CHROMATEXT II Revenge of the word
CHROMATEXT II
Revenge of the word
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, October 18, 1986
THAT the written word has virtually invaded the galleries is no longer in doubt. Words and more words - once confined to the printed page -- have begun to pepper our walls and canvases - once the exclusive domain of things visual. And this freeform mutation of painting and literature has come to be known as "Chromatext," which more than incidentally, was also the title of a most memorable exhibition by the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC) in September of last year.
The PLAC returns to the Pinaglabanan Galleries in San Juan with "Chromatext 2," this time as the curtain-raiser for that illustrious gallery’s third regular season. The exhibition comes at a most auspicious time, when the pampered art of painting stands bewildered and displaced by the fall of the Marcos regime, and a new literary renaissance looms ominously from out of the recent glut of newsprint and ink.
Consider, if you will, that in our history have so many words seen publication. A monster-force of potential writers is taking up the pen - or returning to it - as more Filipinos entertain thoughts of a literary career than ever before. To be sure, periods in history have always been dominated by one artform or another. The 1970s were characterized by the upsurge of painting and local contemporary music. And it is undoubtedly literature, the art of words, that is the most significant artform today. Suffice it to say that its steady presence in our galleries has both disturbed and fascinated painters and writers alike.
The five founding members of PLAC - Gemino Abad, Cirilo Bautista, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Alfred Yuson and Ricardo de Ungria - are likely to step on more than just a few toes. Branded by some as a renegade group of writers, and by others as a band of literary adventurists prone to self-aggrandizement, PLAC publishes the longest-running poetry journal in the country, and has long espoused the public recitation of verse. Their eccentric fascination with performance and the visual arts has earned them both plaudits and barbs, but their infectious influence has grown steadily in the past few years.
Other factors independent of PLAC’s own activities have contributed to this sudden interest in chromatext-type works. The growing popularity of video and transmedia among the local intelligentsia, as well as the remarkably vigorous resurgence of the traditionally mass-based cartoon, are certainly among them. The link between the visual and the literary is often so intrinsic in these artforms as to transcend mere text and optics. But while their initial emergence antedates the first “Chromatext” exhibition in 1985, the PLAC show did manage to impart more than a semblance of institutional respectability for these peripheral genres.
Which is why PLAC’s current exhibition at Pinaglabanan should excite and raise a few eyebrows both.
In much the same way that the art of the 70s can be said to have been dominated by the ideologues Hernando Ocampo and Luz (godparents to the Castrillo and Chabet that we know today), the 80s are being dominated less by individuals than by movements, of which chromatext constitutes a significant undercurrent. PLAC, essentially a group of award-winning poets, emerges by virtue of such exhibits as a major collective influence in the realm of the visual arts. And this is a strange turn of events indeed!
“Chromatext 2” is definitely an exhibition to see, if only for the serious student of the deviational in art. Certainly, not all important artistic movements are promulgated deliberately by avowed agents of change. And the somewhat unwitting, almost naïve discovery of paints and brushes by this energetic little group of prominent literary figures, has become a happy accident, no less, for the cause of alternative artforms in this country.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Chromatext II Revenge of the Word” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, October 18, 1986
