The Philippines at the 20th AIAE: A sense of place
January 23, 2006 | 12:00am
What is the current state of Philippine visual art practice? And how do our artists fare vis-à-vis their Asian colleagues? These are perhaps the most important questions being addressed by the hosts and organizers of the 20th Asian International Art Exhibition (AIAE) in their selection of works by fellow visual art practitioners, which are on view at the Ayala Museum until March 26.
When seen from another – albeit related – vantage point, this outing likewise focuses attention upon the international art festival as an exhibition form that profiles a nation’s culture through its art.
Let me begin with the AIAE as a paradigm for exposition. As a template for display, it falls within the parameter of the annual, biennial, triennial or even quadrennial exhibitions, which bring together works of art from different countries, inspired by the idealized notion of cultural interchange as a promoter of international friendship and understanding. As such, the AIAE provides a venue from which individual achievement can be conscripted for the cause of generalities: as representatives of a particular culture, or even as an exponent of a nation-state’s creative achievement.
Thinking back to the early international art exhibitions of the 1890s, which came about, interestingly enough, during the nascence of the Olympic Games, one can indeed sense the spirit of competition being played out in the cultural arena of the exhibition venue. Although it has been said that works of art are unique and personal and, as such, impervious to being pitted against one another, the tendency to compare and contrast simply cannot be helped when presented and acted out, with flags raised, in staged gatherings such as this.
What sets the AIAE apart, however, from other international exhibitions – it has, indeed, become the trend, nowadays – is the manner in which it has evolved into a collegial project. Instead of selections for inclusion being the sole responsibility or prerogative of a single curator or of an artistic director, we see here underscored the postmodern notion of the "curatorium" – in this case, most interestingly, a gathering of visual artists – assuming the didactic role, and vesting upon itself the responsibility of reflecting upon and representing its self.
It is most interesting to think about this development in light of the assertion that artistic encounters are necessarily fraught with dilemmas. Indeed, it had even been remarked that to ask another artist for an opinion of one’s work is most unwise considering that art and artist are oftentimes considered inseparable – seeing that criticizing a work is akin to casting aspersion upon the creator’s aesthetic sensibility, and may even be construed as affronting his or her imagination.
Criticism also becomes a complex affair in light of the fact that value judgments made are measured against the criterion of individuals whom artists would consider as their peers.
In a society where detachment and disinterestedness (in so far as the appreciation of works of art is concerned) are seen at best to be in the embryonic stage, relationships born out of personal, professional, institutional, stylistic or temperamental affinities help to forge activities that serve to promote and espouse certain ideas about what constitutes not simply an honest but, more importantly, a comprehensive survey of contemporary Philippine art.
An expected result of this construct is the inherent difficulty in finding a single thread or thematic approach that runs across all of the works in this exhibition. Perusing the oeuvres submitted by 46 emerging, mid-career and established visual art practitioners, it is most enlightening to apprehend the current state of Philippine art as shown in the AIAE in terms of the more traditional fields of painting and sculpture, with a pair of relief works bridging the two disciplines. The hegemony of the physical rather than the ephemeral (as installation, video) is perhaps the most obvious affinity between the pieces (tellingly, the pieces are classified as being either "2-D" or "3-D").
It is clear, by their sheer number, that painting, which had over the past decades been considered as retrograde within the purview of other more dynamic, or technologically sophisticated media, remains the dominant visual art form in the country. In the face of the barrage of imagery streaming through the collective consciousness, what emerges here, again, is the re-figuration of that which threatens to subsume it: transfixing pictures transfigured from images transmitted from various sources – the triumph of materiality and rote praxis, as it were, over the aesthetic aspirations/kaleidoscopic blandishments powered by the machine.
In Antipas Delotavo’s "Katas ng Manggagawa (Fruits of their Labor)," for example, the human figures standing outside the window do not appear real, but come across as still cutouts, ghostly forms free-floating in an empty white space, like icons on a computer screensaver, or images appearing in a music video. Bringing to mind the Brazilian Adriana Varejao’s baroque mixed media works which similarly cast the under-classes in a dehumanized light, and where people are hung up as carcasses strung alongside knives, pots and pans set amidst a splendid room decorated with blue and white Porto ceramic tiles, here Delotavo casts the salt of the earth outside the kitchen of what is obviously a well-appointed home. The viewer stands together with the menacingly cold, gleaming stainless steel implements, while the viewed return the gaze from the other side. The result is a most provocative interplay of associations between the separation of the social classes, and the palpable unease that, once roused from the status quo, could very well descend into violence.
Pagtutuos" by Jeho Bitancor and "Rooms" by Charlie Co echo this sentiment, presenting images that disturb while at the same time threshing out issues of grave social and economic concern. What one readily apprehends here is the seeming unwillingness, at least at this stage, to fully unleash an attack, to allow inhibitions to be thrown out for the sake of resolution. Where the shadowy figure threatens to impale the pot-bellied signor in Bitancor, a clown-faced, malevolently smirking man also dressed in a white suit lies waiting for the unknown in Co’s work – an image informed by the gaggle of prostitutes and hustlers peeking disturbingly out of doorways.
