright attacks. That's the more testy aspect of the job for me. But I am naturally a projects person, and I have gained over the years the trust and confidence of a reliable network of art practitioners who have helped me do my work. I find that I am depending a lot on these networks once more to get the tasks done, and overall, I get a lot of assurance of support. The consultative and collaborative process that had ruled most of my life's work and career has found a good application here.

Sid Hildawa had big shoes to fill, how are you holding up at the CCP? What exactly do you as Officer in Charge of the CCVA? Can artists send their proposals for possible exhibitions there?

Yes, it's hard to fill in for Sid, but it's doubly hard since I'm also filling in for Onet, who resigned from her post at the end of 2008. At the moment I am at the helm of the CCP Visual Arts and Museo (VAMD), a division perceived more as an administrator of CCP exhibition spaces and custodian of a trove of treasures ranging from museological and anthropological pieces of the CCP Museo and the landmark modernist and contemporary pieces of the CCP Art Collection. It is not so equipped now to operate as a coordinating center for the visual arts; it is not functional in performing visual art work outside of the CCP. So I guess I'm the one bringing in my own coordinating resources and skills into the position. Fortunately, while I do not move in all the circles that Sid belonged to, we are equally familiar with a good number of people in the visual arts; hence, a sense of continuity is also assured with my presence here.

Yes, we have been informally accepting proposals for 2010 in the VAMD, but soon I will be making a formal call for such so that we can have an interesting lineup for the next year. We can tell everyone here now to start proposing for projects in the CCP spaces-- the Main Gallery (Bulwagang Juan Luna), the Small Gallery (Bulwagang Fernando Amorsolo), the Fourth Floor hallway (Pasilyo Victorio Edades), the Third Floor Hallway (Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino), the Second Floor Hallway (Pasilyo Vicente Manansala) and the Little Theater Lobby Wall (Pasilyo Carlos V. Francisco). We will be accepting proposals till the end of September 2009, in order to program a schedule for 2010. As always, accepted proposals will get a venue grant, plus a small budget that basically covers invitations, notes and captions. Guidelines on how to exhibit at the CCP are available at the Visual Arts and Museo Division at the 4th Floor of the CCP. I will work on how to get this info online to make the information more accessible.

Manananggal 1: Puso, 2002

The CCP is celebrating 40 years old this year and your exhibition "Suddenly Turning Visual" is part of the celebration. What are your succeeding shows to look forward to? Are there long term plans of the CCVA or CCP for that matter.

The exhibit "Suddenly Turning Visible: The Collection at the Center" curated by Patrick D. Flores appropriately opened the anniversary year with its thematic presentation of selections from the CCP Art Collection. It has been extended until April 26, 2009. This is a very fortunate development for audiences since this is only the third time that the collection is being presented within a curatorial premise. The project has also mined valuable exchange and recommendations from among the artists and curators who have worked with the CCP. I hope to present the transcript of those conversations in a CCP publication or online zines like Judy Freya Sibayan's Ctrl+P (Journal of Contemporary Art). We are also looking for proposals that would interact with pieces from the collection. We invite artists and curators to let us know of the next ideas.

"Uncommon Sense (Trauma Interrupted, Too)" will be showing at the 2nd and 3rd Floor Hallways from April 2-30.

For Earth Day 2009, the front lawn of the CCP will be the site of a public art competition and installation of conceptual trees called "Juan for Trees (143s) where students of fine arts, design and structure will be asked to construct works that are each made up of 80 percent recyclable materials to be contributed by participating corporations. The installation will be launched and winners will be announced at the CCP Earth Day on April 22.

Kasibulan's anniversary show Pasyon Nasyon will be showing May 14 to June 21 at the Main Gallery. CANVAS, Inc.'s second installment of the "Looking for Juan" project will be on from May 12 to June 7.

On July 9, the Thirteen Artists Awards and Exhibit Opening will take place starting at 6:00pm. The event will be part of the CCP Anniversary program of presenting "Brave New Works" for the months of June and July 2009, wherein the various art disciplines will showcase new and original works by young Filipino artists. Parallel to the Thirteen Artists would be a readings and enactments of works by young playwrights (Virgin Labfest), experimental performances of pieces by young choreographers (WiFi Body), Musik Underkonstruktion will be about innovative musical compositions, and Word Jam will be series of spoken word events organized by the CCP Literary Arts Division. The Thirteen Artists exhibit is curated by Wire Tuazon with Louie Cordero designing the trophy; it will run till August 16 and will be on view during the run of the 2009 Ciemalaya Independent Film Festival in July.

Treena Alison Wong David presents her solo exhibit at the Small Gallery and the 4th Floor Hallway from August 13 to September 27.

On September 8, CCP's main celebration of the anniversary will open with "Daloy," the CCP Timeline Exhibit at the Main Gallery (curated by Noel Soler Cuizon and Claro Ramirez, Jr.) at 6:00pm and the opening of the CCP Gala Night at 8:00 pm at the Main Theatre.

"Katawhan," a joint exhibit on Philippine myths and folklore by Brenda V. Fajardo and Nonoy Estarte will be shown at the Small Gallery from October 15 to November 22.

Philippine Art Educators Association (PAEA) holds its annual show at the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Floor Hallways on November 15 till before the holiday break in December 2009. Likewise, the Main Gallery will cap 2009 with the 40th Anniversary Show of the Printmakers Association of the Philippines (PAP).

In the long run, with the help of our networks, I hope to come up with a comprehensive program, which is not just about scheduling exhibits, but about having CCP as an integral player in art and community development.

I have always viewed the CCP 13 Artists Award as one of the more prestigious contemporary art awards for a Filipino artist. The awardees were announced recently, for everyone’s benefit, can you take us how the process goes? Who nominates the artists? Who gets to be the judge? (Off the record: Sid was part of the previous selections and you weren’t. Did you abstain since you had friends who were nominees?) Can you comment on the current winners?

