Ricky V. Ambagan: Distorting As If Life Depended On It

By Jay Bautista

“The whole point of Social Realism (SR) is to get away from orthodoxy. To us (artists) that has always been the challenge. It’s been a constant reinvention. It is SR in the Age of SM.”

Jose Tence Ruiz
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

November 8, 2009


You have to admit there are some pockets in the city where the concentration of the people is just too unbearable -- Quiapo, Monumento, and Kapasigan to name a few. Either for deep religiosity, sheer commerce or mere plain wandering (and wondering) around its streets, it is here that you come across some of the most anarchic and unaccommodating people as subjects. These are spaces your mother constantly nags you not to traverse. In fact, for the most sensitive in us, these may be altars of your darkest fears. Filth, theft, or badly designed billboards on neglected historical landmarks, all abound on them. Like a short kindergarten field trip, all that you need -- and not need to know -- in our country are all here. Like the MMDA-inspired aqua and fuchsia signage that served as invites for this show, one is alerted not to trespass or as translated to nakamamatay.

It was while walking in these same sordid streets, among the nameless throng, that Ricky V. Ambagan deeply reflected on his own individuality as to his directions as an artist. Collectively entitled, Mga Langgam Sa Syudad, these fresh fifteen oil on burlap paintings are the result of that walk and intension for Ambagan’s first solo exhibition. In a country where the arts get little attention outside the art gallery system, discriminating collectors and in the midst of artists who only understand themselves, Ambagan wanted to “capture a moment or freeze an instance” in the lives of this multitude whom he believes will not ever to see his artworks. If they don’t see the show then they will be his show. In honoring them he is the one being honored.

The allegory in which our desperate people in the city to being compared to a mass of ants first come about in the piece entitled Unahan. Here all is not positive with ants as Ambagan is referring to them as people have their own kind of “sweetness” to thrive upon – money, fame, lust – and Manila is one big sugar-coated mecca that they all troop to. Despite their hardworking and patient nature, however once you disturb these ants with their preoccupation with sweetness, they immediately bite back even if it will be like suicide.

The Filipino dream is plain and simple -- to go to Manila to work in order to buy a land in their hometown to retire to. In Luwas, where the ant-like virtues in many of us are attracted in the “sweetness” that is Manila. Notice how people in this painting may band together but are alienated from one another. Everybody seems to be too preoccupied on where to find a more decent job or get the next meal. Or simply how to survive the day. Despite being overcrowded, Ambagan paints you hope as evident in the vast clear clouds in between vendors and buyers.

Unang Paglalakbay 2

You are Watching Me Watching Them Watching You

What excites Ambagan is his penchant for impermanence in these mass-based sites he frequents to. More than 99 channels in a cable television, the streets scenes changes from the last time he was there. The streets resist order, closure and even still moments.

To further feel this urge to document the raging pulse of these city dwellers, with an open mind and a digital camera in tow, Ambagan, felt it natural to photograph these locations which always had heavy concentration of scoundrels, thugs, rogues, and urban denizens generations after generations. His mission was to document the sign of the times not only “with warts and all” but to detail “even the warts and all.” Whether he violated his subjects who don’t know they are being photographed, with the prevalent art practice using in hyper realist mode, its use for painting from photographs has been a long and ongoing debate. Although nobody told him, it wasn’t an easy time every time, as he would be scolded, laughed at lampooned, however a few were delighted.

With the help of modern technology, he unloads the images at home, which he will use as reference in painting and eventually distorting. Like the digital camera, the computer is another tool as to how he would want the image to look like. With a few tweaking and conscious manipulation using the mouse, the image serves as his guide for the actual painting to commence. Whether the spontaneous process is legal, he rises above the controversy in the quality of his execution. Like the paint brush, the camera his palette knife are all part of the multi-media act.

From photographing to the imaging in the computer down to the choice of material for painting, Ambagan is painstakingly meticulous. Even the choice of burlap (peanut sack) more than canvas is commendable as he desires to achieve the texture and the rawness of his subjects. How he adores roughness by his thick smears of paint in disjointed vivacity is very much evident on the pieces. He likes the images to move in a grace-like manner while he busily sketches them futher. He also wants to follow the lines and curves wherever it leads him adding more lines and colors could be a possibility.

Ambagan considers distortion as just another dimension of a painting. At this point, he wants the piece to talk back to him on how it will be finished. The interaction is decisive since the images may opt to be dirty as he found them in the streets or satirically purely clean like what they hope for. How the essential brushstrokes are thickly done will be gut feel by the time he is at work on it. When Ambagan paints it is not frivolity rather a story should be well told, a discourse to be analyzed, or it could simply be a play of technique or illusion to one’s eye. Ambagan is very hefty on the respect between the artist-viewer relationship which makes him even more brilliant. The painter views the subject who one day will view the work of the painter.

Luwas

When Distortion is Actually Straightening Out

A fine arts graduate of the University of the Philippines and member of the art group Manchados, Ambagan is well-versed with the various styles and approaches to paintings. “If you will just stay in your comfort zone and copy whatever is the trend and sellable, then why is it you paint?” he points out. Call him degenerate, he only wants to elevate the discipline of the art, to raise it on a higher plane.

To paraphrase writer and critic, VS Pritchett, “artists are the most boring people in the world because half the time you are talking to them, they are thinking or even painting already in their mind.” Ambagan confessed there was never a time did not paint, even while watching TV or taking a shower, he is obsessed with “mixing two coats of paint taming a monster of an idea on the canvas.”

It was probably on the Light Railway Transit (LRT) that he first chance upon his initial “hazy but distinct” approach to contemporary visual art. In fact Unang Lakbay 2 won for him one of five juror’s choice at the LRT Art Competition 2009 last June. He likes to think while everything is moving in a wave-like manner, and images are in a trance or being danced away into a different oblivion. Looking at the scenes passing on a speeding train has its benefits for him, it is as if he is being treated with a futurist canvas of abstraction. He then becomes more focused and most creative when there are other activities simultaneously happening and as the train arrives at his destination.

