Manuel Ocampo's anarchy in the R.P.
(Conclusion)
No other Filipino artist can make viewers think their pretty faces are going to hell right after looking at a particular painting of, say, a Ku Klux Klansman in bloody red heralding the apocalypse. On a black eagle. With a shotgun. Surrounded with crosses. Manuel Ocampo painted that picture in 1991. It is called “Yo Mate a Historya.” Or maybe one of his masterpieces, “Die Kreuzigung Christi” (which Manuel jokingly refers to as “Die Kurikong Crispi”). But that specific visual language — characterized by what critics point out as “post-colonial and multicultural” iconography — is already (pardon the pun) history to Ocampo, who has explored a more cartoonish twist in his oeuvre and has employed aesthetic strategies as a means of critiquing aesthetic strategy itself.
“As long as painting is able to use criticism for its own purposes then it will never be dead,” Ocampo said in last week’s article titled “Swastikating between Art and Death” (THE STAR, Sept. 14).
Manuel also talked about being part of the ’90s LA art scene, as well as coming home to Manila a couple of years ago to become “an inside man” whose aim is to “cause change or rebellion from within.” This he has accomplished by championing the works of young conceptual artists and, of course, creating gorgeous mayhem with his art.
In his latest show at Pablo Gallery in The Fort on view until Sept. 26, the artist has mounted installations of paintings, employing a “Jeckyll and Hyde” approach — one side has an image, the other side is festooned with objects. He explains, “(The approach) touches on this dual nature of painting, or the ‘picture-equals-image’ problem perspective. By putting the aesthetic event behind the surface of the painting, then maybe this will challenge the viewer to look at and experience art even more. How’s that for keepin’ it real?”
When asked what his most seminal work is so far, he cites “Burnt Out Europe,” a painting done in 1991, as a major work in his oeuvre — even if he is somewhat embarrassed with his stuff after he’s done with them. (“I don’t know how you can apply the word ‘seminal’ to things you don’t even want to look at,” he shrugs.)
The most controversial thing he has put on canvas? “Not swastikas,” he answers, but the penis series. “You know why? It’s because it’s not an idealized penis. It’s a suffering penis. An ugly, crucified, limp one. And it doesn’t exude desire, beauty, or fantasy.”
This is the concluding part of our chat with Manuel Ocampo, who speaks candidly about everything, from being guided by sausage, to dismissing art auction houses as slaughterhouses.
PHILIPPINE STAR: How did your show with Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1994 come about?
MANUEL OCAMPO: My very first dealers in New York and Los Angeles (Anina Nosei and Fred Hoffman respectively) were Basquiat’s first dealers, too. And in 1994, Real Lussier, the curator of the Art Contemporain de Montreal invited me to have a two man-show with Basquiat. Basquiat died in 1988 at the age of 28 and I was 28 in 1994. They probably thought I was continuing Basquiat’s approach to painting as there were some connections in the way we utilize texts on top of our images, and how there were visible erasures and unformed shapes on top as a device or decoy for creating meaning in the painting (but we all know that’s just moonwalk as paradox). And also the way we’d deal with issues of being “niggers” made us, in a sense, kindred spirits.
This was around the time that multiculturalism coming from post-colonial theory was just gaining ground or, I should say, becoming of market value in the art world. Writers thought I was the maximum meatball machine or the post-colonial torch bearer but I’m more interested in just the sound of one shit clapping than illustrating academics’ theory of rectum dialectics and their fascist chicken joy marinated with fermented three-day rock ‘n’ roll saliva.
So, I tried to detach myself from that program altogether and become a sausage flaneur and the painter of latte.
What really happened at the Dokumenta show in Kassel, Germany in 1992? What particular work did the organizers censor? And how did you initially feel about it? Looking back, how has that event affected your art career?