Thank you. I agree with you, whether or not I have been an awardee, and regardless too, even if I am not with the CCP today.

Nominations to the Thirteen Artists is submitted by art councils, art groups, heads/deans of art schools, museums, gallery curators and directors, art critics and past Thirteen Artist awardees. Those who are qualified to be nominated are artists who can answer to the following requirements:

Body of work characterized by artistic integrity, innovativeness and forcefulness of ideas
Responsiveness to contemporary realities
Evidence of sustained artistic activity demonstrated by a track record of individual exhibitions and group shows for the past three years
Engagement with contemporary visual art forms including, but not limited to, painting, sculpture, multimedia, installation, performance art, photography, digital imaging and printmaking
Filipino citizenship
Less than 40 years old on the year of conferment

This is part of the template established by Sid since Thirteen Artists 2000. Since the nomination process for 2009 happened in 2008 before I came in, my only intervention in February was to ensure the jurors will be composed mostly of artists (Lao Lianben, 1976 Awardee; and Mark Justiniani, 1994 Awardee) and an art critic (Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez). Not only that I know many of the nominees, I myself nominated three artists last year. My choice of jurors also required that they did not nominate anyone. I think I would like to keep inhibiting myself from the jury even in the future. My facilitation of the selection process and the exhibit production would suffice as my part in the award.

The jurors must be credited for patiently combing through 56 nominees' portfolios in the course of three days. They also agreed that each awardee would be unanimously chosen. As I witnessed it, they went through 5 rounds: the first 3 was about who was common in their shortlists, then the last 2 rounds resulted from deliberations.

Since we are discussing awards, I do need to end this with a critical thought. Awards are good and do play a vital role in promoting excellence, but more than awards what we primarily need are more platforms for development and exchange, where an equal ground is established whatever school or place you come from. In fact, it is vital to have such platforms where diversity could be beneficial. Such opportunities come with the NCCA CVA's Sungdu-an, now on the way to its 5th installment.

Karen Flores with Portrait of H.R. Ocampo by Alan Cosio, Met 2007

How can we democratize the process in order for nominees are well represented from the provinces Visayas and Mindanao ?

Yes, beyond the Thirteen Artists Award, there's a need for us to seek ways to connect strongly with the regions. We need to call actively for proposals and to be active in outreach and exchange projects with regional organizations and individual artists. We need to establish these thrusts in our upcoming programs.

Do you still have time to paint aside from teaching and this new administrative work you have?

The opportunity to make art is not just about painting or other conventional modes of 'making.' Everything I do is about the making of art. Craft, skills and aesthetics are still part of the administrative work.

Thank you, Jay.

Robert Besana: Here, Now and This Side Up

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:49:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA Although he has taught for more than five years now and even with a Masters in Fine Arts from UP Diliman as an added feather to his cap, Robert Besana is still considers himself more of a struggling artist than a demanding teacher.

To further appreciate Besana’s recent works entitled Dislocated Connection, one must situate the many dialogues they instigate in their proper context. At the onset is to view them how they were painted in a gestalt-like manner and that the way they are hanged side-by-side on the walls of this artspace that is 90 kilometers away to where the concentration of Philippine contemporary art is mainly practiced and proliferate.

Besana has always been intrigued with polemics, perception and perspectives. Rather than obsessively dwelling on what was art, what might be art, or what should constitute art, this exhibition entitled Dislocated Connection is a culmination of many continuous constructs intended for the viewer where his brushstrokes lead you.

Using personal photos of her mother with her sister and brother as sources, the paintings take off where the sepia filtered them. Consider The Leaning of Bella Over Jovita While Seating on the Same Chair which highlights that part of how Bella’s bearing is dependent on her older sister Jovita’s strong stance. In Bella’s real life, this standpoint is more than just a stable gesture; how Jovita, Ate as she is, would always look after her younger sister. This in a way, or at least on canvas, Besana wishes to turn around in favor of her mother’s fate as well. Somehow Besana honors his aunt for his constant concern to their family, in a way only artists know how.

“We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice,” as art critic John Berger wrote in his book, Ways of Seeing. “We have never looked at just one thing, we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves,” he adds.

In The Confession of Jovita Between X and Y Axis, Besana’s aunt appears once again in between two people who are irrelevant as the title suggest. However Besana concerns himself with how the viewer might look at the piece, as more likely will be the case.

After the viewer can see, we are aware that we can be seen. Thus the eyes of the images in the painting combine with the viewer’s eye making the interaction fully credible that we are part of the dialogue. As soon as our eyes are locked, only can there be value in the work. Mysterious Lady With Checkered Dress, Seated Lady in Awkward Pose, and Bella very well proves this point. It is a powerful play on how ideas, worldviews and even Besana’s affirmation for his family’s physical survival are specifically reconstructed and defined.

Unless one is born topsy-turvy, standing on your head while reviewing the exhibition, the way we look at an oil painting today is preconditioned by a visual orientation or a pattern coinciding with our lifestyle and the environment around us.

Besana’s titles are just what they are and they critique what the subject matter may not be intended to be. Debunking the formal pose one is being dictated in a closed studio photo session Papa Brown’s Position once again uses (or diffuses) memory as reference with sepia as a color condition, contemplating on how people compromise as to what could very well be their purposes in life.
Besana has pursued new ways of presenting iconography and iconology. He leaves it to the viewer to discover deeper truths and that anyone has a way of interpreting his works. He characteristically depicts images which may be disrupted by his own reading thus ambivalently veering away from a singular meaning. He now invites you to make up your own. Here, now, and whatever side you may see it.

Contemporary Philippine art of late has become either too depreciating in value or too intellectualizing to the detriment of its various publics. One could not help but notice the monotonous situation to be irrational, irresponsible, or maybe even unreal.

There are times when Art’s most potent power is in its processes of discovering new orientations rather than it being a feeling, or idea, or even content. It is only in the imagination that Art creates and makes us free. As it happens, there should not be should bes but let“what art is,” is.

