Postscript to the 13
A miscommunication led us to arrive for an interview with the director of the Tanghalang Pilipino play Madonna Brava a week ahead of schedule, but which happily enabled us to catch the exhibit of the latest batch of 13 Artists awardees on its last day at CCP in the middle of August.
On the hallway opposite the main gallery Bulwagang Juan Luna where most of the artists’ works were situated, loomed large oil paintings of Jaypee Samson that resembled old style photographs of simple folk, but with notable distortions: the feet drawn as if facing backwards, an elderly woman who looks otherwise normal if not for a carnival mirror trick that makes her assume proportions of a dwarf. And that group photo-like painting with the cheering little girl in disposable diapers in the middle captures the gist of a familial celebration. Samson comes from a family of artists, as he and his elder brother Jerson have been regulars in the Tutok exhibits in the Britania Art Gallery in Cubao, where once we had occasion to jam the night away with this unassuming young artist in his mid-20s among other habitués, a barrel of frothy beer within arm’s length.
Fronting Samson’s great representations of his humble people that are on the brink of populist sentiment, are the semi-abstract paintings by Don Djerassi Dalmacio on the wall opposite, a couple of escalators, a staircase and a cavernous space the height of three floors between them. Maybe it’s just me but first impressions reveal outlines of tooth as if enlarged x-rays of a root canal are given flesh, the sparing use of pastel colors furthering the artist’s low-key worldview. Dalmacio’s subtle strokes and lines could revolutionize waiting room art and T-shirt design.
What greets the casual gallery viewer upon entry into the main exhibit hall are the circular extrapolations of charcoal on paper by Christina Dy, titled “Ground Zero,” the black on white suggesting not so much the aftermath of 9/11 in New York, but a warning of what may be in store for other hapless citizens who are careless about their environment; the stark vibe relays storm clouds in the distance, and the mud we reap for disrespecting the ether.
Surrounding Dy’s circular sub-ruins like a shawl is the photographic and found object installation of MM Yu, “Object/Subject,” that has the artist putting together an assembly line of memories both conscious and unconscious, using among other things empty DVD jackets and similar mementoes, including a sign that reads, serendipitously, at the next corner may be a piece of art that can change your life. Such an offhand almost happenstance approach reinforces the notion of art’s life-changing potential, and MM Yu leaves it to the viewer to decode these gradations of change.
In a nearly hidden, obscure corner tucked away at an angle to Yu’s mnemonic recitation, young filmmaker Raya Martin has his endless video loop running images that assumingly echo his acclaimed films, a fledgling but already impressive oeuvre that includes Indio Nacional and Auto Historia. On the last day the video player needed some attention, and there was an empty bottle of mineral water left by the viewer’s bench, which we were advised was not part of the original exhibit. Martin first gained notice by winning a prize for short film in Cinemanila, whose prime mover Tikoy Aguiluz was himself a 13 Artists awardee in the 1970s.
On the other end of the exhibit hall, one is flanked by the works of two women artists, Patricia Eustaquio and Racquel de Loyola, that feed off each other in relating political, possibly gender-based statements. De Loyola’s “Blemish” has a pile and clothesline of dirty white laundry, concealing a miniature video of a woman in the throes of washing clothes, while strewn about is the laundrywoman’s instruments, pre-washing machine. De Loyola, a performance artist, is a product of Philippine Women’s University, alma mater of Pandy Aviado and Benjie Lontoc.
We forget the exact title of Eustaquio’s section, but it runs something like, “He who has seen the deep,” or “is it dark, what could be found leagues under the sea,” a lone chair-like structure draped by a white cloth, as if daring the viewer to unclothe it to unleash either enlightenment or damnation, or just a chair, vacant and unused, to finally sit on if the viewer so dares to see the dark, or deep. Eustaquio, a fashion designer when she needs to pay rent, was production designer for Lav Diaz’s Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino for which she won a critics’ award.
Things get a bit ratty, so to speak, in the next pair of flanking exhibits, with small plastic rats the common motif in the works of Buen Calubayan and Iggy Rodriguez. Calubayan makes use of live, caged white rats not hamsters in a post-structuralist, horror cum social realist barongbarong, which when you peek inside has an altar dedicated to a white-haired man resembling the Star Wars villain.
The force could also be with Rodriguez who faces all that squalor, this time with a grotesque conductor leading an orchestra of otherworldly, carnivalesque characters who read more or less from the same music sheet of cool destruction. Rodriguez is said to be the spokesman and activist of the group and his political work includes the “Gagamba Glo” effigy set afire during one State of the Nation Address.
Pamela Yan-Santos’ colorful “Living Room” recreation belies her printmaker roots, as in fact the entire piece could be considered a huge, three-dimensional print, where one can walk in and perhaps sit on sofa; view the homemaker’s preoccupations and child’s handwriting on the wall. It is the most understated and aesthetically pleasing of the batch, balancing the concerns of art and motherhood.
Just when we thought proceedings couldn’t get any subtler comes the historical shadow play of Don Salubayba, who employs and improvises on the wayang kulit to parlay the politics of resistance, in this wise the age-old Filipino struggle against oppressors both colonial and local, and the hard lessons learned along the way.
Finally the pair of artists representing opposite ends of the archipelago fill the far side of the gallery, Baguio-born Kawayan de Guia and Zamboanga native Winner Jumalon. De Guia’s installation is dominated by a homemade jukebox, atop which is a pissing cherub to remind us he was there, and on the floor is a figure that could be the assassinated Ninoy Aquino, brains hollowed out. It was this De Guia who did the artwork and photography for RiverMaya’s “Beneath the Stars and Waves.”
Jumalon’s evocation of his hand-painted house down south could be reaffirming because unlike most of us who can’t go home again, the artist can through memory and creation. Walking into the house, the viewer can’t help but look closely at the objects and drawings as if half-expecting these to be those found in one’s own ancestral home. It was Winner’s portrait of BenCab that was part of the Philippine representation in the Asian International Art Exhibition in Singapore 2006.
Credit should also go to curator Wire Tuazon and CCP visual arts head Karen Ocampo Flores for the show’s unqualified success. They should take it to campuses or abroad, this being a signal event that art is alive and kicking in our country despite the occasional politics that tries to bring it down.
