Fiber art footnote: Like 'Pinakbet' in an Austrian Cookbook
Fiber art footnote:
Like 'Pinakbet' in an Austrian Cookbook
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, October 01, 1988
WHY on earth it took a visiting exhibition of Fiber Art from Austria, of all places, to call our attention to what is inherently more ours than theirs, I will never know. That our own growing awareness of fiber and its uses is restricted mostly to our diets is probably due to our archaic bias against craft-oriented processes in general, and to our lingering colonial mentality in particular. So while the Old World, in its cultural bankrupcy, continues to expand its creative possibilities to include natural materials derived from the earth of agricultural countries, our own artists pay through the nose to keep themselves in imported paints and canvas. The irony stings the heart and slaps us in the face.
Of course, the Met Museum, which hosts the aforementioned exhibit, was prudent enough to lend space alongside the Austrians to at least one local fiber-artist and one occasional dabbler. Paz Abad-Santos and Allan Cosio are by no means our best, and still the well-connected duo shines when viewed against the visitors from Linz and Vienna. (This being an Olympic year, we can be forgiven our competitive attitude.) As a contrasting case in point, consider the terrible showing of our leading printmakers lecturing — actually lecturing! — alongside an awesome exhibit of German Graphic Arts in the same venue not long ago. Pathetic!
And then consider the painful implications of an elite group of steel-galled young Filipino artists taking their neo-figurative wares for show-and-tell in Berlin, West Germany. Bizarre!
Let us conclude, therefore, that gazing inward to find out what we are, where we are and what is ours by birthright, may not be such a bad idea after all. Long overdue is a comprehensive exhibit of Pinoy indigenous art that will raise public awareness of our own worth and serve to inspire in our artists a genuine sense of identity. Already, there is word from certain quarters that such a creative exposition is already in the works, thanks to the vision and organizational prowess of the gutsy Cecile Guidote-Alvarez. Pray, reader, that the time is finally at hand. (Please see item below —Ed.)
To the Austrians, particularly to the Indonesian-trained Karin Binder whom I was fortunate to have met, our gratitude for the skin-bracing experience and the fine works of art. Thanks, Vienna. We needed that.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Fiber art footnote: Like 'Pinakbet' in an Austrian Cookbook” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, October 01, 1988