Dislocated Connection is part of the ongoing exhibition at Nineveh Art Space in Sta. Cruz, Laguna which opened last March 1, 2009.

CCP 2009 Thirteen Artists Awardees

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:05:00 +0000

From the Publicity Department

The Cultural Center of the Philippines is pleased to announce the 2009 Thirteen Artists Awardees. The artists who will be receiving the award and will present new works in the exhibit at the CCP Main Gallery on July 9, 2009 are:

1. Buen Calubayan
2. Christina Dy
3. Don Djerassi Dalmacio
4. Patty Eustaquio
5. Kawayan de Guia
6. Winner Jumalon
7. Raquel de Loyola
8. Raya Martin
9. Iggy Rodriguez
10. Don Salubayba
11. Jaypee Samson
12. Pamela Yan
13. MM Yu

The artists were unanimously chosen by jurors Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, Lao Lianben and Mark Justiniani.

The Thirteen Artists Award Exhibit will be curated by Wire Tuazon and Louie Cordero will be designing the trophy. The event will be part of CCP’s 40th Anniversary celebration, recognizing original Filipino creations and brave new works for the period of June-July 2009.

Tale of Three ‘Rs’ and the Romance of Two (Second of Two Parts)

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:32:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA What’s with the letter ‘R’ that even the secret codes (no more!) of America’s First Family start with this 18th letter of our alphabet? Such as President Barack Obama is codenamed ‘Renegade,’ First Lady Michelle is ‘Renaissance,’ Malia is ‘Radiance,’ and Saisha is ‘Rosebud’. There must be something easily communicable and accessible with ‘R’ that its adoption is now being carried over, literally, to the letter.

Finding favor with ‘R,’ not to mention Obama’s overwhelming victory, started even earlier with last year’s dominance of young talented artists with their names beginning with this sound of “madness” or “point of freezing coldness.”

The Rustling of Raffy, Roaring of Ronald

If Raffy Napay is the perennial juvenile delinquent in our allusion to classmates, then Ronald Jeresano will be the one who sits at the back of the class and watches the whole day pass by, while the class discussed enthusiastically from his privileged vantage point. Ronald seems to be the one whom you never had a conversation with in all your grade school and high school days combined. Although not a class bully, he is not verbose but gets along with everyone and not a kill joy. Still water runs deep as they say.

Like his namesake mascot of a burger joint, Ronald is a lover of kids as evident to their presence in all recent works. These hapless souls serve as his lucky charm for every time he paints them and joins contests more often than not, he wins.

I'm Still Hoping

This year aside from the winning work, I’m Still Hoping from MADE, this 24-year old architecture student from PUP Manila has won ArtPetron National Student Art Competition, back to back and in two different categories. Two years ago, in the water-based media category, with historical landmark as theme, he painted Revealed History Behind the Mystery which is his ode to Fort Santiago. Last year, with festivals as theme, Panatang Obra bested more than a thousand entries. This winning work got the judges nod as he made a sudden twist to the Filipino devotion to the Nazareno with his panata to his being an artist as well.

What makes winning in these art competitions more triumphant year after year is the positive mix of judges that vary on each occasion. It goes without saying it remains to be a major factor in the outcome of the contests. It is they who will decide, debate and dignify the winning art work. How do they say one work is better than the other? Each judge will definitely have with him his own preconceived biases and cultural notions.

The Path

Next stop Kulay sa Tubig Invitational Art Competition, where his work The Path will be the best among those invited to join here. Established in 1984 by Gallery Genesis owner Araceli Salas, Kulay sa Tubig is one of the more prestigious contests, as far as water-based media is concerned. Salas sought Ronald to join the annual contest. And on this second attempt, was chosen for the coveted top prize.

True to his socio-realist influences, Antipas Delotavo and Alfredo Esquillo Jr, Ronald has no qualms of being the urban boy who draws its robust vitality from the strength of his convictions. His architecture background is inevitable in the lines that mark the canvas, as he depicts the ongoing struggles of the post EDSA II workers as intense and desperate as they are. Tireless, everyday-survivor like him, he paints grim but reassuring images with the unfinished construction sites as his setting. With intense, soul searching images, there is hope in this not so compromising picture of the state of our sad republic. Never the complacent, Ronald’s concerns are yours as well. It is a realism of broken dreams, failed hopes and falling ones. The “unfinishness” may be sore to ones eyes but the completion of which is left for the viewer to accomplish.

“I prefer not to be a painter of historical matter. I would rather depict personal tragedies and follies. Everyday you are beset with a blank canvas to fill up. However it will not work if you thought you cannot fill up the space and not do it anymore. Maraming kailangan ipinta, at dapat kong ipinta,” he once mentioned to me.

Sentro ng Kalakalan

The Realization of Arnica, Revenge of Rommel

The current cover of the PLDT directory captures the everyday consumerist scene of downtown Manila. What sets this display of hustle and bustle of our buying culture is the presence of a barcode placed smugly in the middle of the canvas, caging the people in between its gold lines. Somewhat telling us that we are trapped by our own wants and deadlocked by the increasing needs created upon us.

Sentro ng Kalakalan by 23-year old Arnica Acantilado of PUP has shortcut the process and delivered her message over and out. With the barcode as her graphic handle, she has captured the Filipino obsession with its materialist world. One of the better inventions of the late 21st century today, the barcode safeguards accuracy in overtly materialist tendencies such as ours. Arnica’s strength lies in the merging of surmounting “created” wants and the dehumanizing effect of altered needs wrought havoc by false advertising. Arnica will also win second place in the Oil category with Kahalagahan ng Kamusmusan in this year’s Shell National Student Art Competition (NSAC).

