BenCab turns 70!

National Artist for Visual Arts Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera was feted at a surprise party last Wednesday, April 11, a day after he bade his sexagenarian decade goodbye.

That doesn’t mean that he’ll be closing down the popular Eros gallery at the BenCab Museum in Baguio any time soon. I’m sure he’ll just keep adding to that burgeoning collection of erotic art even well into his septuagenarian years, maybe with as much passion as he collects bulols or vintage spirit guardians carved from old wood in the Cordilleras.

There’s no turning old for BenCab, as he showed in his usual fine strapping form at the party, where he almost did a song-and-dance number with entertainers Gian Magdangal and Isabella Gonzalez, with the redoubtable Louie Ocampo on keyboards. Witty master of ceremonies Freddie Santos had the evening hopping along, as Ben’s friends old and new came together to toast his 70th year.

The merry company included Ben’s predecessor as National Artist, his fellow master Arturo Luz, with ever-charming wife Tessie, who’s also been after me to stop smoking. (That’s why I often hightail it from her during social occasions, while yet hoping to tow my former balcony partner away from any enclosed venue.)

There was Juvenal Sanso, another master painter. Also around was premier sculptor Mon Orlina, who once traded a prized artwork of his for a BenCab creation to adorn the hood of an automobile that will join Mon’s inspired fleet of “art cars.”

Well, Mon had a fun time thrusting his face through a hole in a life-sized cardboard cutout of Ben barely covering the extremities of an otherwise naked female figure. As did I, and practically all the ladies present, including a nonagenarian. 

There was our old buddy Cid Reyes, himself a visual artist of note besides being one of our foremost art critics, and with whom I co-authored the BenCab book — a broadstrokes bio cum critical evaluation published by Anvil.

Also present were other notable names in the arts (read: visual, theater, literature, film, photography, et al.), including common friends among Baguio’s tight-knit art community.

Oh, I just love namedropping on this rarefied level, albeit a challenge is the power of recall, especially since some glasses of fine wine that night (plus the obligatory whisky in a discreet plastic bottle) might have quickly altered our doors and windows of sosyal perception.

Oh, high-fived it with Tiny Nuyda and Phyllis Zaballero, our old friends from Ermita and San Juan and back. And graphic art master and papermaker Pandy Aviado, also one of Ben’s closest and oldest buddies, and who sometimes even doubles as a spiritual advisor of sorts. 

Glad to glad-hand on the same table as the superlative multi-media artist Bogie Tence Ruiz, his soulmate the writer Rochit Tañedo, Anvil publisher Karina Bolasco, and art collector Gener Adamas, whose misfortune it was a couple of years ago to lose 30 count ’em 30 BenCab works, plus others, in a fire that gutted his residence. Well, world traveler Gener has resumed collecting again. And if his frequent visits to BenCab’s studio are any indication, then he’s off to a fine reboot.

Eventually joining us at our table were Crucible Gallery headman Sari Ortiga, yet another collector, together with one of his favorite exhibitionists, er, ever-sold-artists, no less than my blooming idol and buddy Igan D’Bayan.

Coming over to say hello was another Philippine Star alpha honcho, sculptor cum gourmet cum food book author Claude Tayag, who asked if we had received a copy of his latest title, Linamnam. Note to Karina: kindly have it sent to my neck of the Pasig woods soon.

Ace photog Wig Tysmans also came over, as did photog-turned-cinematographer Romy Vitug, so that it was like the good old days of the late ’60s in Ermita’s Indigo Gallery right beside the now mythical Café Los Indios Bravos on A. Mabini St.

 Another table had film director Butch Perez with fellow Malateño Louie Llamado of the Reyes clan of restaurateurs, who told us that his expanding venture of World Chicken outlets continues to do very well indeed.

Lastly, yes, we did note, and we did buss, the goddesses Gilda Cordero Fernando and Deanna Ongpin Recto seated by yet another table. Carole Tysmans, too. And, well, no, we didn’t buss wine importer Lester Harvey, cuz he’s too tall and something else besides.

We preferred to compete with Mon Orlina for that face space crowning a busty nude in Ben’s arms. And that was before or was it after — the wines and whisky, succulent roast beef, excellent lechon and mushroom cannelloni to die for all mixing together now to put us in a daze — everyone participated in a Ben Cabrera trivia contest with 19 BenCab prints at stake.

Well, such was our diminished power of recall that we couldn’t help our lovely date with answers to any of the questions, so that we almost admitted to the conjecture that Ben may have written an auto-bio and we just affixed an imprimatur for old times’ sake. Why, we couldn’t even give the name of the street in the Sta. Cruz district of Manila where he first spotted his vagrant model for Sabel. Shame, shame in the family! 

 Well, we did the next best thing, which was to admire the humongous Cordillera-inspired birthday cake created by Anna Ocampo Sarmiento. And of course we wondered where her brother Ambeth was. Likely abroad was the answer. So we realized we were missing out on Rico Hizon, too, who probably couldn’t miss out on his broadcast duties in Singapore. 

We surveyed the merry scene and tried to see if the distinguished gentlemen Masters Ocampo and Hizon, among the celebrator’s best buddies, could be concealing themselves among Bobby Gopiao’s superb collection of bulols that lorded it on a corner of the buffet tables. But no, they weren’t among the highland lords.

No matter, perhaps. Ben had enough buddies and models for the evening he stayed sexy if not sexagenarian. Bravo, amigo! Happy 70th!