Because objects tie us to home, the things we carry are about the self we want to keep. Where there is no packing lightly when objects come to represent who we are, where we’ve been, where we hope to go. Where the usefulness of objects becomes secondary to the task of keeping, if not holding tight, lest self and memory and meaning are lost in the act of leaving.
But notions of migration – not just movement – are carried by the balikbayan box itself as symbol, the box from which these objects sprout. It’s in that way that these objects, while representative of what keeps people tied to spaces and selves left behind, is also about how many lives are rendered ephemeral and transient, in constant flux, in an ongoing process of coming and going.
In that sense, these objects’ meanings cannot but change, rendering stability untrue, putting a spotlight on the ideas that surround migration as a gift to nation. Because these objects are about home. This one from which we come, this one that has made a business out of letting its people go, sacrificing families and children’s upbringing, putting into question truths of completeness and normalcy.
and how art criticism fails in this country. stop talking to the artists! start looking at their work!
"Pure" by Martin Honasan
The endless gaze in Digging In The Dirt
In literature we always say the author is dead, a convenient and highly questionable concept really that allows the reader a pretense of reading only the text, ignoring as much as possible the notion of the writer as center of truth. In reviewing art, it still seems like a contradiction to do an interview with the artist in relation to a new work; always this means falling into the trap of making him explain himself.
This is what’s working against Digging in the dirt, an exhibit that’s interesting enough to talk about extraneous to who the artist is – or what that name holds. What’s in a name, when you’ve got some art to look at really, and portraits that already demand a conversation? This is the work of Martin Honasan.
The first thing that strikes you is the breadth of the portraits that are here (and the fact that it’s in the midst of a busy mall’s hallway): from huge canvases with heavy acrylic paint to small canvases with sparse almost pen and ink sketches rendered in watercolor, from dark almost dank colors to bright yellows and reds and stark whites. Even just the heavy hand in the large canvases vis a vis the lighter hand used for the smaller work is unique in itself, especially when one considers that across these portraits are the eyes as focal point, no matter how it’s rendered, regardless of the size of the work.
Enjoy Division is a group exhibit not just with a wonderful title, but which had a curatorial note by Antares Gomez Bartolome that the Light&Space Contemporary gallery decided to put down.
the said note was critical of Malaysian curator Adeline Ooi’s assessment of Philippine contemporary art which looked down on us, i.e., “We already know you were conquered by the Spanish, sold to the Americans, raped by the Japanese and totally fucked over by Marcoses” but which praised artists influenced by Roberto Chabet. (that article was up at businessworld which now requires you to pay to see its archives. bleh.)
since Light&Space Contemporary’s censorship of the curatorial note, artists of Enjoy Division have decided to take down the exhibit.
it seems about right that they do, given the fact that there is no intelligent response from the gallery — at least none that’s been made public — other than what’s here.
via @Antares Gomez B. on Facebook (August 29)
Dear Light & Space Contemporary,
I am posting this essay for purposes of establishing a dialogue. Kindly reply with your reason/s for taking the essay down. So far, all I have is a forwarded message from Buen Abrigo, one of our organizers, who received a message from you. It reads: “Ano ba nangyari? tinangal namin yung writeup nyo, sablay sya men, sabihin nyo sa writer nyo, d namin susuportahan yung writeup, di pwde i publish gamit anglight and space. Maganda sana at solid yung show pero panira lang yung writer, gusto mo magusap tayo mamaya para malinaw sa inyo kung bakit d approve yung writeup.”
it’s interesting here how a show is judged as “maganda at solid” extraneous to its a curatorial note. the next step would’ve been for the gallery to explain their reasons for saying yes to this exhibit to begin with — what exactly did they think it would be about? — because they seem to be surprised about that note, when it could only be an integral part of the process of putting up that exhibition. of course it’s entirely possible that the process is different for this gallery, and that they were really truly surprised, then maybe the question should be: why? what was so wrong about an essay that critiques a foreigner’s take on Pinoy art?
and really, how do we deal with the notions of the curatorial note being separate from the exhibit it curates? though maybe let’s start by talking about the difference between the curatorial note and its writer: sablay yung write-up? panira yung writer? ganda.
via @Antares Gomez B. on Facebook UPDATE (August 31):
During our exhibition group’s meeting yesterday evening, we decided to ask the gallery for a written explanation for their decision to ban the essay. We received two text messages from them.
“Right din ng gallery na tanggalin ang mga bagay na negative or nakakasira sa gallery at sa mga tao na involved dito, ayaw namin makisama sa drama nyo kay ooi”
-Pow Martinez 30 Aug 2011 9:43pm
“Pwede naman palitan yung exhibit text nyo na walang name dropping na negative na sinasabi.”
-Pow Martinez 30 Aug 2011 10:08pm
We decided to ask if these two messages constituted the official statement of the gallery as they were rather general and vague.
We then received a telephone call from Pow Martinez where Buen Abrigo explained that the works could not sacrifice the essay, that the works were the manifestations and elaborations of the essay’s sentiment and vice versa, and that the criticism of how certain parties are distorting and exploiting (the making of) art history was integral to the exhibition’s concept.
