Adieu, Surrounded by Water!

When the Surrounded by Water (SBW) gallery closes by the end of this month, the young artists behind this independent art space could give themselves a pat on the back. They have achieved what other Filipino artists’ groups have not done before: establish a center for young artists for three years, unafraid to take risks and pushing the limits of the age-old question of what is art. Initially set up in Angono, the SBW relocated two years ago at EDSA-Ortigas (next to the POEA building), and the space formerly occupied by the Pied Piper Restaurant. This was possible with the six months free rent granted by its owners Mr. and Mrs. Dalton King who believed in assisting young artists.

SBW’s founder, 24-year old Wire Tuazon, initially received financial support from his father as a birthday gift in 1998. He recalls that putting together a new concept for a gallery with his friends was a result of having been turned away by established art galleries. He also saw SBW as an independent space not beholden to any one ideology nor just commercial interests. Besides Tuazon, the members of the present SBW are Jonathan Ching, Mariano Ching, Lena Cobangbang, Louie Cordero, Cristina Dy, Eduardo Enriquez, Geraldine Javier, Keiye Miranda, Mike Muñoz, and Yasmin Sison.

When first established at Angono where he lives, he thought he could count on the support of older artists based there. Most of them created their names and saw themselves as heirs to National Artist Carlos Francisco’s legacy. The tradition of figurative genre painting has marked the artistic landscape of Angono. Tuazon was aware of this tradition and thought the art he and his friends are making would vitalize Angono’s art. Tuazon was disappointed. Despite having to cycle around town to drop off invitations to SBW exhibits, none of the older artists came to see them. It was his former teacher at U.P College of Fine Arts, Roberto Chabet, who would drive all the way to Angono to lend his support. "Sometimes," reminisces Tuazon, "Sir would arrive at 4 p.m. while we were drenched in sweat, trying to install the exhibit for the 6 p.m. opening." The other members agreed that they benefited from the support from a highly respected and well-liked teacher.

The backing from Chabet extended until they moved to EDSA. Late 1999, when the SBW coffers ran out, Chabet helped by suggesting raising funds to keep the gallery going. In the process, he sought the assistance of artists Gerardo Tan and Jose Tence Ruiz to get as many of their friends as possible to donate art for SBW. The ensuing raffle made enough money to sustain its projects for the next two years. This has also given SBW at EDSA a new lease on life and its members to pursue experimental art projects.

Now that the building they occupy will be sold and developed into a 24-hour convenience store, Tuazon is uncertain if they are moving to another site. In its years of existence, the space for young artists has done much in changing the perception of how artists can work together. They responded to challenge a conventional art system that tends to prescribe limits to what they can do. For instance, they dislike most commercial galleries’ practice of setting-up exhibitions for just two days and then dismantling them after 10 days. They find that this puts emphasis on art as a commodity, like any object for sale. Such practice bar the recognition of processes and contexts involved in installing exhibitions.

Tuazon admits they struggled in managing their own space. But they will not exchange this for being in control over how they want to show their art and how to represent their identities as artists. For SBW members who are now beginning to exhibit at commercial galleries, their experience of running an independent gallery has made them more aware about working in different situations. Even if not so obvious with some of the rather cluttered exhibits I saw there, they are disciplined and tend to consult with each other. Dialogue has been part of the key to their success. They also are less inclined to creating a club culture, opening the SBW space to other artists who do not necessarily come from U.P. or sport the same outlook and attire. As a result they created a more vibrant art scene that made others, myself including, examine our notions of art and Filipino art practices.

I noticed this when I visited their exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Gallery. Diverting from the initial theme of portraiture and human heads, the artists came up with a coherent exhibition whose quality exceeded last year’s Thirteen Artists Award show. This may have to do with the supervision from Chabet and artist Nilo Ilarde, who helped them conceive and design the exhibit. But the larger contribution to its success came from the artists’ well-thought artworks on display. Despite feeling rushed with the outcome of their work after being given by CCP only a month to prepare, the exhibited art consistently provoked ideas and revealed new range of artistic practices.

