Tag Archives: Pinoy art

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romance(s) in Catalina Africa’s “The Etymology of Disaster”

It’s easy to be distracted by how pretty the works of Catalina Africa are in The Etymology of Disaster (West Gallery, West Avenue, Quezon City). The work that welcomes you to the exhibit after all, is a collage of black and white photos of sunsets, reminiscent of and invoking romance, the kind that we all know off. The letters that spell “departure” in bold bright pink letters makes it seem like both sunsets and disasters are happy. This dynamic between the brightness and the darkness, though all romantic.

Our shadows in boxes

A non-descript shadow box with a bunch of brightly colored used and uneven candles seems happy from afar. Up close you’ll find that it is attached to a mirror, is bound by a chain, atop what looks to be a tiny skateboard. “Home Guide to Bullfighting” requires the spectator’s reflection, as her incomplete image disturbed by the candles attached to the mirror, necessarily invokes an amount of discomfort. The sadness comes from the realization that this might be about you, and the ways in which home is about a bullfight, is about being chained down, is about wanting to get away, candles as symbol of both hope and death.

“Maybe, Baby (Study for a Parfait)” is a shadowbox with a piece of shell against what looks like a chest x-ray result. The word “maybe” is spelled out on the shell, the last four letters in white ink, the yellow letter M hanging from the shell. The light and love in a piece of shell, something that’s cliché souvenir, which is always one of a kind, ties the rarity with the uncertainty of something being experienced again. The x-ray kills the romance, as it proves life at the same time that it fails to see its heart. Maybe, there is love here. Maybe there is heart. Maybe, baby, there’s romance.

Breaking it gently, subtly

Africa’s “Broken Pleases” is an enlarged photo of the beach, with brown sand, a dark sea and blue skies. Bright colored balloons fly against the sky, though not freely: the balloons are tied to a step ladder, the same color of the sand. The sky is alive, as are the balloons, and yet what is alive is held down by what’s on land. This is how things are broken, where what pleases is destroyed by what it has to live with: the sky against the darkness of the beach, the balloons against land.

This dynamic of being held down, is also in “Happy Camping II” – a triptych of photos of a wooden house set-up against the greenery of a park. The first image shows the facade of the house, the second is its other side which reveals it to be a one-dimensional structure, the third seems to show one of two panels used on the house. While there is no destruction here in the conventional sense, the slow revelation of what this house actually – to be just a piece of plywood, be further divided into smaller pieces of wood panels – invokes a strange sense of sadness at how true it could all still be.

No happy in the ending

The rendering of sunsets and moments and love in “The Etymology of Disaster” is a happy and romantic thing by itself – there is nothing here that’s sad or destructive. Until the bright pink letters that spell “departure” sinks in, and you realize what these sunsets actually are: they are endings. And with the notion of leaving, of separation, of impending absence, Africa is able to point out that there is no happiness in these endings, there are no happy endings.

Which is true as well for the romance with poverty that popular culture lives off of, the kind that allows for a brand like the defunct Wowowee, to invoke so many other images, including that of tragedy. In “Wowowee” Africa installs seven photos, one for each letter, each one rendered through colorful flowers and twigs, and set against the ground upon which too many died in the show’s stampede. The prettiness of the flowers and their bright colors, don’t do much for the sadness that happens with this ending.

Meet yourself

It’s in “Happy Camping I” though, that the mind of Africa comes alive. A framed white piece of paper, written on which is an extended spider map in pencil. The map begins at the center with the word “LET’S” – obviously a reference to the invitation, “Let’s go camping!” What floored me was the thought process that went into this work, where that center branched out into six thoughts that interconnect at certain points, allowing for a set of activities that could/would happen in chronological order.

Camping here becomes analogous with doing whatever it is we want, beyond rules and parents and school and convention. Here, happiness is borne of this unimaginable freedom that would allow us to talk about “ordering someone to take off his pants, exhausting all possibilities, making a soundtrack for pissing, gambling our lives away, engaging in dangerous liaisons, starting a fire, smoking grass.”

Of course what is ultimately sad is the fact that while these are freedoms we hold dear, we cannot easily (if at all!) exercise these freedoms. And that, Africa teaches us, is where our romance with disaster lies.

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note: all photos taken byme. the West Gallery site is down, but it’s at http://www.westgallery.org.

other reviews up at: suddenschool and nothingspaces.

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saved by salvatus! notes on the ateneo art awards 2010

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Arts and Books Section, August 23 2010.

Because Mark Salvatus and his work inspired by the Quezon Provincial Jail would be the most logical choice for the Ateneo Art Award 2010, to this critic who has seen most these artists’ exhibits when they came out in galleries and museums across the metro, and who does insist on relevance and resistance, and its possibilities in art.

Of the 12 short-listed artists with works in exhibition at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall’s Grand Atrium, Salvatus’ installation “Secret Garden” and painting “Do or Die” were the most outright political, speaking of the lives we’d rather forget about, the silence that is as noisy as our screams. The jail ain’t a pretty place, especially in the Philippines. The ugly ain’t the usual set of works that we see the Ateneo Art Awards (AAA) liking, and let’s not even begin about the political.

The argument would be of course, that everything is political. And looking at the manner in which this AAA exhibit exists can only be telling. In the context of this high-end mall, with mostly foreign shops, the second floor lobby filled with contemporary (and young) Pinoy art just seemed so out of place. Or maybe it was perfect. (more…)

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Art thinks highly of itself in “The Death of Death”

A version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 19 2010, in the Arts and Books section.

There was nothing exciting about the façade of the space where “The Death of Death (is alive and kicking”) (SM Art Center, 4th FL, SM Megamall) was being exhibited. On one side was a black tarp with the list of participating artists, on the other was a cartoon-like rendition of a skull. Between the dark colors and skull, this told me not to expect much, which directly contradicts curator Igan D’ Bayan’s “non-curatorial statement.” I began reading the note after I had slept on this exhibit longer than I would any other, still not finding some crux from which to begin analysis. The curatorial note, while no god, might give me a sense of the project’s notions of itself, a good starting point for understanding the exhibit. Of course sometimes, as with “The Death of Death”, the curatorial note fails as well.

No limitations equal clichés

There were too many skulls for one thing, and this wouldn’t have been a problem if these renderings didn’t look like things we’ve seen in popular culture before. Kiko Escora’s “Bungi” was funny with its hot pink background and its rendering of a skull with missing teeth, but it’s something we’ve seen in the local comedy films before.  D’ Bayan’s “Armageddon Boogie”, the steel installation that greets you when you enter the space, also looks like something you’ve seen and killed in video games before. (more…)

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kawayan de guia: no compromises

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 26 2009.

Kawayan de Guia is clear about his art. It’s his way of talking to the world, engaging it in dialogue, transcending its limits. It’s his upbringing, his lifeblood, his provincial context that is Baguio. It’s his grounding in history, his way of telling stories, his political stance.

Speaking this concretely and categorically about his art, Kawayan just might be the more uncompromising of our contemporary young artists. To explain one’s art may after all be seen as violent to one’s works, if not the end to one’s career: isn’t the appeal of art precisely its lack of clear reason?

But Kawayan tells it otherwise. The human condition is central to his work, cutting across the tragic and comic towards the boastful, highlighting the notions of progress and development as falsities, bringing to the fore the need to see a bigger picture. To Kawayan, the structures that abound in our world are but perspectives that need to be broken down into pieces, if only to take discussions to another place, that’s anywhere but here. (more…)