Mga Langgam Sa Syudad

Not only are the pieces in this show well-thought of, even heavenly blessed with having survived Ondoy and Pepeng and the sins that they imparted to us but because only Ambagan could sincerely and purposely come up with such. The culmination is in his biggest work and eventual title of the exhibition, Mga Langgam sa Syudad is a 5ft by 5 ft showcase of living energy of a people waiting the arrival of relief goods to be given to them from a big imposing truck at the same time take them to back to their homes again. What Ambagan lacked in conflict he makes up for his use of proportion. His subject are may seem out of focus but the reference may be the constricted space they share as poverty looms the framed existence of these paintings.

Not to downgrade his sense of nationalism but it was the European masters Edward Munch and Edgar Degas that Ambagan was heavily influenced and inspired him. Munch’s Scream is Ambagan’s Siksikan, Degas’ ballet dancers could be Ambagan’s pedicab and vendors. To view what he calls “the sweetness of my pieces” is how it speaks of the times and how he chronicles their city which is his too.

When Ambagan won ArtPetron on its first offing he bested among the best some of them are now making name in the art scene. Seeing his works now, tension runs in your spine. At a glance one may consider dizziness like that of a hungry and desperate man but after looking hard the works pull you into a suction-like desolation. His titles may seem autobiographical as claims his 11th hour is near. But that’s the beauty of Ambagan’s art, he aims for the unexpected. This alone makes you appreciate him more.

Like a moveable feast, whatever fire that stir him to paint them and hang on the white walls of an art gallery in a commercial Ambagan’s pieces are too much for one viewing, you have to come back as the elements move constantly and you can be enticed by the images and the depth of the works. Like in a pedicab, he has given his viewers a front seat as if being next to the subject, as if you are there with them in Avenida or they are with you in Galerie Anna. The choice is yours.

Ambagan could have painted a series of mother and childs or coy fishes for his first show and it will be immediately sold out. But he mentions this would not enrich himself. Like an old master at 28 years old, Ambagan the challenge for him now is how to continue working up the streets until the images “become beautiful” on canvas and not to be interesting in real life any more.

There’s a saying “around the next corner, a piece of art is going to change your life,” Ambagan literally painted many corners for this show as he has many more streets to chart. He has only just begun the walk.

Mga Langgam sa Syudad is ongoing at the Galerie Anna, The Artwalk, 4/f SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City.

Arnel Ramiscal: Art as Essential as Breathing

By Jay Bautista

In an old humble apartment, along a dark alley somewhere in West Rembo in Makati, like clockwork in sync with the crowing rooster by daybreak, moments before the desperate multitude rush to the streets, for the last five years Arnel Ramiscal habitually wakes up and does “this personal karmic thing.”

It doesn’t take more than five minutes to rouse him from his sleep and meditate himself to do his essential yoga. On an empty stomach but with a clear mind, with various stretching, twisting, and squeezing, this usually lasts until an hour.

With an acquired energy so high and an inherent focus rabidly intense afterwards, the same 60-square meter space, where Ramiscal grew up in with his six other siblings back in the 80s, transforms into his studio and workshop.

As the reality of the morning creeps in, Ramiscal’s unconscious takes full control. Observing him at work, he smears, rubs and even incises his canvases and on paper to enable him to continuously filling them up relying much on his instinct. Ramiscal is delighted by mixing various indigenous materials and combining them with oil or acrylic paint, oftentimes with mud powdered pigment to give it that rich texture he longs for in his works.

Inner Tuning, Detail

“Art is but a preparation for that bigger art, the art of living” Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), a Sri Lankan art critic and curator, once said. And to fully grasp the recent works of Ramiscal is to understand him in the purity of his context. Such is his simple art, basic life, and this is the essence of Ramiscal’s third solo exhibition entitled Dungan (Colors of the Soul) which is a common word for “soul,” a word both accepted in the provinces of the northern and southern Philippines.

For the last five years, Ramiscal has adopted and adapted to the benefits of yoga to his art. As a practicing environmentalist and also a performance artist, this graduate of Philippine Women’s University imparts his feelings on canvas by finding the preferred spaces within lines and colors.

Blending indigenous designs with elements of yoga, his continuous round and geometric figures are common in his artworks. Previously known for his tea-stained mocha-colored paintings of various unusual sizes of rustic and old feel, Ramiscal explores in depth for this show, titles like Heart of the Soul, Soul Circuit, Inner Tuning Mystical Union, and Uplifting Vibration give one a semblance of more meditative sense. His big gray round figures may look like a kindergarten’s writing exercise however the scribbled effect is actually painted gray strokes, resembling manually penciled circles in his masterpieces. It is in the process of doing and undoing that he attains fulfillment. By painstakingly doing this, through constant practice, he hears a timbre sound, similar to a hum from a husky voice, which excites him even more.

Mystical Union, 2009

His cross-motifs are culled from our indigenous people like the designs in the textile cloths of the T’bolis and Igorots. Being also a body painter and a tattoo artist, what may strike the viewer, as shown in his biggest work, Mata ng Dungan, which he specially executed for this show, are the cross and box-like images which were literally stitched on plywood. Here he denounces his frustrations in the environment, failure of religion or rampant poverty he witnesses or is part of, is seen in the crosses and squares. What he may lack in lyricism and harmony, he compliments with the forceful vigor of his colors and brushstrokes. He continues to paint dazzling and lurid colors as he paves the way to a more social, as his processes and materials he used, more enticing as there is more truth in the unspoiled, with never ending perspective.

Viewers may find crudeness in his jumbled up images. Some people may find his works rather loose or unordered, however every line has a meaning and every rounded form follows an age-old system. His paintings stresses the value of spontaneity, his gestural paintings exudes positive energy and contentment. As most abstract works are somewhat like gift wrappers in bookstores, so passive and lifeless. Ramiscal is not as evident in the chakra colors he uses.

His charka colors command in his works as he delights with its meaning. With Violet being the highest being one with the infinite and used with grace, other colors such as indigo, red, orange, yellow and green abound his paintings. Compassion and subtlety are key values that reflect in his expressions.

Heart of the Soul, 2009

The art pieces may be subtle but are meant to evoke positive compassion which is not forceful yet unintelligible and inexplicable. Ramiscal is totally unhindered by any western or academic canon, in fact he had to unlearn everything what fine arts has taught him, what remains is his passion to his craft.

Philippine abstract has come of age with the advent of Dungan (Colors of the Soul). Although for lack of an art classification he doesn’t want his works to be considered non-figurative rather let it be the formless response to his creative impulse. There is nothing that is not related to his well-being. Everything has its own purpose and he considers himself as his own artwork.

