Top 25 ‘00’ art triumphs of 2005

Christmas is the only season where you can see a site-specific art installation in every corner of the city. My two favorite "public galleries" to spot "light sculptures" are Gilmore Avenue in Quezon City and South Super Highway corner Buendia in Makati: the parols on display in those two strips can put Dan Flavin and Bridget Riley to shame. The Pinoy lantern dazzles in the same migraine-inducing manner as Op Art, but also maintain a similar utilitarian severity akin to Light Art. Where else but in blackout-stricken Philippines can you find rows upon rows of Christmas lanterns guiding the way of motorists? Now that’s art and function. Meralco aside but electricity-tapping among the needy and the resourceful can at least bring about an efficiently garish aesthetic/ethic so uniquely ours.

Another iconoclastic demonstration of Christmas lighting and décor is the Syjuco residence in Alabang. There is no way of getting around in describing the house’s holiday look: Halloween Schlock (it is a but a stone’s throw from the two village churches, St. James and Rustan’s). But even the Christmas-in-hell furnishing was nothing compared to the eccentric artworks and music the Syjuco brood made when they were in their teens as the art band Faust!. What else could one expect from a family produced by enfant terribles Cesare and Jean-Marie? Conformity was not on their Christmas wish list.

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Neither is it in mine.

Okay, maybe a little.

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So instead of a wish list for 2006, I’d rather focus on the year that still is (not was, as there are still two days to go before New Year’s). Forget politics, economics or genetics – 2005 is definitely the year of contemporary art and culture in the Philippines. Here’s Part 1 of my 25 that spells 00 (yes, yes! Or s*#t to some).

1. Cesare Syjuco, Flashes of Genius, Cultural Center of the Philippines

Speaking of garish aesthetics/ethics, 2005 opened with a retrospective by one of the country’s true art renegades. Although an award-winning poet and critic, Cesare’s writing is meant for the wall and not the page. Traversing the conservative borders between art and literature with ease and boldness, Cesare’s ouvre is the perfect antidote to the provincial view that art cannot be intellectual and juvenile at the same time. The horrible lighting and hardcore electronic music in the CCP Main Gallery were all part of that linguistic charade. Even the show’s title attempted at some kind of a conceit, i.e. criticality.

2. Khavn Dela Cruz, Ang Pamilyang Kumakain ng Lupa, UP Film Institute

Another connoisseur of brown comedy (the Pinoy version of black comedy) and hybrid art practice (he is a filmmaker, poet and musician), Khavn’s films are demented and brilliant. In his new output, the family literally subsists on nothing but soil. Grandpa is a zombie. Father is a serial killer. Mother is a notorious/famous pimp, drug dealer, television personality. Brother is a violent anti-Chinese racist practicing brown supremacy and sister is a drug-addled prostitute. Baby is a midget. The hysterics during the film screening was later topped by an even crazier performance by the Brockas, Khavn’s band with fellow filmmakers Roxlee and Lav Diaz.

3. Underwear Models, Carter Fashion Show, Araneta Coliseum

The best "backstage" fashion show of 2005, bare none.

4. Lena Cobangbang, All That Heaven Allows, Finale Art Gallery

Photography is the winner this year, and Lena’s 20‰ x 30‰ tableaux of foodstuff arranged to recreate images of disaster (or "Terrible Landscapes" as the artist calls them) is good proof that the young medium can ally itself with older forms such as sculpture, theater and why not, cooking. Its reminiscent too of the infamous sausage photographs by the Swiss duo Fischli and Weiss, so it’s hard to resist such a delicious concoction.

5. Jayson Oliviera, Killafoto, Green Papaya Projects

Who said that art couples don’t exist in the Philippines? Lena and Jayson make kick-ass works and the Green Papaya show was another case in point. Scat (and lots of mice) never looked so sublime.

6. That Man Peter Berlin, Pink Film Festival, UP Film Center

I thank the Pink cineastes for this important import. While Peter Berlin served as sometime muse for both Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol and was hankered after by numerous queer folks, he was more than just a piece of meat in super-tight trousers and a Dutchboy haircut. Berlin was also a gifted artist, appearing in two underground classics from the early 1970s, Nights in Black Leather and That Boy. After watching this full-length documentary (and snippets of the mesmerizing Nights) with my death metal hetero friend, I quickly rushed to the World Trade Center for another form of testosterone worship.

7. Juan Dela Cruz, Pagkakalas: The Reunion Concert, World Trade Center

The perfect Independence Day eve gig. Certainly Berlin and Smith’s artistic autonomy are truly inspiring, but Mommy, where did the rest of ’70s idealogues and idols go?

8. Eddie Boy Escudero, When We Danced, Silver Lens Gallery

"When Halloween happened several times a year.

When there was always someone to dance with in the rain.

When people would dance more and text less!

When you’d feel out of place if you showed up ‘normal.’

When the moon held sway.

When we were young and restless.

When we were decadent, yet non-judgmental."

– Karen Kunawicz

9. Tanghalang Pilipino, Romeo Loves Juliet, Cultural Center of the Philippines

In the jologs adaptation of Shakespeare’s immortal love classic, Baranggay Verona is a slum version of Paskuhan Village where the jologs rule – garbed in hip-hop couture, equipped with cellphones and spouting swardspeak. But even with kanto lingo, or precisely because of it, contemporary teen concerns such as suicide and love, as well as violence and vice seemed all the more profound and poetic. And thus a real pleasure to hear.

(To be continued)