Hong Kong garden of artsy delights

HONG KONG — It is not exactly a junk boat, but it is quite close.

Wobbly, yes. Creaky, yessiree. You’d half-imagine spotting the whiteness of a whale jutting out from the waters like a snowy hill. “It’s the South China Sea,” informs my seatmate; and, no, I did not ask him. As if knowing the name of the body of water you’re going to drown in is of the essence. Unless you’re an oceanographer. Or Cliff Richard (— “oh, ocean deep…”).

This bobbing enterprise is headed toward Lamma Island, around 30 to 40 minutes by ferry from HK Central, and it is the site of the seafood resto for tonight’s dinner. A place called Rainbow near the Fu Kee Sea-Food Restaurant, known far and wide to Filipinos because of its fabled clam and salt-and-pepper prawn dishes and its unintentionally mischievous name. (A prediction: I would hear an American diner talking to someone on his mobile phone: “Yes, I am having the clam at Fu Kee.”)

Life is good, albeit a bit shaky. There is an icebox full of beer and several packs of smokes on the nailed-down table, but I can’t muster enough gravity to get a brew or light one up. The waves are too damn, uh, wavy.

The protagonists of today’s story are the executives from the Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC), three journalists (including your seasick scribe), a National Artist and his partner, a couple of friends, and the eight winners in this year’s Philippine Art Awards (PAA). On the top deck are the PAA awardees having presumably a sage-like conversation with BenCab about what they saw at the fair — the Art HK 12 fair at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, to be exact, which is in its fifth year of showcasing the very best in contemporary art from both East and West.

“The PAA wants the winning artists to broaden their horizons,” says PAA executive director Dannie Alvarez. I learned before the flight to Hong Kong that aside from the hefty cash prize, the trophy, the acclaim, and that invaluable opportunity to bring their artistic talents to greater heights, the PAA winners (eight out of the 40 regional winners) are sent by the PMFTC on an all-expense paid trip abroad. For this year, PMFTC headed by its president Chris J. Nelson chose Hong Kong so that — rather than just having a touristy trip — the artists will be able to view works by, say, Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst, or Yayoi Kusama and Ai Weiwei at Art HK 12, which is produced in collaboration with Art Basel. And also to attend lectures, exhibitions and symposia being held concurrently with the fair itself, an indelible experience for sure.

PMFTC Inc. corporate affairs director Bayen Elero explains, “Every year, the PAA competition is evolving. (We are continuing to give) a platform for young artists (to showcase their work). We know that Filipino artists can proudly take their place among the best in the world.” Cases in point are David Medalla, Manuel Ocampo and Ronald Ventura. Who knows? Maybe these magnificent eight have it in them to follow in those giant steps someday.

Elero continues, “And we would like to add an educational component to the PAA.” Hence the trip to Art HK 12 with its mind-blowing compendium of gut-busting, genre-bending art inside the convention center.

Fair, Thee Well

At first you’d think an octogenarian is sunning himself under the artificial light at Hall 3 of the event space, one of the centerpieces of the Osage booth. The nerve, the gall, the balls of this guy… wait, he doesn’t have “balls.” It turns out be a, uhm, granny. To be exact, a silicone rubber sculpture of an old woman that sits on a deck chair over a bed of salt, breathes rhythmically, and wants to know what infinity is.       

In another part of the hall, the same artist, Shen Shaomin, has installed more rubbery sculptures of domesticated animals — such as cat, dog, goat, goose, rabbit, pig and chicken. Featherless and flayed, these animals lie on a carpet of coarse salt, comprising an animal farm of future doom. It’s the artist’s way of allegorizing how mankind has turned the world into something inhospitable to life. And salt is something that would outlast everything. Even the breathing. Truly a (pun intended) breathtaking work.

Such is the assemblage of artworks at Art HK 12. Visitors will get delirious with the sheer number of artistic creations by iconic figures (Pablo Picasso! Andy Warhol! David Hockney!), drool at the paintings, sculptures and their attachments of myths by art superstars (Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, Jonathan Meese… Hirst! Hirst! Hirst!), dawdle by the booths of enigmatic, inscrutable is-it-art installations (Jose Patricio’s domino pieces in square patterns on the floor), drop by homegrown galleries participating at the fair (Silverlens, The Drawing Room, Art Informal), and, by the end of the day, get dizzy with the labyrinthine layout of the booths and the names you only encounter in art books (Richard Prince, Daniel Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Takashi Murakami, the list is endless).

(Another prediction: The artists and I would stand on one corner of Lan Kwai Fong — drinking cans of SMB [the best in the world], hitting on pretty passersby [an operation led by the talented chick-lieutenant, “good looks” guy “L.T.”], yet still end up talking about art one way or another, and getting blown away by having seen, say, Warhol’s BMW. It’s Yayoi over some nameless blonde anytime)

And then you wake up the next day to do everything all over again. 

