1987 in a nutshell: A Dog Year For Philippine Art
1987 in a nutshell:
A Dog Year For Philippine Art
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, January 06, 1988
1987 was the Year of the Rabbit. But it might just as well have been the Year of the Dog for Philippine Art.
Aside from some sporadic showboating and the gathering storm against a bungling, heavy-handed cultural institution, it was decidedly an uneventful year that plunged the local artworld even deeper into limbo.
Very little actually stirred, and the sparse undergrowth that sprouted by the wayside was a poor harvest of scraggly weeds sucking up the scorched earth. Indeed, even the stylistic pluralism so readily apparent was less indicative of artworld energy than of confusion.
Representational art in a variety of forms -- from archaic still-lifes to yankee-doodle Neo-Expressionism -- continued to dominate local exhibitions, much of it infantile or inane, academically or commercially shrunk to fit. And even while talk of an emerging "New Abstraction" generated considerable interest among the few critics and serious students of art that remained undaunted in the bleachers, not enough transpired in this regard to live up to expectations.
The rabid sense of nationalism and cultural introspection born of the EDSA uprising brought on a renewed concern for indigenous materials and traditional native motifs, just as Social Realism - celebrated to the point of pain during the previous year - appeared to have finally been buried under its own weight and debris. "SR" was conspicuously absent in 1987, save for a sprinkling of pre-EDSA works lionized again and again in a number of "Johnny-come-lately" exhibitions that sought to capitalize on what little remained of our revolutionary fervor.
Manila galleries, for the most part, were reduced to little more than soup kitchens as both creativity and the sale of artworks plummeted to an all-time-low. Staying alive was the name of the game for artists and dealers alike.
The alternative artform known as Performance Art -- a curious phenomenon of the period immediately before and after the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship was still another prominent casualty of the lean year past. By the same token, much of the creative experimentation with photography, film and video was virtually abandoned, as cameras were trained on the political front with a new hunger for current events.
With the abolition of the Museum of Philippine Art (MOPA), our visual toilers groaned from still another major setback, the dwindling number of active government-subsidized venues having been further slashed to only two. Far too little insight and renewed perspective was derived from the the steady influx of embassy-sponsored foreign exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, prompting the more outspoken to bat for its re-organization into a venue exclusively for local artists.
But it was the floundering Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) that bore the terrible brunt of artworld heckling and indignation - all of it richly deserved. Always the source of controversy and dissatisfaction in past years, the CCP plunged full-throttle in its descent into hell, manned by a retinue of eager new faces that bungled its first year at bat. Far from restoring our visual artists' faith in that concrete monolith by the bay, CCP's Contemporary Art Museum of the Philippines (CAMP) squandered its resources on rhetoric and spectacle, petty politicking and self-aggrandizement, and now faces the prospect of a popular boycott of its facilities.
Looking on the bright side, some good did manage to come out of this creative drought. Young artists, many of whom would otherwise have been unimpressive, were afforded more airspace in which to show off their wares, their elders being largely in default. Likewise, out-of-town activities benefited from the yawning media space vacated by the Manila art scene, with provincial art communities gaining precious ground simply by exploiting this advantage. Taking the cue from the well-oiled propaganda machinery that brought Balweg & Company national attention, both homegrown and expatriate artists in Baguio virtually succeeded in establishing the summer capital as a cultural satellite of some importance, again proving print media the most potent factor in the success and failure of artworld movements.
In the words of one grizzled veteran, the hybernation of Philippine Art will ascertain that "only those genuinely committed to a vision will persist." It makes a lot of sense that droughts are good for the shedding of unwanted flab, as the body politic feeds on its own fat. The "art boom" of the '70s brought the vermin from out of the woodwork. The years ahead, if they proceed at much the same pace, should send them back in droves.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “1987 in a nutshell: A Dog Year For Philippine Art” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, January 06, 1988