The exhibit is ongoing at the Galerie Anna, 4/f Artwalk, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City until November 9, 2009.

Frederick Sausa is Back on the Moshpit Called Art

BY JAY BAUTISTA

It is my hope I can bring something up to you that can be relevant as well as informative, to speak up honestly I can figure out the way I was brought up, And I as an eldest after high school dreamed of becoming an artist as just any teen growing up here in our town seeing and hearing big names like Blancos and Mirandas among others. The idea of that money-making opportunity in painting prompted me to pursue fine art, but naturally my family didn't allow me to be like them, so forget painting, forget Botong just help my family. As the years went by, I grew older, my daily earning job still didn’t really help at all, worse, it made me empty.

Rebelling against the norm about working -- there’s no life after all in the factory, selling appliances, smiled while selling fast-food and so on. I would like to think that life began for me when the artist in me is nurtured. I did the usual, attended college, gave workshop to kids, and painted to my heart’s content. Sounds sentimental but I have to find ways to be on the right track again though it took me so long honing my craft. I may not have been endowed with skills like the next door painter but I striven harder to learn more and to be part of the art scene although it sometimes frustrates me as to find the politics of art and its discontents.

Being an Generation X kid, growing up weary and tired of the outside world with no back-ups it was not until I have met my teachers in UP Fine Arts and the college library brought out the best in me. I loved the idea of teachers as artists and the contemporary art books I’ve devoured. Up to now I still haven’t found what I’m looking for but definitely I’m still doing it -- to create art and making a kind of living in between canvases.

Frederick Sausa, 2009

Clinton Palanca once wrote that the ultimate postmodern show is something like Eat Bulaga, wherein you have everything for every possible audience. Some people, most especially people from the academe, may look down on the show but who knows it may even be Eat Bulaga’s secret for it being the longest running TV program in the country. The plethora of segments from slapstick skits to scantily-clad babes gyrating in their overused choreography dance numbers makes our midday meal “worth our while” Of late there are even outdoing of new stunts for the male Pinoy showing various talents.

Emerging thoughts like this run through me like flashes in a pan, as I view the recent works of Frederick Sausa. Honestly, even without looking at Pretty Vacant, his DNA alone -- as an artist in Angono and a member of the “art movement” called SBW make him both relevant and commercially viable as an artist. However Sausa chose not to traverse the easy road of genre paintings or folk art and religiosity. Kumita na raw yan.

Borrowing the title of the album by the punk band Sex Pistols which was banned by Her Majesty the Queen herself, one critic summed in up as “14 tracks roar in less than 30 minutes.” Considered as “the last great music movement” Punk is more than 30 years of angst, rebellion, and counter culture. Simply put, if punk is not dead, so is Sausa?

Pretty Vacant speaks to how Sausa purposely found his own sense to the influx or even deluge of images found in his possession. Now a full time artist, as one observes daily existence in the humdrum of his lakeshore town, the timing is rather ripe most especially with blanc art space as an embracing venue to explore. His paintings are all nothing but the title suggests.

In Hard-Boiled Wonderland (After Donald Lipsky) Sausa fondness for appropriation and decoding values that we got used to. Is he referring to the himself as a lamb in the now out of print classic book entitled The Art Fair?

Untitled may just be spaghetti with meatballs er, dots to you but for Sausa it is more than that as he has been exploring like texts on his canvas. His signature dots are in honoring the space, the omission or more of an audience interaction devise – for you to fill in the void. “Suspension points – sticker type snippets” as he would like to refer to them. His dots are like metallic buttons on a black leather jacket which is as punk as you can get. Blotches like safety pins if you may duplicate all over again.

Susceptible Ennui is a sampling of a recent inkling of contemporary artists of today and which Sausa joins in celebrating is what is called “catastrophilia.” Highlighting an Andy Warhol fetish for tragedy and hysteria, this painting may be devoid of meaning but it could be value-laden as long as you look though them. Sausa has the makings of a good draftsman, like all damn painters of Angono and he even repeats himself with Bad Girls Night Out which seems like another good painting on a rather forgettable subject.

They say the test of a good artist is how you comeback and re-shuffle images other people may have used into something substantial and relevant. Like a pudding from unused or over used dough. Now that Sausa has gotten our attention, can he finally say what he really wants?

In this tough year for art-making year of 2009, when most of his contemporaries have been part of some list of best new artist, whether it’s the top ten of some metro magazine, or some lucky 13 artists award given by the State or part of some 61 young men and women who will change the world, Sausa piously confesses “I’m still critical to the point of tiptoeing some ideas while rummaging around forgotten and misplaced archives. In the end, its all about “twisted objectivity and pensive satire through visual anthology.”

Leaving blanc you may find yourself asking, does Sausa want you to get pissed at him? No even better. Does he want you to even piss at the canvasses, even rip them off, like some torn jeans of your youth? Yeah that’s better, like being Sid Vicious in his paintings. Sounds a lot like gobbing my Mohawk hair in the safety-pinned jacket to me. And if those three Japanese wooden stool scraps hanged outside the gallery irked you even more, Sausa may just smile.

Reflections on a Room Full of Mirrors

BY JAY BAUTISTA

We, the spectators are an additional factor. Though greeted by that gaze, we are also dismissed by it, replaced by that which was there before we were: the model itself.

“Las Meninas”
The Order of Things by Michel Foucault

Using layered shifting narratives on one-way mirrors as thematic device, it seems obvious and even compulsory for an architecture graduate like Art Sanchez to explore the boundaries of this decorative medium for his first solo exhibition at blanc art space.

One cannot wonder too long the extent of his intention to instill biographical vignettes, critique on mass media and cultural myths as seen with these recent works. Meticulously transferring random surreal-like images as collages taken form various printed sources. Etching further on an already established mirror cut out on canvas which serves as base of familiar or familial representation. Creating simultaneous contrast among the aesthetics of objects, metaphors, irony with the given didactic nature of the superimposed image, Sanchez displaces or literally putting everything out of place. At this point, with the viewer’s obvious reflection on the mirrors, Sanchez extends an invitation to exist with interchanging personas and value laden symbols inherent in them. His thoughts could be your thoughts even more is what makes up Afterthoughts.

