At CCP’s main gallery: Influencing The Nature of Artists
At CCP’s main gallery:
Influencing The Nature of Artists
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, August 20, 1988
MUSEUM curators took to the ’60s and ’70s like fish to water. The overriding principle of “mind over matter” in art, peaking as it did in the heyday of Conceptualism, rescued them from the ignominious role of glorified custodians. As creators of an exhibit’s framework, and with the word “concept” as their sword and shield, curators everywhere could now directly influence not only the public’s perception of high art, but also artistic production itself!
At the snap of his fingers, the curator could have artists toiling away in large scale, or in small scale, in square or round format, in traditional or new media, in muted or screaming colors — indeed, in just about anything that tickled his curatorial fancy. There are not a few who believe that curators in general — now firmly installed in directorial roles by virtue of their so-called “concepts” — have become contemporary art’s worst nightmare.
The late Ray Albano, CCP’s resident curator for over a decade, was fond of thrusting thematic guidelines at his artists. In perfect concert to the rise and fall of his curatorial baton, painters would be “encouraged” to limit their palette to black and white, or to glorify the garishness in folk art, or to otherwise work within the strict parameters of any given format as he (Albano) saw fit. The late art critic Leo Benesa, whose aversion to Conceptual Art was well-known, would often refer to the old CCP’s “Albano’s Playpen.” Doubtless, Benesa, were he still typing away with his caustic wit intact, would have referred to the new CCP as “CAMP’s Laboratory.”
The thematic group show Pangsariling Likha,” incorporating the small-scale works of some 33 visual artists of varying status, is currently on exhibit at the Main Gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) until mid-September. To be sure, the exhibition is again concept-heavy, being the second installment in a projected mammothseries spanning three years and loosely entitled “The Nature of Influences.” The Contemporary Art Museum of the Philippines (CAMP), entrusted with the management of all exhibition venues at the CCP, had initiated this “research project” to investigate the hows, whys and wherefores of art-making itself — given that all art is made under the influence of something or other.
In the first installment of this series (presented in the same venue last year in lieu of the traditional CCP Annual For the Visual Arts), participating talents were asked to name the artist (or artists) who have most profoundly influenced their own creativity — with the extra admonition that all artworks submitted for the exhibit clearly reflect that influence. Now, this was a bit too much for many artists to swallow, not only because it deliberately bruised their egos, but also because the exhibition’s guidelines clearly dictated the kind of art they were to make. A good number of familiar names steered clear of that particular show altogether, and some of the participants themselves wondered aloud if they had not in fact become unwitting “guinea pigs” in someone else’s grand experiment.
This time, the CAMP enforcers may have finally glanced pay dirt. Requesting visual artists to submit vintage works produced in private for their own personal reasons, CAMP has collected an intriguing bolus of hitherto-unknown of which we, as scholar-voyeurs, are invited to partake at our leisure. Assuming that visual artists are concerned with maintaining both a “public” and “private” facet of themselves independently of the other, what we may be seeing in this exhibit are the mimes behind the make-up. And who can resist photos of Jackie O. at play?
As it is, there is a lot of good work that rises well above the careless study, the false start, the visual gibberish of artists working out their compositional and thematic problems in secret. And what many of the participants have themselves deemed the exhibit’s greatest failing — the stacking of their works as panels off the wall, pressed between adobe “bookends” to be rumaged through like tiangge merchandise — may in fact feed the fire of the curious in each of us. For aren’t all art fanciers irrepressible voyeurs? And isn’t the artist’s private sanctum, the drawers, nooks and crannies of his studio, the most desirable repositories of all?
There are other questions to match CAMP’s penchant for queries. Are the bright girls and boys at the CCP finally unearthing oil after so many infuriating and expensive blunders? Or is CAMP the proverbial chimpanzee typing out an occasional word by sheer chance? Your guess is as good as mine.
Ape got your tongue?
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(Among the artists featured in “Pangsariling Likha” are Ray Albano, Augusto Albor, Marcel Antonio, Virgilio Aviado, Manuel Blademor, Genara Banzon, Rosario Bitanga, Benjie Cabangis, Charlie Co, Evelyn Collantes, Antipas Delotavo, Karen Flores, Marciano Galang, Feliciano Gallardo, Sid Hildawa, Jr., Lilia Lao, Lao Lianben, Jose Legaspi, Malang, Jonathan Olazo, Romulo Olazo, Mario Parial, Imelda Pilapil, Ige Ramos, Roberto Robles, Dani Sibayan, Soler, Jean Marie Syjuco, Aca Verzosa, Nestor O. Vinluan and Francisco Pellicer Viri.)
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “At CCP’s main gallery: Influencing The Nature of Artists” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, August 20, 1988
