‘Take Three’ for Chromatext The Word Made Flesh
‘Take Three’ for Chromatext
The Word Made Flesh
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, November 28, 1987
ON its third consecutive year at Pinaglabanan Galleries, the annual “Chromatext” continues to draw our attention to the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC), a hyperactive group of Filipino poets whose fascination with the visual arts as one alternative to the printed page has raised its share of eyebrows in both literary and artistic circles.
The term “chromatext” was itself coined by PLAC as a curious monicker for the growing artistic alliance between words and pictures. And yet the one most obvious failing of this ongoing series is that it has persistently focused on a regular roster of personalities rather than on the formal investigation of an increasingly-popular form of hybrid artistry. “Chromatext” has inevitably become an annual cook-out for PLAC and its small orbit of friends, a closed-circuit extravaganza that sinks or swims on the group’s own erratic produce.
How, then, fLares PLAC & Company in this, its third outing?
The rule of thumb applies in any case. Visuality is foremost. All else is sauerkraut to the beef. In the hallowed context of a gallery exhibition, even a boyscout tying knots must acquit himself to the eye.
In this regard, the unadorned holographs of Gemino Abad and Luna Reyes are sadly misplaced, being gestural offerings to the wall. It is well known among artists that the gallery gods are easily angered by such half-hearted tribute, and bare-faced poetics - no matter how well-crafted in essence - is almost always spat out whole and merits no brownie points in heaven. Holographs (pages of text handwritten on paper) are hardly gallery fare, and it is high time our poets refrained from showing off their penmanship for its own sake.
Alfred Yuson and Cirilo Bautista definitely do Abad and Reyes one better, displaying an innovative but understated graphic sense rare for high priests of verse. Yuson exhibits photographic enlargements of typeset pages, each embellished with an array of monochromatic washes, penciled scribbles, notations in editorial shorthand, hi-liter markings, insertions and deletions, that result in decidedly optic works exploring the sensuality of words as graphic elements. Bautista’s “Textual Genesis” is among the finest examples of the chromatext idiom, with letters in a structural grid painstakingly worked into fanciful kaleidoscope patterns that literally fuse the visual and the literary.
For a full-time man-of-letters who dabbles in painting only once a year, Alfredo Navarro Salanga has obviously had his eyes peeled for interesting visual devices with a marked preference for the installation, emerging here as the proverbial watcher-in-the-woods who has learned his lessons well. His “Military Intelligence” - a wall-bound installation with 33 fiberboard folders lined neatly in three rows and pseudo-stamped with the admonition “Eyes Only” - is clearly among the standouts, a modular set that stares back at the viewer. On the other hand, poet-painter Felix Fojas has yet to brush up on his homework, his transition from conventional canvases to the conceptual mode betraying his total lack of understanding of the mind in art.
Like much of Fojas’ pitiful handiwork, “Dream Sequence #2” - a virtual nightmare occupying the entire second gallery - is as inept and pointless as installations come, being a great deal of furious clutter for no apparent reason. It is difficult to believe that professional exponents of the installational genre - notably upcoming artists John Cinco, Alwin Reamillo and Gerardo Leonardo, who together with the poet Eric Gamalinda were responsible for this shameful display of constipated abandon - could so sorely miss the point to the very stylistic form most readily associated with their own personal work. Apparently, everyone has his off-days, and some days are so bad that they are impossible to live down.
Breezing through the rest of the show will just have to do, owing to space limitations. Fatima Lim reminds me of the expatriate poet and xerographer Bing Caballero (once a mainstay in PLAC activities), with Lim’s work particularly noteworthy for its use of computer graphics, an area of concern sadly neglected in this country. Mang Larry Francia maintains his preference for the delicate and the understated, and in this case, flirts precariously with the whimsical. Marne Kilates surprises us with his unheralded drawing skills, even while not all good poets can claim to be ambidextrous. Juaniyo Arcellana, an emerging young poet reputed to have a devoted popular following, shows no talent whatsoever for the ordering of readymade visual elements.
Judging from his tentative works in the last two “Chromatext” exhibits, Ludwig Ilio is obviously a much more engaging illustrator than he is a painter. Roque Lee is strangely enchanting for all his wanton sexuality, violence and poor taste. Feliciano Gallardo confirms what I have suspected all along - that he would do well to discard classical materials and techniques in favor of indigenous means. Augusto Albor continues to be the painter’s painter, an artist able to conjure the most fascinating visual stimulus from just about any material he puts to task - words included. Rock Drilon never fails to confuse me. And Benjie Lontoc would easily have stood head-and-shoulders above the rest with the text-laden works of his recent past, but has opted instead to exhibit a dark, brooding portrait in oils that is at best unremarkable. (Far too few people realize that Lontoc is a recipient of that most elusive visual arts plum, the AAP Grand Prize for Painting in 1981!)
“Chromatext III” is again more private party than creative feast, with PLAC members now appearing to be less concerned with producing works of distinction than with meeting an annual deadline. The novelty wears thin even as the spirit lives on.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “‘Take Three’ for Chromatext The Word Made Flesh” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, November 28, 1987
