Yankee Doodles

ARTIST ANTIPAS "Biboy Delotavo thought twice before accepting the invitation to join the exhibit "Yankee Doodles", because the turn-of-the-century cartoons which the group of 10 artists would react seemed to be a better subject for editorial cartoonist and illustrators.

But a quote from Mark Twain helped change his mind: "And as for a flag for the Philippine province, it is easily managed, we can have a special one–our states do it; we can just have our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and stars replaced by the skull and crossbones."

Thus was born the idea for Delotavo’s Ang Watawat Ayon Kay Mark Twain, one of ten multimedia works, paintings, installations and sculptures in Yankee Doodles, an exhibit that opens today at the CCP Main Gallery and runs until month’s end. The exhibit is part of Sangandaan 2003, subtitled "a cultural commemoration of a century of Philippine-American relations".

Aside from Delotavo, other artists in Yankee Doodles are his fellow social realists Edgar Talusan Fernandez and Al Manrique, Elmer Borlongan and Neil Manalo of the Salingpusa group, Imelda "Meps" Cajipe-Endaya, Norberto "Peewee" Roldan, Brenda Fajardo, Gerry Leonardo, and recent Araw ng Maynila patnubay ng sining awardee Roberto Feleo.

Curator for the project is UP Fine Arts professor Santiago "Jack" Pilar, while exhibit designer is Fatima Lasay. Cartoons the artists reacted to were culled from the US magazines Life, Judge and Puck, which all appeared during the turn of the last century, when the newly landed colonists started their benevolent–or is it malevolent–assimilation of these islands.

The cartoons themselves are part of a separate exhibit entitled Colored: Black ’n’ White currently touring US cities. Colored: Black ‘n’ White is curated by Filipino activists in the States Helen Toribio, Abe Ignacio and Marivi Blanco.

"They’re all giants in their fields," Pilar says when asked why he chose these specific 10 artists, adding that most of them have been 13 Artists awardees, the biennial award given by the CCP which began as the 13 Moderns.

The project has actually been a year or so on the drawing board, says CCP visual arts coordinator Sid Hildawa, although the artists met with the curator just three months ago. Each of them was given a budget of P20,000 for their material.

Have the cartoons changed much after a hundred years, meaning, Fil-Am relations as perceived by the Americans?

"It’s like déjà vu," says Cajipe-Endaya, whose work is entitled Our Terms, in reaction to the cartoons under Conquest and Commerce, and which employs fabrics as well as found objects like coconuts.

Coconuts like bombs, and vice versa–a political statement in itself, even as the artist says she is "galit sa space."

Neither are there any political restraints or guidelines for the artists, despite the exhibit being partly sponsored by American public and private institutions, including the US embassy.

Pilar says Yankee Doodles gives the artists free rein to interpret Fil-Am relations a century down the road, to see if there are positive influences, "kung meron man".

Looking at the cartoons, though, both Endaya and Delotavo agree that it would be impossible not to react strongly against such depictions of Filipinos as cannibal-like, tree-dwelling natives resembling the missing link.

There’s even one cartoon, Delotavo says, that eerily echoes recent events, wherein Aguinaldo is portrayed with a sash that reads "Dictator," and the conquering Americans come across as crusading policemen out to set things aright.

Fernandez, on the other hand, recalls a grandmother–or is it grandaunt–of his who would take no crap from the new colonizers, earning her a crisp "bulsyet" from the rebuffed Kano.

Fernandez, described as a visionary in the coffeetable book Art Philippines for his portrait of Inang Bayan in the painting Bagong Umaga, has put together Perya for the exhibit, centered on a shooting gallery-like contraption that is a fixture in most local fairs and carnivals.

During a meeting of the artists with Pilar, Lasay and Hildawa Thursday before last at the CCP, wherein the artists presented their final concepts and were assigned their respective alcoves in the main gallery, Fernandez was still seriously considering whether Perya would encourage audience participation in handling the makeshift guns.

It is Fernandez’s alcove which one sees to the right upon entering the gallery, opposite Fajardo’s Kabaliktaran, her reaction to three separate cartoons. Fajardo, who started out as a printmaker a la Pandy Aviado and Ray Albano, has been known for her re-interpretations of the tarot and triptych panels, and her work here should be another pleasant surprise.

Occupying the middle of the space like a two-man show in a class by themselves are the works of Feleo and Leonardo.

Feleo, who has worked extensively in multimedia projects including The Soul Book with Gilda Cordero-Fernando, did not react to a particular cartoon, but to the wholesale Black ‘n’ White traveling show.

Little Brown Olympia on the Styx is a large-scale sculpture of a boat about to sail off to Never-never land, and for this Feleo makes liberal use of acrylic emulsion. Whether the Olympia the artist is referring to was the SS Thomas or the first typewriter in the sticks of Manila’s 19th century backwater, or something else similarly mind-blowing, we have to see for ourselves.

Leonardo, arriving for the near panic-mode meeting with buko pie from his Los Baños base, says that his The Story of the Dogman is less an indictment of the imperial big brother than it is a statement on our own psychological mindset at the feet of Uncle Sam.

The Fort Bonifacio public art winner will be employing the ceiling of the gallery to hang some stuff, not the least of which is the spread-eagled savior giving liquid sustenance to his tail-wagging, dog-like minions below.

Likewise located on opposite alcoves are Roldan (White Love, Love White), who like Endaya has also worked with textiles before, and Borlongan (The Brown Man’s Burden), whose work may continue in the vein of Salingpusa and his contributions to the defunct Midweek magazine.

Rounding up the show are Manalo’s The Spirit of the USA in the alcove opposite Manrique’s Latay, Peklat, Tattoo at iba pang Kuwento, where an endless VCD loop of the subject cartoons in animation style will be presented in a barrio-like setting.

Hildawa says there will be no opening ceremonies for Yankee Doodles, and Pilar doubts if the show can be taken abroad for lack of legal tender. Everything you always wanted to know about Fil-Am relations but were afraid to ask is right here, plus a subconscious nugget or two, whether or not Ambassador Ricciardone cuts the ribbon or there is another anti-terrorist drill at the embassy down UN way.

Who knows if these artists will be forever banned from the land of the free and the home of the brave, oh say can you see these crossroads are the key to some kind of wonderful counter-assimilation.