Of all three, Rommel Remota should be touted as the class nerd. He has won the top prize both in ArtPetron National Student Art Competion (“Ang Pundasyon ng Kaligayahan”) and NSAC (“Alternative”). As one who spouses his philosophy in adopting children’s writing on the wall to express his sentiments and making his message known for the world to see, Rommel does not hide the fact he is a big Toti Cerda fan, the prolific watercolorist who has been consistent in churning out images of children caught in between violence and political issues. In fact Toti is also a product of art contests himself.

Bio-Data

In the long tradition of art contests, Ronald, Arnica, and Rommel know that there exists a certain kind of aesthetics or strategy when joining a particular visual art competition. It could be a common fetish for the new and original in approach, as far as the artistic process, must be done for a work to be noticed among the many others. Together with that is the creative use in materials and add to that the work must reflect Philippine contemporary life and issues as these are what are to be expected. As keenly observed, there seems to be a gray area as far as representational style is concerned. Lately there are no delineating lines whether your work is abstract or representational, of biographical or political.

Each annual art competition rethinks conventions of the paint medium renewing faith and hope in its prospect of coming out with what is fresh and captive representation of our present urban life. Do the contest rules of different art contests force them to question, if not rebel against conventions of painting? Recent winners vary greatly not just in terms of style or materials but also in terms of concerns, themes, and agenda. New spaces of promise in terms of iconography and iconology emerge.

Art competitions may still have their purpose as they are held in bigger exhibition halls with longer duration. There is a history of art that is well documented in the yearly catalogues, and winning artists are guided at least until in their first formative shows. In a way they consequently promote the culture of excellence and artistic promise for the young painters. The question remains is what has the previous winners done as a plowback to his community or to society to be worthy of the prize?

It would be unwise to say that all winning works merely reflect the general state of Philippine visual arts. Had there not been Philippine art books written could the history of Philippine art be told in patched-like quilts of all winning works of art contests through the years?

Art contests are just one way to continue the mixture of two coats of paint on a blank canvas for an artist, established or starting out. And should anyone fail to win any award this year, well, there’s always next year, and next, and next.

Bobi Valenzuela: The Curator as an Outsider

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:46:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA The following is an updated version one of the articles I wrote that was featured in the Philippines Yearbook for 2005 with the theme Defenders of Our Cultural Heritage. I am posting again this as a tribute to my good friend, Bobi Valenzuela who died last Decemeber 12 after suffering a third stroke three weeks ago. He was still recuperating from a second stroke two years ago that has paralyzed half of his body and forcing him to be bedridden and detached from his artist-friends and curating exhibitions. It is my fervent hope that one day his lifetime work would be formally recognized and that he could continue inspiring today’s generation of young artists as he did for the last three decades.

Contemporary Philippine art in the last thirty years could be The Tale of the Three Robertos – Chabet, Feleo, and Valenzuela. The last one known to the art community simply as Bobi.

Even with more than a thousand exhibits to his name, Bobi has always been literally an outsider in the 24 years he has been a curator.

He rarely attends even his own exhibit openings and hardly socializes with the art world denizens. An art writer used to describe him as “very low profile yet charismatic curator. Bobi Valenzuela is almost invincible; no one knows how intense and far-reaching it has become.”

Thus, he has always been misunderstood, controversial, or much less uncompensated for his contributions to the cause of Philippine contemporary visual arts.

“Strangely enough, I never really took art seriously, at first” Bobi quips, “I found it too ridiculous that art will just be ultimately consigned to the empty walls of a bored housewife’s mansion.”

Bobi reminisces his early beginnings: “The 80s was the height of excessive commodification of art. The genre then was either flowers or abstract art. Tell me, how many Mother and Childs do you need to see? How many million flowers or butterflies do you need to excite you?”

He co-founded the biggest little gallery of our generation, the Hiraya Gallery with owner Didi Dee. “Because we didn’t have a word for art, I named it ‘Hiraya’ which is an archaic Visayan word for ‘imagination.’ Art is the soul of the people, its dreams, expressions, and aspirations. However ours has been polluted as a result of Spanish and American colonization.”

For a people too busy in bringing food on the table than appreciating art, a good curator is even rarer than a good artist or even a great work of art.

“Ang curator, kasama na ang mga artista natin, ay dapat tumugon sa pangangailangan ng panahon. Hindi tayo pwedeng magpinta nang magpinta nang di nag-iisip. Maybe alternative or relevant noon, pero pwedeng hindi na ngayon.” Valenzuela feels it was natural for him to find a visual story while hanging paintings on the walls.

His apologies to would-be-curators but everything he knows about curatorship is gut-feel, he does not even have any formula or fix rules in curating: “Just don’t insult the intelligence of your audience. The least you can do is to respect those who will come and see the show.”

He laments that “Philippine art has been relocated to interior designers whose aesthetic preference for art relies on how much its brush strokes blend with the colors of the walls or curtains of one’s house.”

Among his most memorable shows is Roberto Feleo’s first solo exhibition entitled ‘Sapin Sapin’, and as he takes pride in, “even before Bobby became a myth.” Another is ‘Ang Delatang Pinoy, Yes The Filipino Can’, a collaborative exhibit of more than 100 local artists, which literally opened the doors of Hiraya to the general public. Even the international press took notice and reviewed the event.

Hiraya Gallery became known for the many significant developments in Philippine Art. However due to health reasons Bobi left Hiraya and became an independent curator.

Having curated the ‘3rd Viva Exhibit Conference’ in Dumaguete in 1994 and the ‘Sungduan (Confluence)’ that toured around the country in 2000, Bobi is the only curator who has really touch based in Visayas and Mindanao. “I like going to the provinces because contrary to what others say that Manila-based artists will lead the way, visual artists from Visayas and Mindanao still have fresh untold stories to express about who and what we are.”

‘In Memory of a Talisman,’ Bobi’s last curated exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is his personal tribute to a beloved friend. Wearing a shirt with a Bose painting on it during the interview, Bobi expresses his grief, “Santi was way, way ahead of his time, and he was consistent with his art. When he died, parang nawalan na rin ako ng gana sa art.”