In Floating Mood Swings, the reverse mirror cut out of a Rodin-inspired The Thinker presents as a dark background of what remains inside man’s emotion as he struggle for memory and pursuit for his own volition as human. They say beauty is the sum of its faults however the objectives in making mental picture based on available references will imply degrees of meaning on varied presentations.

This multi-sharing of similar but varied points of view to someone from behind is commonly known as the Venus effect (from the earliest painting of Venus looking at her resemblance while angels hold a mirror while others keep looking on her). The audience is more involved in this context as one whose every reflection is captured in this creative study of imaginative perception. As one observes beauty in a narcissist kind of way, one reflects and learns more of the experience for his or herself.

Indeed objects in the mirrors appear closer than they appear. As mirror gathers light rays around the curved surface and reflect them at varying angles, signs are said to be more compressed and provide for an illusion of space as it amplifies the apparent size of any room. This is perceived in the emphatic piece Tests Subjects which features an illustration of how light is captured by the camera by the very man who pioneered photography. Sanchez does with Walter Johnson in art what Johnson contributed to science.

Saturation Point is a running commentary of the critical nature of media particularly television. The reverberation of all things good and bad as glaringly represented by floating people with thought bubbles shaped like mushroom clouds jutting out in explosion or emptiness of the idea as presented on the tube. Here Sanchez becomes a cynic or romantic depending on which side you are but his depiction of this most used appliance rises to being an innovative critique to the point in being graphically screaming. Proving he is not all against the idiot box, his main concern remains how people have become too complacent as not to be scared with 99 channel-overload of information. After all, consumer culture fetishes the dumb, refined, and modern individuals, as with television the playing field has been leveled of depending on your immediate appropriate necessity.

Sanchez remembers the only mirror in the house he grew up where photos highlighting significant events and fun times as a family are inserted on the side like a makeshift do-it-yourself photo album. As the mirror eventually faded with the passing of time, so are the irreplaceable photos tucked in. Taking on this experience, Sanchez believes one grows every time we face the mirror. Viewing his works, metaphorically speaking, one gets the idea that art is itself a mirror -- reflection of society with all its customs, beliefs, folklore, superstitions, religion, even of the artist himself.

Coming from a family of tinsmith, mirror reflections are nothing new to Sanchez as he invites the viewer even to come nearer and eventually become a part of it. In Between Raindrops and Sun Showers series, the struggle of memory against forgetting, Sanchez wanted to relive the myths and his play with the “demons” of his childhood. Such as when it rains while sun is up, there’s a tikbalang getting married. As varied and many faceted as this mirror, the artist has found a comfortable material in expressing surreal phenomena in various dark metaphors with layers of paint into haunting collages.

Lured by its beauty or in our quest for self-knowledge, we look at mirrors more often than we expect, in every chance we get. Before it became known as mirrors, it was referred to as “looking glass.” Event Horizon is about how we look and are being looked at by mirrors in a context of a gallery setting. As we are greeted upon gaze after gaze coming from the different reflections from the pieces themselves in the exhibit, as viewers we all become part of ever artwork – the mirror on canvas, the subjects, the objects and the viewers reversing roles becoming as models. The entire cast as the collective act of anachronism becomes pure form. The installation of blind spots absorbs the viewers with a closer look, as a caution one need not to get lost in them. Are people imbibed and further tricked by this nature of being seen by mirrors? As the Artspace has been converted into room full of mirrors, converting illusion into memory of lasting persistence is a reward in itself.

Like everything resemblances on the mirrors, Afterthoughts does not have to explain the images you see, the artworks adjust themselves to it. Art is more of an interpretation than reflection. In the end, one learns that Afterthoughts is not one such.

Karen Flores at the Center: An Interview

Father's House/Beautiful Moon/Mother's House


BY JAY BAUTISTA For their gift of nurture and grace, Filipinas have always headed our government cultural institutions. The National Museum, The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Intramuros Administration to name a few are now handled by competent and well-respected Pinays who have shown a significant progress in advancing the cause of Philippine arts and in keeping the Filipino soul of our heritage intact.

Ms. Karen O. Flores is the new Officer-in-Charge of the Visual Arts and Museo Division (VAMD) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) replacing Sid Hildawa, who passed way last year. Karen brings with her a wealth of experience to the post having been a visual artist since she graduated with the Fine Arts degree in Painting at the University of the Philippines in 1989. A known feminist artist, Karen has four solo exhibitions to her name and had international exposure in international art circles in Australia, Japan, United States, Singapore and South Korea. Locally she has been involved with local communities in Sta. Cruz in Laguna, Lipa City in Batangas, Vigan in Ilocos Sur and Negros.

A CCP 13 Artists Awardee herself in 2000, she also writes on art and artists and would be best to know the real impulse and issues facing our contemporary artists as she became part of various art collectives like Salingpusa and Sanggawa art community and recently TutoK art group. She recently received the Metrobank Award for Continuing Excellence and Service (ACES).

We checked on her how she is adjusting to her new position at the CCP and this is what she sent us though email:

We have known and admired you as both as an activist and artist, was there a need of convincing for you to work for the government or at the Cultural Center of the Philippines at that? Or it was more of someone has to step in for the artists? Looks like you have come full circle?

I remember that it was a big part of our discussions in Tutok back in the last half of 2009-- the fact that CCP has invited me to take over the visual arts office. Bogie warned me that it was going to be an excruciating choice, that I would be in effect saying goodbye to making art, that I would have little time for anything else, including my family. He is of course, very right. This is not a career move that would exactly fit right into my present life and work situation. This also meant departing abruptly from my work in TutoK, which is just about 3 years old, still very much a fledgling art group.

But yes, I felt very strongly that someone among us in the visual arts sector had to step into the CCP. At the very least, I thought, someone has to start the ball rolling again since a good number of months had already passed after Sid's demise. I do have a number of matters in mind that I hoped to help reform. After all, if I cannot contribute to change, then what would be the point? The CCP is mainly a performing arts center, and there are still present indications that the visual arts is very challenged to assert itself strongly amongst the disciplines and operations emanating from this Center.

