Tag Archives: visual arts

kultura

when ‘i love you’ is enough

Not quite impressed with the valentine exhibit at Manila Contemporary in February – save for Angelo Suarez’s “Not the Object, But the Energy It Consumes Over Time” and Rachel Rillo’s “Keep It Taut” – I was ready to be disappointed in the I Love You exhibit at Hiraya Gallery (530 UN Avenue, Ermita, Manila). But I was impressed, at the works that were there, bound together by the idea and act of saying “I loveyou”. The sculptures should’ve been an indication: Agnes Arellano’s “Kissing Yabyum” was clean white and sexy; and Ramon Orlina’s “Father’s Delight” seemed to be in action, dancing joyfully to its notion of i-love-you. I was in for a good show.

A funny kind of lovin’

Ronald Caringal’s “Love is in the air, or the source of it” is a funny take on love doggie-style, that is, an image of a real dog smelling the behind of a stuffed dog. Against a dark backdrop with cartoon-like dogs, and “I love you” in tiny red letters, this takes a jab at our own humanly acts of saying I love you when it is based on the way something looks versus what something is. (more…)

kultura

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…)

kultura

Ethnic-abstraction evolves in Ebarle’s hands

We are told many things about being an artist, one of which is that you must start young. The other is that there’s no money in it, unless you’re one of the lucky ones who ends up having a fixed market for your art, or the one to whom money doesn’t matter. Jane Arietta-Ebarle doesn’t fall under any of these categories. In fact, she falls nowhere near them.

This isn’t just because she has come into painting again only after seeing three kids through to their own careers; nor is it just because she’san established professional and president of the Philippine Art Educators Association. More than any of these, it is because Ebarle has found herself – literally and figuratively – in a kind of art that’s rare in these shores.

In her first one-woman show, Ebarle rendered ethnic patterns onto canvas, using acrylic as her chosen medium. It was in “Pagluwas”, her second exhibit though, where the inspiration of ethnic patterns became secondary to what would become Ebarle’s abstract art. In her Maranao series for that exhibit, the repetition of ethnic weaves are not only less structured, but are stunted altogether by the random strokes that permeate each work. (more…)

kultura

art on fire!

Not literally of course. Though it’s entirely possible that had the venue allowed it at least one of the 10 Most Exciting Young Artists chosen by Inquirer Lifestyle and Nokia would’ve used fire as a real live element, or burned down an artwork altogether. Which of course defeats the purpose of selling art, but then again, that doesn’t seem to be the point for many of the works here.

Winner Jumalon’s “Shady Tree”, an installation of a life-size resin sculpture of a fallen tree trunk seems simple enough, except that the tree’s crown is created by a bunch of framed black and white photographs spread sporadically on the floor, including one frame placed on the panel saved for Jumalon’s work.

Buen Calubayan’s “My Virgin Mama” meanwhile seems like a traditional looking Virgin Mary from afar, but up-close it becomes apparent that it’s a merging of the faces of the latter and Jesus Christ. Across it is stated, “Diyos dapat ito kaya lang maling medium talaga ang painting e”.  This canvas is submerged in water – which on opening night also had one live fish floating, and pieces of toothpick that Calubayan himself had thrown in for some good “Art is no God!” measure. Not far from this installation is a bottle filled with crumpled canvas in white liquid: trashed art it is!

Art buyers must have asked: how do we even begin to imagine owning this work? But maybe here lies the fire of much of the work in this exhibit: it’s an “Up Yours!” to anyone who expected easier art. There is happily none of that here.

Kiri Dalena’s three installations include “Found Figure 2”, a terra cotta sculpture of a pregnant woman on a tub of water and lilies, alongside a wooden bed filled with the same. Not far from this installation is a digital video loop entitled “Floodwaters”, of how waters rose in Pakil Laguna. These three pieces are a haunting paean to the flood’s aftermath, an imagination of what it is that remains true, without exoticizing the bodies it has rendered defenseless.

Mark Salvatus’ “Crowd”, a mixed media installation of steel birds in various forms of flight and fluorescent lights, is a statement on migration with disregard for destination. It is placed on the floor by an unpainted wooden wall that screams “Cultural Production” in huge black letters, a statement as well on the kind of copying that goes on in the kinds of cultural products we create, even when our main products are our people.

