During the opening night of his
first retrospective at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) exhibition
in 1990 artist Danilo Dalena (b.1942) was apprehended by security guards at the
side entrance and was not allowed inside its premises. It was his wearing of
his signature wooden clogs that caused his apprehension. In his usual quiet
disposition, he kindly requested to contact Ms. Teresa Roxas for him. On the
phone the then CCP President immediately apologized and personally welcomed him
at the Main Gallery.
The irony of the incident
defines/defies who Dalena and what his art means. Garbed as a native Filipino
everyman he represents how society looks down at artists and how we materially
relegate art in the words of Harold Rosenberg “mere wall-bound interior
decoration.”
Like a rock star returning for an encore he replicates a more formidable second retrospective 26 years after in Last Full Show by filling up more halls of the CCP consisting his drawings, paintings, sculpture and installation. Even more appreciated today his art only got better with the lapse of time.
With a bustling art scene where
an artist name precedes his art, Last
Full Show de-defined and exuded all the fine hallmarks of Dalena’s body of
work; that he exists only because he is only a result of his oeuvre. His being
an artist dissolves and he is only Dalena when he participates in the process
of creating art.
As a true rogue nothing lies
sacred or nostalgic to Dalena who enrolled at the UST College of Fine Arts when
his father wanted him to take up law. Even at an early age, his artistic
affiliations were variant and loose.

Even the CCP as a venue for this
retrospective is one over the Marcoses whom he once protested to. During
Martial law, Dalena was master of the ink, meticulously illustrating detailed
editorial cartoon, rich in allegory embedding strong political undertones for Philippine Free Press and Asia-Philippines Leader and later the National Midweek. He devoted a series on
public toilets with scum and filth as aesthetics reflecting microcosm of
Philippine society.
Dalena painted his own milieu with his own artistic approach.
Speaking of his privilege as an artist and the
forced circumstance of his actions to his sociological context. He was prudent
yet did not suffer for not being among those artists who painted what was
trendy genre or commercial dictates of art galleries or collectors. In fact no
one even noticed his first show at the Pinaglabanan gallery.


Dalena never spoke in absolutes,
more so in staging folk religiosity. Quiapo
and Pakil series were more
autobiographical in nature and a definite painterly peeve. They carried the
same wit, humor even subdued irreverence of this Narareno and Our Lady of
Turmuba devotee. Favoring the everyday he saw in the ordinary how art could
inquire and even investigate matters that were considered taboo and illicit.

Even in his graying years Dalena
remains a dissident in the grand tradition of painting— conservative in form
but radical in approach. Exercise Series exhibits
beauty of our impermanence. Consider the folds of glands like terraces, how our
mortal bodies naturally sag and wrinkle. Somehow Dalena conquers his fear of
death as most of his friends have crossed the great beyond. It is humanness at
its core presented despite potential unpleasantness in monotone brown hues in
rough strokes.
The retrospective may not seem
chronological but the pieces may be viewed as one big mosaic-like picture show;
one simply has to look and be disturbed or solicit a chuckle. There is a
circumstance in each of us as we are reminded of our own folly in losing a bet,
belting out a song with a willing waitress in tow, seeing that malicious dog
scratching in a church, witnessing a bygone Zarsuela, or mindful of our
increasing body weight. For the gago,
totoo, and bingengot in Dalena, that would have been enough.
In a last full show, as a sign of
respect and honor, one must stand up for the playing of our national anthem. In
Dalena’s Last Full Show, we remain
standing in pride, as he takes a bow.
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