Three months into the job, I realize that the problems are more immense than my initial projections. It's a given that bureaucracy burdens the work process, that budget constraints demand a lot of creative streamlining when it comes to planning and implementing projects. But I find it tougher to deal with the relationship issues that stem from my sudden entry into established office and institutional dynamics. I find it frustrating that I am not familiar nor equipped to handle the CCP Museo-- and that I may not have the immediate opportunity to recruit the right people and secure the basic requirements to be able to take care of the collection. It is a position that denotes heavy responsibilities within and outside the institution, but actually promises very limited power and means to undertake the tasks within those responsibilities.

So then it's best if we turn our attention to whatever psychic rewards the job has managed to bring. My weakest point has always been PR. I'm not naturally comfortable with a lot of people. I still get stage fright attacks. That's the more testy aspect of the job for me. But I am naturally a projects person, and I have gained over the years the trust and confidence of a reliable network of art practitioners who have helped me do my work. I find that I am depending a lot on these networks once more to get the tasks done, and overall, I get a lot of assurance of support. The consultative and collaborative process that had ruled most of my life's work and career has found a good application here.

Sid Hildawa had big shoes to fill, how are you holding up at the CCP? What exactly do you as Officer in Charge of the CCVA? Can artists send their proposals for possible exhibitions there?

Yes, it's hard to fill in for Sid, but it's doubly hard since I'm also filling in for Onet, who resigned from her post at the end of 2008. At the moment I am at the helm of the CCP Visual Arts and Museo (VAMD), a division perceived more as an administrator of CCP exhibition spaces and custodian of a trove of treasures ranging from museological and anthropological pieces of the CCP Museo and the landmark modernist and contemporary pieces of the CCP Art Collection. It is not so equipped now to operate as a coordinating center for the visual arts; it is not functional in performing visual art work outside of the CCP. So I guess I'm the one bringing in my own coordinating resources and skills into the position. Fortunately, while I do not move in all the circles that Sid belonged to, we are equally familiar with a good number of people in the visual arts; hence, a sense of continuity is also assured with my presence here.

Yes, we have been informally accepting proposals for 2010 in the VAMD, but soon I will be making a formal call for such so that we can have an interesting lineup for the next year. We can tell everyone here now to start proposing for projects in the CCP spaces-- the Main Gallery (Bulwagang Juan Luna), the Small Gallery (Bulwagang Fernando Amorsolo), the Fourth Floor hallway (Pasilyo Victorio Edades), the Third Floor Hallway (Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino), the Second Floor Hallway (Pasilyo Vicente Manansala) and the Little Theater Lobby Wall (Pasilyo Carlos V. Francisco). We will be accepting proposals till the end of September 2009, in order to program a schedule for 2010. As always, accepted proposals will get a venue grant, plus a small budget that basically covers invitations, notes and captions. Guidelines on how to exhibit at the CCP are available at the Visual Arts and Museo Division at the 4th Floor of the CCP. I will work on how to get this info online to make the information more accessible.




Manananggal 1: Puso, 2002

The CCP is celebrating 40 years old this year and your exhibition "Suddenly Turning Visual" is part of the celebration. What are your succeeding shows to look forward to? Are there long term plans of the CCVA or CCP for that matter.

The exhibit "Suddenly Turning Visible: The Collection at the Center" curated by Patrick D. Flores appropriately opened the anniversary year with its thematic presentation of selections from the CCP Art Collection. It has been extended until April 26, 2009. This is a very fortunate development for audiences since this is only the third time that the collection is being presented within a curatorial premise. The project has also mined valuable exchange and recommendations from among the artists and curators who have worked with the CCP. I hope to present the transcript of those conversations in a CCP publication or online zines like Judy Freya Sibayan's Ctrl+P (Journal of Contemporary Art). We are also looking for proposals that would interact with pieces from the collection. We invite artists and curators to let us know of the next ideas.

"Uncommon Sense (Trauma Interrupted, Too)" will be showing at the 2nd and 3rd Floor Hallways from April 2-30.

For Earth Day 2009, the front lawn of the CCP will be the site of a public art competition and installation of conceptual trees called "Juan for Trees (143s) where students of fine arts, design and structure will be asked to construct works that are each made up of 80 percent recyclable materials to be contributed by participating corporations. The installation will be launched and winners will be announced at the CCP Earth Day on April 22.

Kasibulan's anniversary show Pasyon Nasyon will be showing May 14 to June 21 at the Main Gallery. CANVAS, Inc.'s second installment of the "Looking for Juan" project will be on from May 12 to June 7.

On July 9, the Thirteen Artists Awards and Exhibit Opening will take place starting at 6:00pm. The event will be part of the CCP Anniversary program of presenting "Brave New Works" for the months of June and July 2009, wherein the various art disciplines will showcase new and original works by young Filipino artists. Parallel to the Thirteen Artists would be a readings and enactments of works by young playwrights (Virgin Labfest), experimental performances of pieces by young choreographers (WiFi Body), Musik Underkonstruktion will be about innovative musical compositions, and Word Jam will be series of spoken word events organized by the CCP Literary Arts Division. The Thirteen Artists exhibit is curated by Wire Tuazon with Louie Cordero designing the trophy; it will run till August 16 and will be on view during the run of the 2009 Ciemalaya Independent Film Festival in July.

Treena Alison Wong David presents her solo exhibit at the Small Gallery and the 4th Floor Hallway from August 13 to September 27.

On September 8, CCP's main celebration of the anniversary will open with "Daloy," the CCP Timeline Exhibit at the Main Gallery (curated by Noel Soler Cuizon and Claro Ramirez, Jr.) at 6:00pm and the opening of the CCP Gala Night at 8:00 pm at the Main Theatre.

"Katawhan," a joint exhibit on Philippine myths and folklore by Brenda V. Fajardo and Nonoy Estarte will be shown at the Small Gallery from October 15 to November 22.

Philippine Art Educators Association (PAEA) holds its annual show at the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Floor Hallways on November 15 till before the holiday break in December 2009. Likewise, the Main Gallery will cap 2009 with the 40th Anniversary Show of the Printmakers Association of the Philippines (PAP).

In the long run, with the help of our networks, I hope to come up with a comprehensive program, which is not just about scheduling exhibits, but about having CCP as an integral player in art and community development.