Well, it’s been 17 years since that happened and my memory seems to have escaped me. All I can remember was that I was censored because of the swastikas in my work. I’m aware that they were being shown in Germany. I’m also aware of the laws prohibiting the display of this symbol, and that is why I was wondering why the organizers chose these particular works. But after all that, my works were shown and that was that. It’s the media who wanted to make a big deal about it. They were trying to rile up something... saying stuff like “I was invited as an American but treated as a Filipino,” or something to that extent. I wanted to tell the media to just f**k off! But I got swept up as I was young and naive and I was manipulated into making statements that I was oppressed, and that I was being treated badly and so on and so forth. The media exploited this situation to criticize something. I don’t know. Maybe (chief curator) Jan Hoet’s drinking problem, or the organizers’ lack of organizational skill, or the overblown budget. I don’t know.
The media always wants a spectacle for no other reason than to create spectacles because they sell.
Was that the only incident of that nature?
Another was in 1993, at the LA Arts Festival where I was accused of being derogatory towards Filipinos. I was asked if I could participate in the Filipino-organized contingent of the festival. I was asked via SIPA (Search to Involve Pilipino Americans). The people running SIPA are friends. I agreed and made banners of Filipinos roasting dogs instead of lechon. So, to make the long story short, it was a controversial exhibit just to get back at the media, or specifically at the mechanism of the media. The controversy was televised, was in the papers. With Fil-Am community papers writing insults at me and despite all the brouhaha, I arranged a forum as a communal healing session and I changed the banner from dogs being roasted to dogs and their owners at the beach having fun frolicking in the sand, while chef Emeril is barbecuing in the background. Everyone approved of the new politically-correct banner.
The forum was broadcasted on radio, and afterwards a get-together for some food was held at the Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park in L.A. People from the community and the media attended, and then I served them dog-meat lumpiang shanghai without them knowing it. They loved it. It was a success.
One Fil-Am, one of my detractors who was responsible in alerting the cultural director about my racist sloganeering, was there eating with a smile. In the beginning of the session he yelled at me that Filipinos don’t eat dog meat. At the buffet table — as I was facing him, and as we were holding our paper-plates, eating together — I told myself: “Well, you’re eating one now.”
What about here in the Philippines?
An incident involving the media was in 2003 with “Lee Almighty,” a collaboration with Romeo Lee at the old Mag:net ABS-CBN Loop gallery space. No controversy, just good ol’ clean rock ‘n’ roll fun. This time the media was partly complicit in the ballyhoo. Realizing that Mag:net was inside the media system itself, and that Rock Drilon invited me to show at his gallery, I seized the opportunity to once again collaborate with the media meatball machine.
For the show I wanted to explore the Filipino people’s fascination with the cult of celebrity. Why do you have to be mestizo to be a celebrity? Why do you have to have a good physique to be a star? Why do you need to be a good singer to be able to sing on TV, etc.? I wanted to challenge those criteria, so I teamed up with a celebrity who doesn’t fit those standards: Romeo Lee, “Mr. Wild Thing” and “King of Ukay-Ukay” himself. The goal was to get the media to pay attention to Lee as a star not as a freak. It was a fun poke at the celeb-star system.
For my next project I am planning to campaign in nominating Ricky Reyes for the National Artist Award in sculpture, visual arts, architecture, fashion and theater.
What do you think of the local art scene? Is there a marked improvement? How does it feel strolling down the SM Art Walk and seeing other galleries abloom with flowers, landscapes and derivative abstracts on display and on sale at astronomical prices?
There needs to be a lot more going on than just the gallery scene, which is created by the market. I feel it’s just wrong to call this the “art scene.”
Now there’s the art auction scene. Frankly, I hate the auctions; artists should have a deep mistrust in any auction. What we have here are galleries calling artists to make something for the auction (houses). The auction artists are like cows happily going to the butcher shop. It’s also interesting that there are very young artists whose works are selling at auctions for tremendous amounts of money, and I’ve never heard their names before. They have no exhibition history, and people are buying their stuff and you know it’s just speculation.
Who are currently your favorite Filipino artists?