These days Bobi is too tired to ponder what’s going on in the art scene: “In hindsight, I lament how some artists I used to work with either continue to deteriorate only to lose their luster ultimately.”

“Our misfortune is the lack of credible artists these recent years,” Bobi continues. “They are in the arts either for quick fame or easy money. You start repeating yourself and that’s the start of your end.”

Of the younger generation of artists, Bobi has deep respects for Leslie de Chavez, who in the words of an art critic “comes out strong at the forefront of his generation.”

In a profession that requires the illusion of three academic letters after your name, Bobi has opted to stay in the peripheries. He ends, “Art thrives kasi marami pang dapat baguhin sa mundo natin. Pag bumuti-buti ito, unti-unti na ring mawawalan ng silbi ang art. In the meantime, between art and life, I will choose life anytime.”

(published for the Philippines Yearbook 2005)

A Tale of Two Rs (First of Two Parts)

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:51:00 +0000

Katauhan, Katotohanan (Self-Portrait)

BY JAY BAUTISTA Next to Michael, Gil and possibly Junjun, the names Raffy and Ronald are the most common pinoy names on top of your head. Such personalities could pass up as your next door neighbors whom you grew up with; and even sons of your father’s drinking buddy, introduced to you many times over; faceless friends or classmates whom you didn’t bother to talk to during your entire high school stay.

Hard and ordinary as it may seem, you know from their features that Raffy Napay and Ronald Jeresano are dead serious artists, or chose to be one – that lanky, withdrawn look; their long, hard stares, the look that says “when is the next art contest? Hala the AAP is coming up!” from their often sleep-deprived, dreary eyes, evoking more cynicism than confidence to me. One who, as he talks to you, would probably have already memorized the lines in your face and the manner by which the five minutes you have spoken to either one of them. Ah those paint-stained hands that are never cleaned even how many times they may have compulsively washed them.

What makes them even more special is that these two friends are not your usual“Oh-Daddy-can-you-call-Tito-Dean-to-please-enroll-me-to-his-College-of-FineArts-I-want-to-be-an-artist?” types. They have to endure life and learn art in the most common way possible – though the sari-sari store comics, through corporate wall calendars that have featured paintings, or through art subjects from school that require them to make posters for the Eat Your Vegetables campaign. Now as they are all grown up, the only opportunity presenting itself, in their desperate attempt to escape their saddled lives, is through winning art competitions around them.

Having been from public schools and state universities all their lives, they have already beaten the odds at this point. The Polytechnic University of the Philippines Sta. Mesa and the Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology maybe noble institutions but what are the chances that these are schools that would churn out for any contemporary artists to emerge?
Persistence, however may be their middle names, with luck seems to be tilting in their favor and in this year’s listing of Philippine art competitions, including the recent Metrobank Art & Design Excellence (MADE), their names have prominently figured many times over.

Samu’t Saring Kaanyuhan, Samu’t Saring Katotohanan

Made for MADE

Open to all Filipinos not more than 35 years old with no solo exhibition to your name, the MADE is an open painting competition for both fine arts students and professional artists who have not had a solo exhibition to their name. Formerly called the Metrobank Young Painters Annual (MYPA), three years ago it was renamed MADE to accommodate other categories like Architecture, Interior Design, and Achievement in Sculpture.

More than the cash prize it provides as incentive and a selling show during the awards night, the YPA then has helped launched the careers of Roberto Feleo, Gabriel Barredo, Dennis Gonzales, Elmer Roslin, Maria Taniguchi, Leslie de Chavez, Norman Dreo, Alwin Reamillo and most of the members of the Salingpusa – Mark Justiniani, Elmer Borlongan, Ferdinand Montemayor, Anthony Palomo, Tony Leaño, and Karen Flores.

Now add to their exclusive and elusive roster are both Ronald for Oil/Acrylic category and Raffy for water-based media.

One cannot escape the fact that being immediate winners of a few significant art competitions such as MADE carries with him a certain pedigree of instant marketability and adulation. In fact, some galleries and art spaces only offer an exhibition slot depending on how many art awards he or she has won.

To prove their worth, the irony of these art contests is that Ronald and Raffy had to unlearn whatever formal art practice they imbibed in their respective fine arts schools in every new entry they submitted. In doing this they found their own.

To win MADE in the oil category maybe hard but the water-based category would even be a harder-earned triumph considering they only award one winner and a special award. The probability is higher and more risky.

In describing Raffy’s winning piece Mahiwagang Pagbubukas, Galaw na Walang Wakas, MADE painting judge Cid Reyes, in writing on the catalogue, had this to say:

“A sense of exhilaration suffuses the viewer, despite the artworks darkly gleaming nuances of shapes and shadows. Napay orchestrates these teeming forms into suggestions of movement; ceaseless flowing, a natural world dreaming, evolving, mutating, and dancing to the music of water and wind, fertilized by the artist’s wildly lyrical imagination.”

Something ethereal grabs you in most of Raffy’s works. Usually rendered in monochromatic earth colors such as moss green or decaying brown, he works most of his canvases flat on the floor, Pollock-style. With only a vague image in mind, he starts to splat on the blank canvas, as if investigating the plots, carefully inching his way in filling up the space. This is the most exciting aspect for him and the most significant part of his art, the initial conception. Admittedly, his is not of the formal/western/academic standard style of sketching or thumb nails drawing, more like a trying out staggered-like approach. Organically fulfilling what would eventually comprise and compromise the theme of his work. Even he does not know what will happen next. Possessed by his own mystic, he charters deeper on the undesired image, stopping only as the subject reveals itself. In the end, you see life in a new way after his finished artwork.