I have always viewed the CCP 13 Artists Award as one of the more prestigious contemporary art awards for a Filipino artist. The awardees were announced recently, for everyone’s benefit, can you take us how the process goes? Who nominates the artists? Who gets to be the judge? (Off the record: Sid was part of the previous selections and you weren’t. Did you abstain since you had friends who were nominees?) Can you comment on the current winners?

Thank you. I agree with you, whether or not I have been an awardee, and regardless too, even if I am not with the CCP today.

Nominations to the Thirteen Artists is submitted by art councils, art groups, heads/deans of art schools, museums, gallery curators and directors, art critics and past Thirteen Artist awardees. Those who are qualified to be nominated are artists who can answer to the following requirements:

• Body of work characterized by artistic integrity, innovativeness and forcefulness of ideas
• Responsiveness to contemporary realities
• Evidence of sustained artistic activity demonstrated by a track record of individual exhibitions and group shows for the past three years
• Engagement with contemporary visual art forms including, but not limited to, painting, sculpture, multimedia, installation, performance art, photography, digital imaging and printmaking
• Filipino citizenship
• Less than 40 years old on the year of conferment

This is part of the template established by Sid since Thirteen Artists 2000. Since the nomination process for 2009 happened in 2008 before I came in, my only intervention in February was to ensure the jurors will be composed mostly of artists (Lao Lianben, 1976 Awardee; and Mark Justiniani, 1994 Awardee) and an art critic (Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez). Not only that I know many of the nominees, I myself nominated three artists last year. My choice of jurors also required that they did not nominate anyone. I think I would like to keep inhibiting myself from the jury even in the future. My facilitation of the selection process and the exhibit production would suffice as my part in the award.

The jurors must be credited for patiently combing through 56 nominees' portfolios in the course of three days. They also agreed that each awardee would be unanimously chosen. As I witnessed it, they went through 5 rounds: the first 3 was about who was common in their shortlists, then the last 2 rounds resulted from deliberations.

Since we are discussing awards, I do need to end this with a critical thought. Awards are good and do play a vital role in promoting excellence, but more than awards what we primarily need are more platforms for development and exchange, where an equal ground is established whatever school or place you come from. In fact, it is vital to have such platforms where diversity could be beneficial. Such opportunities come with the NCCA CVA's Sungdu-an, now on the way to its 5th installment.

Karen Flores with Portrait of H.R. Ocampo by Alan Cosio, Met 2007


How can we democratize the process in order for nominees are well represented from the provinces Visayas and Mindanao ?

Yes, beyond the Thirteen Artists Award, there's a need for us to seek ways to connect strongly with the regions. We need to call actively for proposals and to be active in outreach and exchange projects with regional organizations and individual artists. We need to establish these thrusts in our upcoming programs.

Do you still have time to paint aside from teaching and this new administrative work you have?

The opportunity to make art is not just about painting or other conventional modes of 'making.' Everything I do is about the making of art. Craft, skills and aesthetics are still part of the administrative work.

Thank you, Jay.

Robert Besana: Here, Now and This Side Up

BY JAY BAUTISTA Although he has taught for more than five years now and even with a Masters in Fine Arts from UP Diliman as an added feather to his cap, Robert Besana is still considers himself more of a struggling artist than a demanding teacher.

To further appreciate Besana’s recent works entitled Dislocated Connection, one must situate the many dialogues they instigate in their proper context. At the onset is to view them how they were painted in a gestalt-like manner and that the way they are hanged side-by-side on the walls of this artspace that is 90 kilometers away to where the concentration of Philippine contemporary art is mainly practiced and proliferate.

Besana has always been intrigued with polemics, perception and perspectives. Rather than obsessively dwelling on what was art, what might be art, or what should constitute art, this exhibition entitled Dislocated Connection is a culmination of many continuous constructs intended for the viewer where his brushstrokes lead you.

Using personal photos of her mother with her sister and brother as sources, the paintings take off where the sepia filtered them. Consider The Leaning of Bella Over Jovita While Seating on the Same Chair which highlights that part of how Bella’s bearing is dependent on her older sister Jovita’s strong stance. In Bella’s real life, this standpoint is more than just a stable gesture; how Jovita, Ate as she is, would always look after her younger sister. This in a way, or at least on canvas, Besana wishes to turn around in favor of her mother’s fate as well. Somehow Besana honors his aunt for his constant concern to their family, in a way only artists know how.

“We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice,” as art critic John Berger wrote in his book, Ways of Seeing. “We have never looked at just one thing, we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves,” he adds.

In The Confession of Jovita Between X and Y Axis, Besana’s aunt appears once again in between two people who are irrelevant as the title suggest. However Besana concerns himself with how the viewer might look at the piece, as more likely will be the case.

After the viewer can see, we are aware that we can be seen. Thus the eyes of the images in the painting combine with the viewer’s eye making the interaction fully credible that we are part of the dialogue. As soon as our eyes are locked, only can there be value in the work. Mysterious Lady With Checkered Dress, Seated Lady in Awkward Pose, and Bella very well proves this point. It is a powerful play on how ideas, worldviews and even Besana’s affirmation for his family’s physical survival are specifically reconstructed and defined.

Unless one is born topsy-turvy, standing on your head while reviewing the exhibition, the way we look at an oil painting today is preconditioned by a visual orientation or a pattern coinciding with our lifestyle and the environment around us.

Besana’s titles are just what they are and they critique what the subject matter may not be intended to be. Debunking the formal pose one is being dictated in a closed studio photo session Papa Brown’s Position once again uses (or diffuses) memory as reference with sepia as a color condition, contemplating on how people compromise as to what could very well be their purposes in life.
Besana has pursued new ways of presenting iconography and iconology. He leaves it to the viewer to discover deeper truths and that anyone has a way of interpreting his works. He characteristically depicts images which may be disrupted by his own reading thus ambivalently veering away from a singular meaning. He now invites you to make up your own. Here, now, and whatever side you may see it.

Contemporary Philippine art of late has become either too depreciating in value or too intellectualizing to the detriment of its various publics. One could not help but notice the monotonous situation to be irrational, irresponsible, or maybe even unreal.

There are times when Art’s most potent power is in its processes of discovering new orientations rather than it being a feeling, or idea, or even content. It is only in the imagination that Art creates and makes us free. As it happens, there should not be should bes but let“what art is,” is.