In the CCP exhibit, viewers get an inkling of what these artists are trying to make acceptable. Some of those I noticed were their use of 3R-sized photographs and exposing adhesive tapes, as well as occupying a large part of the floor for flat artworks. This tends to question old rules of exhibiting works. In museum practice for instance the use of non-acid-free sticky tape is forbidden, much more showing it when fastening works to the wall for conservation and aesthetic reasons. But artists in the exhibit, including Lyra Abueg Garcellano, Louie Cordero and Cristina Dy, have turned this around in their works, leading us away from the preciousness of the art object. Instead viewers are left with images and how artists would like us to look at what they see in representing presence and absences.

Upon entering the gallery, I was confronted by large portraits. Michael Muñoz stressed on the creation of an icon out of a larger-than-life image of slain activist Popoy Lagman. In his work he used the device of layering mostly primary colors made famous by American pop artist Andy Warhol’s silkscreen technique. Rather than reproduce multiples, Muñoz opted to paint portraits with a brush. He then laid cement tiles with patterns and an inscription that would read "Power to the Working Class" in its reverse mirror image. The size of the colored wall portrait corresponded to the dull brown tiles on the floor. His choice of installing his artwork only heightened the drama of Lagman’s representation.

Tuazon also regarded both wall and floor for his installation work anchored on portraits. But unlike Muñoz’s work, he chose anonymous early 20th-century archival photographs of criminals. American colonials did not only use the dual side view – front view "portraits" to identify and label prisoners, they did the same for members of ethnic groups. Both these were projects of colonial anthropology while its typecasting and identity-formation has loomed large in our imagination. Tuazon preferred to focus on the eyes of his black and white portraits of convicts. Six paintings – one partly hidden by the post – hang from rods as though they are banners commemorating the unknown. Despite their anonymity and his emphasis on the shorn human hair strewn around reproduced archival photographs, Tuazon focused upon the defiance in the eyes of prisoners in those early pictures.

Keiye Miranda also chose to paint portraits that have gone beyond distortions she has made in the past, achieving them by creating images that are submerged in clear water. Her works for this exhibit are surreal symbols of deformation that emphasizes portraiture as a form of misrepresentation. This notion has resonance in Nona Garcia’s work where she painted images from ultrasound and x-ray reproductions of human body parts. In the center of the joined white canvasses are small, framed digital images of two women and I wondered whether they are connected to the two large paintings of diagnostic images. It also made me think about how most viewers expect to find connections, after having grown accustomed to how we look at images in mass and popular media. In their works, Lena Cobangbang and Alvin Villareal lure our attention to how the press and television, respectively, affect our way of seeing.

The absence of a portrait or personal symbols can be quite jarring. Gary-Ross Pastrana and Eduardo Enriquez show in their works materials that seem to emphasize missing persons and identities. While multiple images, including those in the diptychs of Yasmin Sison or the imprints found in Geraldine Javier’s unconsecrated hosts intended for use in Roman Catholic’s communion ritual, focus on representations of figures as patterns.

It is the depiction of people and identities that somehow create this desire to ultimately find our connection to them. This can be roused by historical figures found in great master paintings and things associated with them, such as in Mariano Ching’s installation. Or perhaps Victor Bulanon’s rendition of a fictional character called Molroy in a comic strip format. Jonathan Ching, on the other hand, selected pages from two manuals. Both have to do with life saving instructions but differing in methods. It is the text included by the artist, however that gave one of his works a humorous edge.

SBW’s impending closing is giving me the same sinking feeling watching the end of Alan Parker’s 1991 film The Commitments. In it, the make-believe band made up by working class Irish in their late teens got together to sing popular Motown songs. It was fun to see the film with its bittersweet depiction of talented people working together. Finally they acrimoniously disbanded as their egos got in the course of their work. This is not the case for the SBW artists, since they are real people who intend to work together even after they lose their art space. But the moral of the story, just as in the film, is that although saying goodbye might be painful, we all grow up and move on.

For information regarding the CCP exhibit and their lively on-going art events before closing, visit Surrounded by Water located at 187-A Arle Square, EDSA, Mandaluyong City or contact sbw05@yahoo. com or 724-2027.

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