Fear of Abstraction
Fear of Abstraction
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: Sunday Globe Leisure, May 26, 1991
ABSTRACTION and abstract art. The very words bring chills and a nervous dramatisation to the uninitiated. Big words with bad reputations, these—like Calculus and tonsillectomy, Mononucleosis and fashion.
Myths are often to blame whenever big words inspire terror in the listener. I remember when “masturbation” was something that made people blind, and “cloning” was a painless alternative to childbirth. The enduring reputation of the abstract painter as both woman and fool (characterized as a sloppy ape hurling buckets of toxic paint at everything in sight) comes to us from those incredibly sterile Hollywood romances of recent decades, the very same screwball sequences that gave rise to the image of the New York artist as a humongous blend of Kris Kristofferson and Andre the Giant.
As embodied in that same popular myth, our own paradox has two faces. On the one hand, we view abstract art with suspicion, thinking perhaps that abstractions are painters who never learned how to paint “realistically”. On the other hand, a kind of inferiority complex binds us to a code of silent surrender; for here confronting us is a visual idiom that we do not readily understand, and we are afraid to ask questions because the enlightened might think us stupid.
I suspect that the teachers of Art Appreciation courses in our schools are the ones to blame for this guardedness and paranoia. They deliberately quiz us on art’s “hidden agenda”, which is usually their own, and then proceed to fill our heads with obsolete terminology. As a result, we are dumbstruck at the sight of abstract art, cowed by what we perceive to be its secrecy and exclusivity, and rendered totally incapable of dealing with it on our own terms.
What it boils down to in the end is that fear of the abstract is a lot like being afraid of your own shadow. It’s big, it’s black, but it doesn’t ever bite.
Nothing to decipher
Oftentimes while listening to customers in the gallery, their dread of anything even remotely abstract is enough to move me to tears. “Show us anything except abstract art,” they invariably say. “That’s much too advanced for us to comprehend!” To these people, I explain whenever possible that abstraction is essentially the most “open” of all visual “codes” (open to interpretation, open to change, open to abuse, etc.), and that relating to an abstract work has little or nothing to do with one’s ability to “decipher” or “interpret” it
In fact, breaking down works of art is the critic’s cross—and the critic’s alone. Outside the realm of theory and postulation (technical slants that are the props of the academe), there is very little else that the aficionado must learn in order to derive pleasure from abstract art in general. You don’t have to understand sex in order to enjoy it—even though the toothsome Mrs. Holmes will tell you that understanding the ins and outs of the matter can substantially increase your partner’s satisfaction, and therefore your own as well. In a similar vein, I never sit back and wait for insights from my cheeseburger. I eat it—and feast my taste-buds on every morsel.
Indeed, the most important thing to remember about abstract art is that it doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything. One simply has to dive into an abstract painting just as one dives into a shady pool, enjoying the feel of the water, paddling around in it, revelling in its alternating calm and turbulence. That’s not half as dumpy as it sounds. When the painting is exceptional, when it’s really, really good, its colors, textures, dips and bends will swoop up to get you. And then suddenly a small canvas is a vast ocean of emotions, impulses, gestures and gestalt, a glorious array of everything bright and beautiful—except “meaning” in a definitive sense.
Putting theory into practice
Now let’s put what we’ve learned to the test. No less than four exhibitions, currently showing in as many galleries in Metro Manila, pretty much cover the range of possibilities that are open to contemporary abstractionists in a Third World setting. It doesn’t get better than that.
The Finale Art File on Pasay Road features four senior citizens of the local artworld in a recurring annual shindig dubbed Four Masters, Four Worlds. The show might better have been called Three Filipino Cubists and A Stray Dog. Ang Kiukok, Cesar Legaspi and Malang virtually corner the spectrum of Cubist tendencies from the self-consciously academic to the hilarious, all in good measure. Although I have never been partial to this kind of work—believing it to be somewhat dated and trite—the show provides a good example of abstraction’s earliest beginnings. At their best, and if you can catch them before they’re sold, the pieces on exhibit should translate in this context as ultrasound pictures of abstract art as a fetus.
As a stray facet of the same commercial gem, Olaozo’s art is a more recent development than that of the Three Magi—an increasingly spare linear/geometric abstraction with areas drawn in like a cosmic hardcourt. And while this kind of hot-dogging does make him the “odd man out” at these yearly roasts, his paintings do manage to provide the clue to what eventually became of Cubism. Olaozo is likewise the bridge to another ill-begotten exhibition that sees him teamed up with three other painters at the Luz Gallery along Makati Avenue. Together, their work is probably the closest thing to a formal abstract aesthetic—and the formality shows.
Arturo Luz, Augusto Albor and Lao Lianben are usually so grimly determined that their works tend to gravitate around blacks, greys and graded textures. Theirs is the search for the “concrete painting” that Mondrian spoke of in his senile years, an expunging of all traces of representational form in favor of markings, bordered areas and trailing expanses. The right term for this sort of thing, I think, is “rational abstraction”—not only because everything seems to be so carefully thought out, but also because the gains attempted are apprenticed in such small rations.
The Brix Gallery in Legaspi Village showcases some new work by a very determined lyrical abstractionist named Inma Ortoll-Mutuc. Her work was brushed colors of the deepest and most vibrant saturations in a poetry of almost palpable tones, and her calligraphy, if we are to interpret it as a language, is clearly of the spirit. Ms. Ortoll-Mutuc is a new voice that should add First World timbre to our colors, lately muddled by an overbearing tendency to ape the limited hues of our primitive ancestors.
Two of our most adventurous and exciting abstractionists today can also be seen in a group show at the Kalawangan ng Sining gallery at the Luneta Park. (See related review in last week’s issue of Sunday Globe Leisure). Roy Veneracion celebrates order in chaos, mating abstraction with ethnicity in paintings that stand tall with offbeat grandeur. Nestor Vinluan is a master of textural and spatial devices, a supple virtuoso with his formative roots in formal painting, minimalism and installations. The works of these two artists herald bold new directions for a home-grown abstraction that is every bit as engaging as its foreign models.
If the word “abstract” still frightens you, do yourself a favor. Take this page with you and go see these shows. Discover on your own that abstraction at its finest is really viewer-friendly. Jump right in and enjoy it. And don’t paddle too hard.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Fear of Abstraction” (page 1 of 1), Sunday Globe Leisure, May 26, 1991