Dislocated Connection is part of the ongoing exhibition at Nineveh Art Space in Sta. Cruz, Laguna which opened last March 1, 2009.

CCP 2009 Thirteen Artists Awardees

From the Publicity Department

The Cultural Center of the Philippines is pleased to announce the 2009 Thirteen Artists Awardees. The artists who will be receiving the award and will present new works in the exhibit at the CCP Main Gallery on July 9, 2009 are:

1. Buen Calubayan
2. Christina Dy
3. Don Djerassi Dalmacio
4. Patty Eustaquio
5. Kawayan de Guia
6. Winner Jumalon
7. Raquel de Loyola
8. Raya Martin
9. Iggy Rodriguez
10. Don Salubayba
11. Jaypee Samson
12. Pamela Yan
13. MM Yu

The artists were unanimously chosen by jurors Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, Lao Lianben and Mark Justiniani.

The Thirteen Artists Award Exhibit will be curated by Wire Tuazon and Louie Cordero will be designing the trophy. The event will be part of CCP’s 40th Anniversary celebration, recognizing original Filipino creations and brave new works for the period of June-July 2009.

Tale of Three ‘Rs’ and the Romance of Two (Second of Two Parts)

BY JAY BAUTISTA What’s with the letter ‘R’ that even the secret codes (no more!) of America’s First Family start with this 18th letter of our alphabet? Such as President Barack Obama is codenamed ‘Renegade,’ First Lady Michelle is ‘Renaissance,’ Malia is ‘Radiance,’ and Saisha is ‘Rosebud’. There must be something easily communicable and accessible with ‘R’ that its adoption is now being carried over, literally, to the letter.

Finding favor with ‘R,’ not to mention Obama’s overwhelming victory, started even earlier with last year’s dominance of young talented artists with their names beginning with this sound of “madness” or “point of freezing coldness.”

The Rustling of Raffy, Roaring of Ronald

If Raffy Napay is the perennial juvenile delinquent in our allusion to classmates, then Ronald Jeresano will be the one who sits at the back of the class and watches the whole day pass by, while the class discussed enthusiastically from his privileged vantage point. Ronald seems to be the one whom you never had a conversation with in all your grade school and high school days combined. Although not a class bully, he is not verbose but gets along with everyone and not a kill joy. Still water runs deep as they say.

Like his namesake mascot of a burger joint, Ronald is a lover of kids as evident to their presence in all recent works. These hapless souls serve as his lucky charm for every time he paints them and joins contests more often than not, he wins.


I'm Still Hoping

This year aside from the winning work, I’m Still Hoping from MADE, this 24-year old architecture student from PUP Manila has won ArtPetron National Student Art Competition, back to back and in two different categories. Two years ago, in the water-based media category, with historical landmark as theme, he painted Revealed History Behind the Mystery which is his ode to Fort Santiago. Last year, with festivals as theme, Panatang Obra bested more than a thousand entries. This winning work got the judges nod as he made a sudden twist to the Filipino devotion to the Nazareno with his panata to his being an artist as well.

What makes winning in these art competitions more triumphant year after year is the positive mix of judges that vary on each occasion. It goes without saying it remains to be a major factor in the outcome of the contests. It is they who will decide, debate and dignify the winning art work. How do they say one work is better than the other? Each judge will definitely have with him his own preconceived biases and cultural notions.

The Path

Next stop Kulay sa Tubig Invitational Art Competition, where his work The Path will be the best among those invited to join here. Established in 1984 by Gallery Genesis owner Araceli Salas, Kulay sa Tubig is one of the more prestigious contests, as far as water-based media is concerned. Salas sought Ronald to join the annual contest. And on this second attempt, was chosen for the coveted top prize.

True to his socio-realist influences, Antipas Delotavo and Alfredo Esquillo Jr, Ronald has no qualms of being the urban boy who draws its robust vitality from the strength of his convictions. His architecture background is inevitable in the lines that mark the canvas, as he depicts the ongoing struggles of the post EDSA II workers as intense and desperate as they are. Tireless, everyday-survivor like him, he paints grim but reassuring images with the unfinished construction sites as his setting. With intense, soul searching images, there is hope in this not so compromising picture of the state of our sad republic. Never the complacent, Ronald’s concerns are yours as well. It is a realism of broken dreams, failed hopes and falling ones. The “unfinishness” may be sore to ones eyes but the completion of which is left for the viewer to accomplish.

“I prefer not to be a painter of historical matter. I would rather depict personal tragedies and follies. Everyday you are beset with a blank canvas to fill up. However it will not work if you thought you cannot fill up the space and not do it anymore. Maraming kailangan ipinta, at dapat kong ipinta,” he once mentioned to me.

Sentro ng Kalakalan

The Realization of Arnica, Revenge of Rommel

The current cover of the PLDT directory captures the everyday consumerist scene of downtown Manila. What sets this display of hustle and bustle of our buying culture is the presence of a barcode placed smugly in the middle of the canvas, caging the people in between its gold lines. Somewhat telling us that we are trapped by our own wants and deadlocked by the increasing needs created upon us.

Sentro ng Kalakalan by 23-year old Arnica Acantilado of PUP has shortcut the process and delivered her message over and out. With the barcode as her graphic handle, she has captured the Filipino obsession with its materialist world. One of the better inventions of the late 21st century today, the barcode safeguards accuracy in overtly materialist tendencies such as ours. Arnica’s strength lies in the merging of surmounting “created” wants and the dehumanizing effect of altered needs wrought havoc by false advertising. Arnica will also win second place in the Oil category with Kahalagahan ng Kamusmusan in this year’s Shell National Student Art Competition (NSAC).

Of all three, Rommel Remota should be touted as the class nerd. He has won the top prize both in ArtPetron National Student Art Competion (“Ang Pundasyon ng Kaligayahan”) and NSAC (“Alternative”). As one who spouses his philosophy in adopting children’s writing on the wall to express his sentiments and making his message known for the world to see, Rommel does not hide the fact he is a big Toti Cerda fan, the prolific watercolorist who has been consistent in churning out images of children caught in between violence and political issues. In fact Toti is also a product of art contests himself.