This unwillingness to depict overt action, opting rather to express dissent, if not existential discomfiture, angst or listlessness with mannered stillness, is also exemplified by the couple in "Through the Peephole" by Jose Santos III and in the harlequinesque figures of Marcel Antonio’s "The Other Side." The stylistic affinity between the two, in particular, the withdrawn visages drawn straight out of Pablo Picasso’s early 20th century "rose period" paintings, is in clear evidence; but what is less obvious are the surreal takes on matters of considerable gravity. In both cases, the viewer is left with an open-ended question, and an invitation to determine answers in the face of the artists’ metaphoric conceits.
The tendency to silently draw attention to causes or concepts, indicative of tenacious sensibilities more predisposed, it would seem, to visual circumspection expressed through varying degrees of abstraction, are borne out in the opuses of Soler Santos, Susan Fetalvero Roces, Roberto M.A. Robles and Sid Gomez Hildawa. If Santos’ "Stone Garden" gives not merely a bird’s-eye view, but rather an invitation into transcendental states through a landscape artist’s layout plan wherein the well-planned strictures of a mathematical grid are elegantly offset by the fukinsei asymmetry of a roji or garden path in a Zen garden, Roces’ "Dream Catcher IV" funnels spiritual centeredness by means of a mesmerizing aureole made out of dried leaves, the resulting form hearkening to an American Indian feather headdress.
Robles and Hildawa are clearly less constrained by references to specifics. The former’s assemblage, which pays homage to the AIAE’s theme "Being Asian, Being Asia," fuses the distant, atmospheric overtures of the West – particular Rothko’s abstract expressionist swathes of color, with a decidedly personal intervention of sewn yarn. Hildawa, for his part, coolly investigates tonal and textural relationships through his poetic drawing/combine of graphite on paper with rubber appliqué.
Yet even as most of the non-figurative works delve into less contentious subject matter, a stylistic confrere, Pablo Baen Santos, defiantly maintains his social realist mettle in "Voice Prints." In the face of present circumstances, this firebrand records and, through the alternative painting/printing process of concrete grout serigraphy, reproduces the damning murmurings that both disgrace and define us.
Sculpture, for its part, digresses from the paintings in this show in that they appear here together as a reactive art form governed by sinecures largely outside of the artists’ control. That there are less sculptures than paintings, for one, is indicative of the difficulty in engendering audiences for it, given the dearth of public resources, the reservation of private collectors, and the general lack of spaces and structures to accommodate such imaginative pieces.
National Artist Napoleon Abueva distinguishes himself with the unusually configured "Reading Asian History," which depicts a couple lying down, sensuously interlocked as they pore over a book. This is a loaded image, enigmatic for its seeming incongruence, which leaves one wondering if Abueva is making any statement here about the contentiousness of reclaiming the past for present consumption. Its flipside is the surprising experimentation of Benedicto Cabrera (Bencab) who forays into uncharted territory in a frenetically formed standee of cutout metal drawn from his popular "Lovers" leitmotif.
Ramon Orlina’s "Fountain of Hope" shows the sculptor building upon his previous output with an undulating model of functional art: its spine-like upward sinuousness cavorting with the rivulets of water flowing downward – a fitting foil to the geometrically-hewn tower he builds from stolid emerald-green glass blocks.
The same transparent material is utilized by Noëll El Farol in "Settlements," a continuation of the artist’s investigations into the inscrutability of human identity, and the imperative of semblance, mark, or trace. It is an idea that leads to the startlingly powerful work of Junyee, whose "Tattoo Dos" combines tribal ancestor statuary, skin art, and even mummification, as it stands on a large wooden base inscribed with the figure’s own shadow.
Earlier, I mentioned that exhibitions such as this are often construed as windows into a nation’s soul – a framework for elucidating culture. There is, perhaps, no more emphatic depiction of this than when one studies the work of artists who literally turn to the earth, as Julie Lluch does in her terracotta "Maranao (Nagpahulay)," or more evocatively, rely upon detritus to convey destruction and loss, as in the case of Alfredo Juan Aquilizan’s quaint "Burning Houses" and Jose Tence Ruiz’s apocalyptic "Derelict Penthouses."
When seen altogether, what is most apparent then from the works selected for the AIAE is the superlative level of engagement evinced by Filipino artists today, who, in spite of great odds, show an abiding sense of place – crossing territories, re-shaping boundaries, challenging norms and strengthening ties while remaining firmly committed to the artistic hearths that blaze at home.
Ayala Museum is at the corner of Makati Ave. and De la Rosa Street, Ayala Center, Makati City. Call 757-7117 to 21 for inquiries.
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