If the world would consider Dan Flavin as a Filipino artist, since he uses the florescent tube (which was invented by a Filipino,) then he would be it. But jokes aside, at present among the post-painters I would mention Argie Bandoy and Jayson Oliveria. I like the way they’re rescuing abstract painting from the dregs of interior-decorator kitsch, corny spirituality, and high seriousness into something dangerous and tasteless, as well as obscene, funny, clumsy, and full of bad design and glaring missteps. If there is such a thing as abstract-jologs then their work would be it. I like Gerry Tan’s work in the way he reflects on paintings methods of anticipating and redefining its relationship to digital reproduction. He’s introducing new aspects and parameters into how we can use painting to question the digital barrage that is infiltrating our consciousness.
Robert Langenegger’s and Romeo Lee’s works are undoubtedly nihilistic yet there is an insane cheerfulness to their approach since their paintings are fantastically made-up jokes. It is astonishing, for example, how much the series of motifs employed by these artists overlap with those found in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel. In the works, we encounter a humor of the immediately physical, and references to the topics of nourishment, digestion, sexuality, misery and death.
I would also like to include the video works of Poklong (Anading). And the photos of MM Yu and Lena “D’hyena” Cobangbang.
Who are the Filipino artists whose works you find abhorrent?
There are really no Filipino artists whose works I find abhorrent. I’m just puzzled by the hype surrounding the so-called “realists” — the type of works that are predominant at art auctions nowadays. I find their stuff retrograde and unimaginative. I’m also turned off by Social Realist paintings. I find the politics behind it naive and at times hypocritical. The way they are painted and the content, too, doesn’t appeal to me. How many depictions of farmers, workers, raised fists, chains, fat cats, evil businessmen and corrupt politicians can we take?
Social Realism is just a “look.”
Do you consider yourself apolitical?
I would say that I’m very political and moralistic, yet I have distaste for dogmas and ideologies. So, as opposed to what other people might think, I do give a shit, I just don’t do rallies or protests. I think those events are useless; I hate crowds and what ends up is just a picnic or, worst, people bringing their guitars so they can have a sing-a-long.
Are you irreligious?
Although people classified as irreligious might not follow any religion, not all are necessarily without belief. Such a person may be a non-religious or non-practicing theist. In particular, those who associate organized religion with negative qualities, but still hold spiritual beliefs, might describe themselves as irreligious.
I studied in an all-boys Catholic school for 12 years and I would say that those were the most traumatic years of my life. A religion based on fear and guilt is not a good foundation for kids. And this gave me profound skepticism towards organized religion.
Nevertheless, Catholicism gave me a lot of material to work on. My take on the abject, bodily fluids and excreta was inspired by Catholicism’s perverted repression and double-standard take on the basic functions of the body.
What do you think when you see other Filipino artists ripping off your style? Do you get flattered or appalled?
It’s okay. I’ve ripped off other artists, too. I’ve stolen ideas, and people have stolen from me. I’m all for it. That’s the way things get created. That’s how culture grows. When there’s an amazing idea, you take it and run with it. I mean, you’re going to take it someplace else than the source, anyway. There are a lot of artists who’ve worked on that, specifically.
One of my favorite writers is the Comte de Lautréamont, and much of his writing is constructed from plagiarized texts. Who would claim that his work is no different than what he plagiarized?
What do you think of Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Tracy Emin?
These are legitimate artists raising issues particular to their circumstances or context. They are descendants of Warhol, albeit a generation removed. I like the way Hirst challenges the market and addresses questions pertaining to the validity of galleries as opposed to the opposite — the validity of artists. The shows he does are big media events and quite scandalous. Same goes with Koons and Emin — although they’ve softened up a bit.
How do you feel about German artists such as Jonathan Meese liberally peppering their paintings with swastikas and religious iconography (things that you did way, way before them)?
I think he’s a great artist. I like his work. Jonathan Meese is a self-proclaimed cultural exorcist. And being German, the swastika and the Christian cross is part of his history that he is exorcising, albeit with deliberate irony and slapstick, of course.