Farley del Rosario’s “Bridged” is a daring take on how communication just might be our downfall. Two miniature clay figures speak through tin cans tied by one string in front of del Rosario’s canvas, in which is his standard figure, surrounded by miniature versions of itself. All of them are bound by the lines that symbolize communication, but instead of tin cans these lines connect mouths and ears in various dimensions and colors. The seeming mess of lines and thoughts, and the way they are intertwined isn’t at all a simplistic view of bridging communication. We are already bridged because we cannot remove ourselves from this mess, this noise, these conversations.

Dina Gadia’s “Bad Art for Bad People” is a rendering of a woman in a leopard print bikini riding and about to slay a tiger. This was obviously a statement on the notions of popular art as bad art, and of bad art being for bad people. It is as well a statement on how what is bad is really intertwined with stereotypical judgments of women, and what she cannot be.

Lindslee’s abstract works stand out not just because it is amidst realism, but because its three dimensional aspect is crazy creative. “Paradox” and “Under Appreciated” appear on two sides of the same wall, bound together by two triangular beams, that seem to protrude from both works. The geometric lines and shapes of the works, its bright crazy colors, vis a vis blank spaces of white and gray, are strangely familiar in their being forgotten. Or just mis-/un-understood.

But the most fire and daring here comes from curator Jay Pacena and his vision for the exhibit. Pacena’s installations on the first floor of the exhibit area become more interesting after opening night, as the square beams in various sizes and positions seem to be installed into the floor, growing out of and into each other. These shapes are used as well on the panels reserved for each artwork, with protrusions of smaller beams unsystematically placed on its sides.

The installation of the 10 artists’ works are interactive and connected, obviously not in terms of form or content, but in terms of an energy that allows for the eyes to travel across various artworks at any given time, from any given standpoint. The panels are spaced apart, allowing for a line of vision to a piece of art by someone else’s hands. So  you stand by Jumalon’s work and see Gadia’s, Lindslee’s, Kawayan de Guia’s, and Dalena’s; you stand between Clairlyn Uy’s two panels, and see del Rosario’s clay installation, and a wee bit of Lindslee.

The possibilities of seeing things differently become endless, the experience of art as interactive happens beyond the artworks and into the curator’s head: what he imagines about this exhibit, where he wants to take you. Having done so much here, it would be most interesting – and exciting! – to see, what it is Pacena and these 10 artists can do with fire.

komentaryo

the rich ba kamo?

nakita ko silang lahat.

all under one NBC tent, last thursday, stormy weather notwithstanding. apparently, art can bring all of  our alta sociadad together, given too that this was a first-of-its-kind art event: the Manila Art 2009. with most of  manila’s galleries bringing the paintings, sculptures and mixed-media works under their roofs, this was a free-for-all, really. a one-stop shop for anyone who’s interested in art in the philippines.

this apparently, is what the rich of this country have in common other than their money: art.

but of course being my middle class self, recently becoming familiar with the kind of market that continues to exist for art in this country, i had come in the fanciest of my public-school-teacher attires, flowy skirt, wedge heels, the most make-up i can bear. i failed to take into consideration the rich coming in black coats and barongs, long gowns and cocktail dresses.

my happy flowy beige-and-orange dress could only float above the din of black.

naisip ko: para silang nagluluksa.

but this was no sorrowful night. in fact, for the artists and the galleries, it seemed like the one affair they were thankful to be in. for art critics — and the wannabes like me — it was a rare chance to be in the company of all these artworks. for the rich, well, this was a time to hobnob, have pictures taken, smoke cigarettes outside because you know, it’s not allowed inside.

and it was there that i realized how justice exists in this world.

woman 1: you know, i love this event because we get to buy all this art! i think this is what will keep art alive in this country.

woman 2: yeah, the art world shouldn’t depend on governement, they should depend on the rich for support. that’s the only way.

woman 1: oh, look at that car, he’s in the way, nagta-traffic tuloy. filipinos talaga.

man (pointing at the traffic): now THAT, is art.

if the pinoy artist can depend on this rich to be their clients, and this rich can barely get themselves off of their perch, enough to really and truly understand what ails the filipino — artist and otherwise — then the art worldwill survive as a matter of course. it may remain inaccessible to the majority of filipinos, and it may be used against them by the rich, ah, but it will just fluggin’ exist.

in a tent with the tessa prietos and tim yaps of this world, buying art like there’s no tomorrow, i am reminded not just of how the rich can survive these times of crisis. they can afford to be alive and well, and spend money that can feed a poor family for a full half-year, for one piece of artwork.

such is the social crisis of our time.