Mahiwagang Pagbubukas, Galaw na Walang Wakas

Rock, Raw and Roccoco Renditions

Consider the piece Samu’t Saring Kaanyuhan, Samu’t Saring Katotohanan. Even more astounding in visual rendition, it was adjudged as one of Juror’s Choice for Excellence in the recent Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards 2007-2008.

“Unveiling the genesis of a wondrous world, a curiosity without color. As light threatens darkness, tones appear and oil becomes a source of origin, flooding the terrain of a work and yet open to chances beyond itself.” mentions Dr. Patrick Flores on the exhibition catalogue.

Art has been something more of a need than an appreciation for Raffy. With no trace of artist in the family as influence, what has probably endeared this son of a tricycle driver to most judges of these art competitions, and eventually earned the nod of his fellow artists is his observance with curiosity and details. Indeed the smallest aspects are what interest him. His art is as scientific as he paints what he dutifully sees and feels around him.

Open to artists not over 28 years of age, the 2008 Maningning Miclat Art Competition would be another venue for Raffy’s curiosity in nature. Exhibited at the ArtPlaza, Level 4 of the Shangri-La Plaza Edsa Mall, this time Raffy puts himself on a blank wall since it portrayed the inevitable – a portrait of himself in Katauhan, Katotohanan. Armed with the same intensity and keen explanation of a continuing dialogue of why he continuously views himself as mere part of nature and not the dominant of it.

One who has limited resources does not mean he can’t be creative or less expressive. Raffy believes those less in life may have also more other mundane things including art, or in his case, even have more discoveries in creating. Diskarte lang daw. One cannot help but be intrigued to where his perspective is coming from. Is it going back to the basic, returning what art is and should be? A reflection that as artists we not only grasp all that we have, we must also leave all that we are. His message is as important as how ingeniously he depicts it. Without outlines and forms, thus, his innate and curious way of chronicling our ecology may mean only of how commercial and artificial we have already become. He has brought back the long narrative story in contemporary visual arts. His paintings grow on you. You can even get lonely after looking at them.

Speaking to someone who abhors or has objections to praises, self admiration has never been his style. You even come to the point you seem to accuse him as the most insecure one out there. However meeting him in the flesh and seeing his works, one can conclude that he is for real -- experimenting in all possibilities. He is all faith, pure passion inside him.

And don’t forget, he is just all of 22 years old.

Jaime Gubaton and His Walk on Tight and Tangled Wires of Drudgery, Despair and Desperation

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:08:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA First the long-overdue correction. Contrary to what we know as the etymology of the name “jeepney,” the word came from the North American English “jitney” which is a public transport between taxi and bus, they appeared in different forms in the US and Canada as early as 1920s. The more popular ones are “Hampton Jitneys” in New Orleans. Thus the name “jeepney” which everyone knows emanated from the so-called US army “jeep” as a remnant of World War II is false but that doesn’t underlie Filipino creativity which remains steadfast in these parts.

Aside from it being the most affordable ride around the city, the jeepney is the extension of the Filipino home. Notice the names of the wife and the children of the driver; the small altar with the Sto.Niño and the Philippine flag side-by-side, as his guide to a safe and productive trip; the soft red and blue lights along with the blaring pop music, the upholstered seat together with the painted ceiling, all part of the package to be your public transport of choice. In this painting Living on a Prayer, the driver carefully unfolds a P20 dollar bill to signify that it not a good day having an empty jeep with the day coming to an end. The P20 bill (which about to be phased out and replaced for a coin but that is another essay) can be representing Malacañang (as you invert it and see its Pasig river view) low priority on both to the legacy of President Manuel Quezon or the humble driver. The viewer here instantly becomes the passenger on board. We cannot escape being not part of the act, and as we are pulled towards the image you either want to reach out to him and pay your due or shout “Para!” and get down, or get off.

Filipino Artists have come a long way featuring our favorite pinoy ride. Manansala’s Jeepneys (51 x 59 cm) work in 1951 which now hangs at the Ateneo Art Gallery to Angelito Antonio’s depiction of jeep as folk art the 70s; The highpoint of the Philippine jeep was when Kidlat Tahimik went to Munich with in 1972, where it was easy for him to bring it there than to bring it back (he left it there). Meanwhile Mark Justiniani, proving that he is more of just paints and brushes, literally installed stainless sheets with “alliterated texts” as part of his Thirteen Artists exhibit in CCP; Manny Garibay first one-man show entitled Pasada in 1993; Alfredo Aquilizan monumental work God Bless Our Trip which was the Philippine entry and physically brought to the 50th Venice Biennale five years ago, now temporarily parked at the National Museum. This leads us back to Jaime’s jeep, which is more austere but his control of the medium elicits unassuming nature and his earth colors are forceful.

Sometimes art is the last thing that comes to your mind when viewing at Jaime’s significant artworks. The artist in him chose to paint the art of where he lives and what he lives for. Already an accomplished painter at 25 years of age having won almost all the major art competitions, he opted to depict the unpleasantness of the city, with “warts and all” such as his Kulay sa Tubig winning piece, Daily Bread. In a more subtle realist mode, Gubaton is a very exacting and meticulous artist. He is very particular about finding beauty in ordinary things even to the point of its painstaking depiction bordering on fantasy to the macabre. Sometimes he escapes. Entitled Sunkissed, he once painted his beautiful wife in an art deco image of an angel being close to the sun. Fond of mixing elements and imagery with strong fixation on pigeons having lived with neighbors who constantly breeds them for a living. Quite obsessively, he would depict pigeons tightly carousing on electric posts or on barbed wires. For the OC viewer, that sends shivers to the spine.

Metro Manila is home to ten million texting (or twelve million if you count all those living under the bridge) people who collectively wake up, take a bath, consume water and commute to work everyday. This results into a continuous traffic and an overflow of population of 75,000 per square kilometer. We all live in this continuously unplanned metropolis we both love and hate at the same time, with the skyline of billboards and tight tangled wires as everyday visual images while breathing carbon polluted air finding our own tight pockets of private shanty spaces.