There might be some similarity formally as you could also compare him with Basquiat’s pictorial construction. But you know Anselm Kiefer has used those symbols (the cross and swastika) as well, although with such revolting heavy handedness. Meese’s style has more likely emerged from the work of a lesser-known older German artist named Andreas Hofer. His vocabulary ranges from Christian, Satanist, astrological or mythological symbolism, to recollections from art history — like Malevich’s “Black Square,” which he quotes with a pair of vampiric fangs added.
Also without any discernible preference, he juxtaposes figures from Hollywood, pop culture and comic strip with icons of Modernism or sci-fi, and confronts elements of horror from Western mass media with the disgraced, banned stylistic features that mark the art of the Third Reich.
Hofer might have been familiar with my work when he was studying in London in the ’90s since I exhibited in London at the Saatchi Collections in ’92 and at Delfina in ’98. Hmm... Now I wonder.
Are you planning or already creating artworks for your next show? What’s the concept?
Yes, I will be having a show at Finale. Not sure if it’s in November or December. The concept for the next show will be based on the cat I live with and his territorial markings. Since the beginning of this year, I have lived with an un-spayed cat, Pancho, and he has peed on a lot of things I have lying around my house. Now I have decided to move him into my studio and let him pee on whatever is in my studio. Whatever object Pancho pees on will be the work that will be shown at Finale. I imagine the show will smell of cat pee, so not only will the show be visual, but there will also be an olfactory dimension to the exhibition.
What do you collect?
At the moment I have a cold so I’m collecting snot rags. I once did a show with framed snot-filled tissues in Frankfurt. The show focused on attempting to invoke Hegel’s Phenomenological Spirit. In the show I had installed hammocks, hookah pipes with hash, porn magazines, different kinds of wigs, and the floors were littered with all these painted adages taken from high art and low art, from philosophical ruminations to lumpen superstitious sayings. They were painted on plywood boards and were scattered all over the floor as if you just happened to stumble on an earthquake disaster site, or a construction site, or some destabilized foundation making it hard to traverse the gallery.
So, the show was partly making a joke on or playing around with Hegel’s conception of knowledge and mind (and therefore also of reality) as the notion of identity in difference (wigs). That the mind externalizes itself in various forms and objects (snot, mind trip, sex) which stand outside of it or opposed to it. And that, through recognizing itself in them, (you are the snot because it emanates from you and your body is the rag) is “with itself” in these external manifestations. So that they are at one and the same time mind and other-than-mind.
I don’t know. The show didn’t make sense to me.
Anyway, back to the collection question, I’ve been collecting pirate DVDs, discarded parts of plywood from construction sites, bent nails and socks with holes, and modernist design pillows and cups and saucers from Shopwise.
Do you watch the evening news? Do you watch Wowowee?
I don’t watch TV. It gets on my nerves. I get my news from the Net or from friends. I don’t watch Wowowee. I’m involved in this project where I’m supposed to collaborate with well-known Fil-Am artist Paul Pfeiffer, and international cult figure David Medalla.
As my idea, I want David — this perspicacious, eccentric Fil-Brit artist — to be a contestant on Wowowee. I want to see how he’ll hold up among the people. With Paul I’m asking him to design suits for vagabonds (taong grasa).
What do you do when not painting?
I went to see a psychiatrist. He said, “Tell me everything.” I did, and now he’s doing my act.
POSTSCRIPT
I got a lot of comments about my
article on Manuel Ocampo that
came out last Monday — from art-
ists, gallery owners, and STAR readers. I appreciate everything. The good. The bad. And the weirdly. Even this comment on the paper’s website from a certain “Mr. Paul”:
“Dear Igan, Manuel’s cat-piss art is painted by a con-man for fools. Could even Dennis Hopper pay to own this garbage? You plan to continue this (article) when nobody will even take time to pay attention? Find another line of work and quit wasting your time. Lord, let salvation spring up within Igan, that he may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory! Your Creator wants a relationship with you and died on the cross to save you. Let God’s light shine bright in your life.”
Ah, what did Elaine in Seinfeld say about hell? “Those caves, the ragged clothing, and the heat! My God, the heat!”
* * *
Special thanks to MJO and MM Yu.