There is Tatsuo Miyajima’s LED digital counter pagoda, inspired by the Hoto treasure pagoda which, in a Buddhist tale, emerges from the ground and is about half as big as the world. There is Yayoi Kusama’s visually eloquent “Flowers that Bloom at Midnight” — all spots and an ode to her surrealistic nightshades of yore. There is Ai Weiwei’s memorial to the school kids who perished in the May 12 Sichuan Earthquake. The controversial Weiwei who sent 1,001 people from China to Kassel, Germany for his Documenta work, “Fairytale”; the controversial Weiwei who painted the ubiquitous Coca-Cola logo and industrial paint on Han Dynasty vases; the controversial Weiwei who filled the floor of Tate’s Turbine Hall with 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds (all individually sculpted and painted by Chinese craft workers); the controversial Weiwei who’s forever getting tangled with Chinese authorities, proving that art can be more rock ‘n’ roll than rock ‘n’ roll.

To see Weiwei’s works — a porcelain watermelon, an installation of 123 framed letters from Chinese government ministries — you can only let out a resounding wow.

Art with meat. Just the way we like it. 

Artspeak

The 2012 PAA grand prizewinner Jericho Valjusto Vamenta shares his thoughts on Art HK 12: “It was good to know that contemporary artists (attempt) to communicate issues that pertain to immediate necessities. Art, which elevates  consciousness and prolongs thought, is what the artist of today  should be catering to. I felt privileged to view the works of Lucian Freud, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Egon Schiele and Chuck Close, which where among my favorites.”

Jake is from Cagayan de Oro. He talks to us about his art, about once running a bar in the South, and about his musician-partner. His winning work is titled “Ang Walang Humpay na Harana ni Temyo kay Magda,” which is the artist’s meditation on the many-headed beast called relationship. He explains, “The work is executed with oil and oil pastel on marine board. The board is coated with primer and several layers of plaster. Filled and rendered with oil colors and pastels from light to dark tones. A topcoat of oil in dark hues is painted over and over layering pastels. I used an industrial nail to scratch the surface.”

I guess with the subject matter (how love becomes this everyday circus of “anger, madness and living”), the process of peeling away and uncovering surfaces was essential for Jake.

Such is how the mind of an artist works. And these are their PAA triumphs.

Art Sanchez created an aerial view of Manila with bubble mirror and trapped images inside, jutting out of the canvas. When Sanchez brought the piece to the submission center, two bubble mirrors fell. Quickly, the artist had to do some retouching.

Louie Talents’ strategy is “to scan the Bible, settles on words that inflect his faith, and cauterizes the minute words that he does not find meaningful.” The process of “burning” is rife with symbolism: burning bush, destructive fire. He amplifies, “Altering a printed book by cauterization with the use of soldering gun goes with its intent to dichotomize a universal book and make it creatively interactive.”

Lotsu Manes, according to art critic Cid Reyes, presents an allegorical vision of the country by painting a drowning scenario. The artist was initially unhappy with the color of the background and had second thoughts on submitting the piece, but his wife was adamant that it was fated for Philip Morris. She was right.

Riel Hilario explains, “My work, ‘Portrait of a Filipino as a Conceptual Artist,’ was provoked into being made by the faddish dismissiveness of craft- and object-based artwork seemingly espoused by the local version of conceptual art that has emerged quite recently as background of practice. As an artist whose work directly connects to a living folk craft, I maintain that the skill of the artist is primary in the making of work and the expression of concept is by means of the piece and not by stage-handling nor curatorial intervention.” 

Raffy Napay’s father has been a tricyle driver for 20 years; his mom, a dressmaker for two decades as well. “Ang Mananahi ng Buhay at Ang Makinang na Makina” is a tribute to his humble, hardworking folks. The artist masterfully used threads instead of oil or acrylic paint, and substituted sewing for brushstrokes. The result is a confessional needlework of parental love. 

Dexter Sy painstakingly plots his paintings with ballpoint pen. He says, “Bata pa lang ako, mahilig na akong mag-drawing. Natuto ako mag-drawing bago pa ako natutong magsulat.” But which came first for Sy — the thought or the drawing?

Therein lies the mystery.

Dock To The Future

The boat finally docks on Lamma Island after its rock ‘n’ roll journey from the central pier. (Prediction no. 3: Jake, Talents and I would gatecrash a mind-altering Chabet exhibit at Osage [friends such as Louie Cordero and Poklong Anading got us in], have an elegant dinner with dignitaries [my seatmate would be a Swiss consul, Talents’ seatmate would be art critic Tony Godfrey], find ourselves at Lang Kwai Fong again with another artist, Pow Martinez, and even get accosted by the Hong Kong Police for no reason — Vere are your papers? — but that’s another story altogether.)    

The PAA artists are inspired by what they’ve seen so far at Art HK 12. Maybe, just maybe, in a couple of years, they will be the ones exhibiting their artworks at the fair and in turn will inspire others. Wait, you could see our junk-boat trip as a metaphor of sorts for the journey of these artists in their respective careers. The waters will be choppy and the sky will be starless like a blanket of black, but the rainbow (well, in this case, Rainbow Restaurant) is just a body of water away.