It is a very tumultuous daily existence and this is the milieu Jaime chose to create art. As seen in this piece Connected, where urban survival in our gray steel jungle has become both a science and an art, Jaime has his city for a canvas.

Angono Double Hi-way: How Arturo Sanchez and Michael De Guzman Went Home Via Floodway

noreply@blogger.com (mads) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:17:00 +0000

BY JAY BAUTISTA | Of late, most of today’s young contemporary artists have focused themselves inward in terms of their creative outputs. As an observer this startles me and somehow question as to how much grasp do today’s artists have on the context they are into. Personal is sociological, politics is biographical. Indeed an “empire of memory” a novel of Eric Gamalinda once aptly titled it.

With recurring memory as the anchoring theme the recent two-man show “Attachment and Loss” held recently at the White Box in Cubao of Angono-based artists, Arturo Sanchez and Michael de Guzman however attempts to delve deeper into the pits of their sordid lives. The struggle not to forget yet overcome ones’ fears, ghost-like frustrations, and learned experiences, the true test of a great work of art is when one sees light from the grip of darkness to move on.

Revolving around fond remembrances, old loves and the excruciating pain of loss that persist on them until today, both artists used combined images of old personal photographs and used as reference images were borrowed from old and existing photographs then manipulated, crop-out or blurred as to represent a new set of meanings. So as not to ostracize their viewers they have devised certain materials like the “mirror” in an attempt to involve the viewers that their story is yours as well.

Arturo Sanchez is the perfect son any parent would have. To please his mother, he had to set aside his love for painting to take up the more formal course college. Now that he has a degree in Architecture, Arturo can now revisit his old love and maybe pick up where he left off.

Described as “gesticulation of figures,” Arturo Sanchez’s imagery is forceful to the point of being elongated and distorted. His imagery is his strength. In the series “The Absence of Beauty” shows you eight collage pieces with individual mirrors reflecting new representations from various alterations of the same photos usually deforming/obscuring what could be recognized images. The new signification and reflection of viewer both can be viewed when hanged. What enticed the onlookers more was the presence of a canvas painted as a mirror on the wall which captures everything and anything.

Artist-friend Erick Sausa, who wrote the artists’ statement, pointed out “along the course of his self-discovery of painting style through participation in various shows and scrutinizing art magazines sharpened Arturo’s technical perception of dealing with the aesthetics. And as his new works will be best described as paradigm to memories and amnesia” which can be only depicted on the large-scale canvas using oil paint and mixed media.

Meanwhile Michael de Guzman is said to be “pursuing his works to the limit of surreal-like and abstract images of woods and also digressional in photorealism that seems to be part of double tracking that most of the struggling artist can conceive of in order to penetrate the demanding art scene. The works he presents was mostly done in oil on canvas.” A son of a former PSG (Presidential Security Group) during the time of Presidents Macapagal and Marcos, Sausa noted that “the devise of grids he often used was also a conundrum of how the photo references can be interpret as the individual attachment of things being gone but to others are just a mere image.” The car shown here was a gift from President Macapagal and later recalled as their dreams were fulfilled with it, the De Guzman family tried to restore or even revived it to bring back what it was or what it meant to them.

Sausa, who himself is an artist of equal caliber, added, “Attachment is being viewed in relation to the existing object, portrait and places that the context of the metaphors is narrated in surreal or rather dreamlike representation. Loss is an extension of memoirs that set fixed in our subconscious and sense of individuality as long as we exist.

These two artists had grappled the physical and emotional upheavals for years of nurturing their expertise and with this exhibit they look forward to conquer both of their own personal apprehension and reassuring themselves to break new grounds.”

Not far from Angono, in the nearby town of Paete, Laguna, there is a dish they commonly called “sinarubot” where all the leftover food from the fiesta the day after (such as the menudos, adobos, and afritadas) are mixed and turned into a new concoction. Arturo and Michael’s memories elicit such kind of new found expression so as not to put their experiences to waste. A follow-up show could be in the offing, their next two-man show could even be the last perfect thing for them.

Rene Cuvos's Mystery Woman (Isn't It Time We Give the Madonna-Whore Complex a Much-Needed Rest?)

noreply@blogger.com (mads) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:34:00 +0000

BY MADS BAJARIAS | There is something in Rene Cuvos's "Konserbatibong Maligalig" at blanc artspace in Makati City, which reminds me of the Sarah Palin phenomenon ("Coldest State, Hottest Governor") currently shaking up the US presidential race. The artist's media release helpfully points out that this painting has to do with hypocrisy in sexual matters, thus the pop culture references (which, to be honest, smack of cliches): the Playboy bunny ears, the Maria Clara dress and the sexually suggestive lolly. But really, this painting could also be how women who dare to be different confuse some men. I think women know who they are and what they want; it's men who get perplexed about how to react to women who act different, are different.

Take Sarah Palin, aspirant to the office of the US vice-presidency (or as the media like to phrase it: "a heartbeat away from the presidency"). Her inclusion in the Republican ticket turned what many observers initially thought to be an Obama-Biden coronation into a real fight for the White House. McCain's choice of little-known Palin was so outrageous it stunned even some Republicans. But what a choice! The media is agog over this ex-beauty queen, moose-hunting, salmon-fishing, devout Christian soccer mom with the sexy-stern librarian upsweep hairdo and glasses. The woman is compelling in a "sexier older sister of Tina Fey" kind of way, as one blogger put it. Outdoorsy, tough, smart, attractive, down-to-earth and (based on the Saturday Night Live skit) one of the reason for the mainstreaming of seedy terminology like MILF and FLIRJ (oh, don't make me spell these out!). One of her kids is serving in Iraq and the youngest has Down's syndrome. A daughter is pregnant out of wedlock whose boyfriend is a high school dropout. Married to a fisherman who is also a champion snow mobiler (you can't make this stuff up even if you tried). She trained to be a sportscaster but didn't want to leave Alaska and whose entry to politics began when she met her town's former mayor in a step-aerobics class. She has admitted to smoking marijuana (when it was still legal to do so in Alaska) and as current Republican governor tangles with the Big Boys of Big Oil as she presides over what may be the most socialist of US states (all long-time Alaskans get monthly checks from the oil companies operating in their area). The woman is just gangbusters.