Bio-Data

In the long tradition of art contests, Ronald, Arnica, and Rommel know that there exists a certain kind of aesthetics or strategy when joining a particular visual art competition. It could be a common fetish for the new and original in approach, as far as the artistic process, must be done for a work to be noticed among the many others. Together with that is the creative use in materials and add to that the work must reflect Philippine contemporary life and issues as these are what are to be expected. As keenly observed, there seems to be a gray area as far as representational style is concerned. Lately there are no delineating lines whether your work is abstract or representational, of biographical or political.

Each annual art competition rethinks conventions of the paint medium renewing faith and hope in its prospect of coming out with what is fresh and captive representation of our present urban life. Do the contest rules of different art contests force them to question, if not rebel against conventions of painting? Recent winners vary greatly not just in terms of style or materials but also in terms of concerns, themes, and agenda. New spaces of promise in terms of iconography and iconology emerge.

Art competitions may still have their purpose as they are held in bigger exhibition halls with longer duration. There is a history of art that is well documented in the yearly catalogues, and winning artists are guided at least until in their first formative shows. In a way they consequently promote the culture of excellence and artistic promise for the young painters. The question remains is what has the previous winners done as a plowback to his community or to society to be worthy of the prize?

It would be unwise to say that all winning works merely reflect the general state of Philippine visual arts. Had there not been Philippine art books written could the history of Philippine art be told in patched-like quilts of all winning works of art contests through the years?

Art contests are just one way to continue the mixture of two coats of paint on a blank canvas for an artist, established or starting out. And should anyone fail to win any award this year, well, there’s always next year, and next, and next.

Bobi Valenzuela: The Curator as an Outsider

BY JAY BAUTISTA The following is an updated version one of the articles I wrote that was featured in the Philippines Yearbook for 2005 with the theme Defenders of Our Cultural Heritage. I am posting again this as a tribute to my good friend, Bobi Valenzuela who died last Decemeber 12 after suffering a third stroke three weeks ago. He was still recuperating from a second stroke two years ago that has paralyzed half of his body and forcing him to be bedridden and detached from his artist-friends and curating exhibitions. It is my fervent hope that one day his lifetime work would be formally recognized and that he could continue inspiring today’s generation of young artists as he did for the last three decades.


Contemporary Philippine art in the last thirty years could be The Tale of the Three Robertos – Chabet, Feleo, and Valenzuela. The last one known to the art community simply as Bobi.

Even with more than a thousand exhibits to his name, Bobi has always been literally an outsider in the 24 years he has been a curator.

He rarely attends even his own exhibit openings and hardly socializes with the art world denizens. An art writer used to describe him as “very low profile yet charismatic curator. Bobi Valenzuela is almost invincible; no one knows how intense and far-reaching it has become.”

Thus, he has always been misunderstood, controversial, or much less uncompensated for his contributions to the cause of Philippine contemporary visual arts.

“Strangely enough, I never really took art seriously, at first” Bobi quips, “I found it too ridiculous that art will just be ultimately consigned to the empty walls of a bored housewife’s mansion.”

Bobi reminisces his early beginnings: “The 80s was the height of excessive commodification of art. The genre then was either flowers or abstract art. Tell me, how many Mother and Childs do you need to see? How many million flowers or butterflies do you need to excite you?”

He co-founded the biggest little gallery of our generation, the Hiraya Gallery with owner Didi Dee. “Because we didn’t have a word for art, I named it ‘Hiraya’ which is an archaic Visayan word for ‘imagination.’ Art is the soul of the people, its dreams, expressions, and aspirations. However ours has been polluted as a result of Spanish and American colonization.”

For a people too busy in bringing food on the table than appreciating art, a good curator is even rarer than a good artist or even a great work of art.

“Ang curator, kasama na ang mga artista natin, ay dapat tumugon sa pangangailangan ng panahon. Hindi tayo pwedeng magpinta nang magpinta nang di nag-iisip. Maybe alternative or relevant noon, pero pwedeng hindi na ngayon.” Valenzuela feels it was natural for him to find a visual story while hanging paintings on the walls.

His apologies to would-be-curators but everything he knows about curatorship is gut-feel, he does not even have any formula or fix rules in curating: “Just don’t insult the intelligence of your audience. The least you can do is to respect those who will come and see the show.”

He laments that “Philippine art has been relocated to interior designers whose aesthetic preference for art relies on how much its brush strokes blend with the colors of the walls or curtains of one’s house.”

Among his most memorable shows is Roberto Feleo’s first solo exhibition entitled ‘Sapin Sapin’, and as he takes pride in, “even before Bobby became a myth.” Another is ‘Ang Delatang Pinoy, Yes The Filipino Can’, a collaborative exhibit of more than 100 local artists, which literally opened the doors of Hiraya to the general public. Even the international press took notice and reviewed the event.

Hiraya Gallery became known for the many significant developments in Philippine Art. However due to health reasons Bobi left Hiraya and became an independent curator.

Having curated the ‘3rd Viva Exhibit Conference’ in Dumaguete in 1994 and the ‘Sungduan (Confluence)’ that toured around the country in 2000, Bobi is the only curator who has really touch based in Visayas and Mindanao. “I like going to the provinces because contrary to what others say that Manila-based artists will lead the way, visual artists from Visayas and Mindanao still have fresh untold stories to express about who and what we are.”

‘In Memory of a Talisman,’ Bobi’s last curated exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is his personal tribute to a beloved friend. Wearing a shirt with a Bose painting on it during the interview, Bobi expresses his grief, “Santi was way, way ahead of his time, and he was consistent with his art. When he died, parang nawalan na rin ako ng gana sa art.”

These days Bobi is too tired to ponder what’s going on in the art scene: “In hindsight, I lament how some artists I used to work with either continue to deteriorate only to lose their luster ultimately.”

“Our misfortune is the lack of credible artists these recent years,” Bobi continues. “They are in the arts either for quick fame or easy money. You start repeating yourself and that’s the start of your end.”

Of the younger generation of artists, Bobi has deep respects for Leslie de Chavez, who in the words of an art critic “comes out strong at the forefront of his generation.”

In a profession that requires the illusion of three academic letters after your name, Bobi has opted to stay in the peripheries. He ends, “Art thrives kasi marami pang dapat baguhin sa mundo natin. Pag bumuti-buti ito, unti-unti na ring mawawalan ng silbi ang art. In the meantime, between art and life, I will choose life anytime.”

(published for the Philippines Yearbook 2005)