The reply was that the gallery did not agree with our concept. “Lame” was the word.
We have since decided to withdraw our works from this so-called alternative space.
Despite our disappointment with the gallery management, we take heart that the exhibition was able to highlight the ideological lines that divide the milieu we are part of, lines that help determine the breadth, pitch, and span of critical art production and discourse.
and so it becomes clear: as far as the gallery’s concerned: (1) no curatorial note can say anything negative and/or namedrop, and (2) responding to a foreign curator’s statements about Philippine art is “drama” that’s negative. and yes, we got that loud and clear, it’s the gallery’s right to take down a curatorial note, BUT keep the exhibit that goes with it as if it stands on its own. got it.
on Enjoy Division 1 via Antares Gomez B's Facebookon Enjoy Division 2 via Antares Gomez B's Facebook
so you know, there is actual debate and engagement with the strategies/tragedies/ concepts/ideologies/fictions that create this art world, and then there’s murahan at personalan, walang paliwanagan. and there are mafias and cliques and friendships, a refusal to change the way things are, and the general disregard for and distrust in criticism, even when they dish it against critics who engage them in intelligent discourse.
right here is why i never agreed with the idea that the one great thing to come out of the conservative controversy that was poleteismo is that people will start talking about philippine art. because the censorship of Enjoy Division’s curatorial note was infinitely more offensive and should resonate for anyone who writes — anyone at all — and as such demands involvement from those who joined the fray of kulo’s closure.
but the national artist and the high-and-mighty writers of this world don’t seem to care about art anymore, even when it’s been trampled upon by a foreigner with false grand statements about Pinoy art, even when it is censored in light of protecting one way of viewing art making in this country.
we prove in the end that post-poleteismo, and save for the grand couple of weeks when everyone was suddenly an art critic in this country and no one complained, the issue of censorship in the arts and the systems that allow it — without the noise of the penis — will only fall on deaf ears.
Going to art exhibits and events since 2009, I find that what I enjoy most about it is the solitude and silence. I’m not known in art circles (or any circle for that matter) and can go around unobtrusively; on “gallery days” it’s rare that there are other spectators, least of all someone I know, in these art spaces. It’s a gift, a break I take even as it requires trips to places from UN Avenue in Manila to West Avenue in Quezon City. The time becomes mine, the art I own with my gaze.
It was with this same gaze, within the same task of going to see as many exhibits as I can, that I went to Kulô at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on July 2 2011. I was doing Virgin Labfest 7 marathons, and made sure to come early to spend a good hour at the gallery. A day or so after, I virtually happened upon participating artist Pocholo Goitia and told him how much I loved the exhibit, the best of the Rizal efforts I’d seen so far; a couple of weeks after he tells me in passing that it’s gotten into some controversy or other and I brush it off: who has cared about art in the past three years that I’ve been engaging with it in my own way(s)? Given Kulô’s premises I also thought the only ones who’d wrongly take offense would be the University of Santo Tomas (UST), alumni as the exhibiting artists are of the said university, the Goitia essay particularly placing the exhibit within, beyond and against the said institution. (more…)
Going to art exhibits and events since 2009, I find that what I enjoy most about it is the solitude and silence. I’m not known in art circles (or any circle for that matter) and can go around unobtrusively; on “gallery days” it’s rare that there are other spectators, least of all someone I know, in these art spaces. It’s a gift, a break I take even as it requires trips to places from UN Avenue in Manila to West Avenue in Quezon City. The time becomes mine, the art I own with my gaze.
It was with this same gaze, within the same task of going to see as many exhibits as I can, that I went to Kulô at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on July 2 2011. I was doing Virgin Labfest 7 marathons, and made sure to come early to spend a good hour at the gallery. A day or so after, I virtually happened upon participating artist Pocholo Goitia and told him how much I loved the exhibit, the best of the Rizal efforts I’d seen so far; a couple of weeks after he tells me in passing that it’s gotten into some controversy or other and I brush it off: who has cared about art in the past three years that I’ve been engaging with it in my own way(s)? Given Kulô’s premises I also thought the only ones who’d wrongly take offense would be the University of Santo Tomas (UST), alumni as the exhibiting artists are of the said university, the Goitia essay particularly placing the exhibit within, beyond and against the said institution.
When the noise about Kulô became real to me, I couldn’t even believe it was about Mideo Cruz’s “Poleteismo.” My experience of the installation as part of the exhibit was limited to two points of interest: one, the manner in which the various works of Cruz were curated and put together into this one installation that allowed it to be powerful from outside without the crucifix and without zeroing in on what else was attached to those walls; and two, the fact that it still seemed to work for me, old as the work was. Context could only be the reason for the latter, and in the case of this exhibit which consisted of many old works, context was key: there’s the fact of UST no matter the individual relationships of the artists with the institution, and there’s the 150 years of Jose Rizal, a UST alumnus.
