An Arts Blackout
An Arts Blackout
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, May 28, 1986
IF THE present time is any indication of the future of our contemporary visual arts, the prospects are indeed bleak for even a partial recovery of the glory days of yore.
Those who still doubt the desperate lack of vigor in our conventional visual arts need only survey the rapidly diminishing number of privately-owned galleries once thriving in the metropolitan Manila area. Of 16 leading showrooms listed in a directory published before the February uprising, at least 5 profit-oriented galleries have literally ceased to exist. At least as many art galleries have temporarily withdrawn from the local exhibition circuit, functioning more as fly-by-night brokerages engaged in occasional art peddling for its own sake. And still the casualty list is likely to grow.
Of the small handful of remaining showrooms struggling to remain active, half are currently exhibiting little more than their own respective "gallery collections" - a curious trade-term for unsold consignment stock made available at baratillo prices in at least one sad case. Two of these surviving galleries have yet to schedule exhibitions for the coming months, in themselves a traditionally lean period for the local art-trade due to the torrential monsoon rains. Another leading gallery has declared itself inactive until November, while elsewhere, forthcoming shows include a print exhibit by schoolboys and a loosely-knit collection of pencil sketches. Apparently, never before has it been as difficult to view Philippine Art at an outward glance as now.
It is ironic that the only significant bodies of work to be seen anywhere in the metropolis are bunched in two sequestered locations whose fates still hang precariously in the balance. At the Museum of Philippine Art (MOPA), nearly 400 art pieces are on display until mid-May, all of these accomplished for a prize-money competition organized in cooperation with a local chapter of the International Rotary Club. At the nearby Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) over 200 freedom-loving artists celebrate the triumph of a bloodless revolution in artworks decidedly of greater historical than aesthetic significance, an emotional outpouring more cathartic than creative. Neither body of works can safely be said to typify genuine trends in our contemporary visual arts, if only because one is basically competitional, while the other is thematic in nature.
It would appear, therefore, that the lunar eclipse of recent weeks may have in fact anticipated an unprecedented visual arts blackout-of-sorts. And in a time of great emotional and spiritual upheaval - usually fertile ground for the creation of monumental art - this in itself could be a genuine cause for concern.
In surprising contrast, however, a new breed of creative toilers is beginning to loom ominously on our artistic horizon, gaining inroads with potential audiences previously untapped by its elders. While a disheartened generation of painters and sculptors cools its heels and despairs over the rising cost of paint and bronze, a fresh wave of eager aspirants is being energized by its discovery of cheaper, more exciting materials and media. The age-old process of elimination may soon decide the fate of the opposing forces. For even as the lights are extinguished one by one in a feudalistic system of galleries and their genre-bound patrons, a battle for creative alternatives is being waged in an atmosphere of quiet incubation.
History alone will tell for sure. The kind of art that most comprehensively records our present-day concerns will determine once and for all whether the old or the new shall have emerged as the more significant. The blackout itself may be illusory. It is darkest before dawn, says one timely adage. But the sun that rises at daybreak could be a different sun from the one we recognize.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “An Arts Blackout” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, May 28, 1986