The choice of unorthodox Palin in the Republican ticket grabbed some of Obama's "Change" message. Who's a maverick now? Palin in the limelight also exposed a strange thing in the Obama campaign: Obama isn't a good defensive candidate. He is at his best when he takes the offensive but has a hard time when his opponents counter punch, as Palin did when she belittled Obama's community organizing work in her acceptance speech. When Palin grabbed the media attention, was it any surprise when polls started registering an uptick in Republican support?

Not everyone likes her, naturally. Paparazzo-punching Lindsay Lohan ranted in her blog that Palin is "a narrow-minded media-obsessed homophobe." How Lohan knew this is a mystery. Lots of Hollywood types are coming out with anti-Palin statements, likening her conservative views to that of George W. Bush's.

Regardless of politics, Palin is just one more woman who lives her life in her own terms. Take it or leave it. It's the 21st century. Time to rid ourselves of the Madonna-whore complex. People are just complex, period. Cuvos' show "Estranghero" is ongoing until October 1 at blanc artspace in Makati City.

Wire Tuazon Reveals Mystic Truths, Waits for Godot, Shoots at Steel (and Misses the Bounding Deer)

noreply@blogger.com (mads) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:36:00 +0000

BY MADS BAJARIAS | It’s always exciting to view a work that pushes the boundaries. The stupor of humdrum life is cast off and one's senses come alive. One becomes more observant and critical as a way of respecting the artist's exertions.

In Wire Tuazon’s ~~last~~ recent exhibit in The Podium, we got eyefuls of boundary-pushing. His “After Bruce Nauman: Forethought and Afterthought” (diptych with Braille which reads: “Bouncing balls for Samuel Beckett”) signals an artist who's impatient to break boundaries, march into unknown territory, and has the gumption to match.

What’s new about it? For starters, it asks its viewers to google “Nauman” and “Beckett” when they get home! Also, "Nauman and fleeing deer," "Beckett and bed," and "Beckett + Nauman + deer + Rubik's Cube." Do I appreciate being told by an artwork to look things up in Wikipedia? In this case, no, I don’t mind. I’m a bit of a nerd anyway.

In his collection titled “Talisman Bomb,” Tuazon used stainless steel, various paints, a firearm (to shoot bullets into the steel), found objects and, messages in Braille. But perhaps the most important ingredient here is the confidence with which he mentions Bruce Nauman and Samuel Beckett in the title and Braille, respectively, as a kind of challenge to his viewers and critics. A gauntlet thrown. A serious signal of intent.

Why Nauman and Beckett? What conceptual and philosophical treasures do they represent here? Are these names essential in getting an understanding or enjoyment of Tuazon’s work? Or are these names thrown into the mix as a kind of conceptual joke and not meant to be taken seriously? Was Tuazon sincere in the metaphorical sense or ironic in a philosophical sense when he decided to employ the names of Nauman and Beckett in his work? Are we even sure that the Braille text reads as Tuazon says it reads?

One more question: Is it a good sign to bring up the names of giants like Nauman and Beckett into your works? An artist who does this treads on thin ice. Nowadays, if you look hard enough, everything references something else. But heavy-handed references could be viewed with suspicion as crutches to prop up a middling work.

After doing my research (Oh, okay, a rapid read-through in Wikipedia, sue me!), I learned that Bruce Nauman is an artistic icon best known for his spiral neon sign which reads: “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths.” He did this goofy (or profound, depending on your state of mind) neon statement in 1966.

When he was asked if he believed that statement set in neon? Nauman replied, “I don’t know; I think we should leave that open.”

Nauman used witticism and word-play to mix levity with deep philosophical explorations on the nature of language and communication. For example, in his work “Drill Team,” Nauman lined up drill bits. In “Eating My Words,” a man eats food bits shaped like letters of the alphabet. In “Bouncing Balls,” Nauman used images, um, of human testicles. “From Hand to Mouth” is a literal representation of the distance between one’s hand to one’s mouth.

Nauman utilized sounds to add an aural dimension to his conceptual works. Tuazon could be paying homage to that by adding the Braille element to engage the sense of touch (Did Tuazon contemplate adding sounds as well?).

There is a spirit of fun in Nauman. An unpretentious and jokey appeal underpinned by serious investigations in communication.

Beckett is perhaps better known than Nauman. Beckett is famous for “Waiting for Godot,” that dark comedy where nothing happens. Beckett’s name is oftentimes used as shorthand for minimalism and absurdist art. Like Nauman, Beckett’s dark explorations were enlivened by humorous touches here and there—a humor (gallows humor, but humor nevertheless) that comes from the natural.

Big names like Nauman and Beckett carry connotations and when these are left like clues or guideposts in an artwork, a certain expectation is set in the mind of the viewer. For me, it is the lack of Nauman's and Beckett's playfulness that puzzles me the most about Tuazon’s “After Bruce Nauman...”

The more I look at Tuazon’s work, the more inclined I am to view it as a shifting set of analytical propositions. He uses text, image, the title, bullet holes, and the Braille message (each element not necessarily having any logical connection to the rest) to create a cacophony of possible meanings and a range of interpretations. If the text, image, title, bullet holes and Braille message are notes, they don’t add up to a grand symphony, orderly and beautiful. They just add up, in a jangled wall of sound—which isn’t ugly, either. Dissonance has a peculiar beauty.

At this point, it’s perhaps best to echo Nauman’s own words when asked if he believes the statement he made in neon: “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths.”

“I don’t know; I think we should leave that open.”