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The 1980s Three major events jolted the entire body politic in the 1980s. Former Sen. Benigno S. Aquino Jr., returned to the Philippines and was met by assassins' bullets at the tarmac at the then Manila International Airport located in Paranaque. Another was the snap presidential election, which Marcos called. The third major event that sent shock waves all over the world was the so-called February Revolution in 1986. The four longest days (22-26) in the shortest month of the year finally toppled the Marcos dictatorship. If the Gawad CCP awardees were thought to have been affected by all these events either way, there was another thing coming. No way were the artists as artists affected any which way. Bencab by his own admission was affected, but only as a person. Particularly as a Filipino. He was in London at the time, and took the phenomenon as the occasion to tell anybody who was willing to listen that he was a Filipino. Prescience seems to be endowed on Bencab. In 1981, the same year when Pope John Paul II visited the country for the first time, he did Edo Gesture, replete with free-flowing movement, a gestural bravura that is at core a celebration of freedom that impends. Imao somehow digressed from theological inhibition (they are not supposed to sculpt or paint Allah), and did two outdoor metal monuments titled "Allah." However, he still respected their theological tradition by not depicting Allah in human form, but in abstract terms where massive shapes curl in and out of smaller shapes--all of which suggest a sense of suspended weight. The incursion into open voids allowed by the 3-dimensional compositions, become ideational imperatives to depict a theological tenet: Allah's omnipresence. In 1989, Imao's version of Sarimanok underwent further abstraction, the armalis or floral designs deleted for a continuous surface sweep. The bird's long neck is reminiscent of the neck of a kotyapi. Luz did an untitled public sculpture, in stainless steel, conceived and actualized within a box on one corner. The alternating quasi-mass and equally quasi-negative voids in verticals, horizontals and diagonals reveal no outside referents outside hollow blocks. Nevertheless, this work clarifies the formulation of human thought: its ability to operate in abstractions, or to generate multiple ideas out of minimal means. The flowers and women count among the subjects, which Malang did in the 1980s. Such subjects may be constructed as miscues, thematically, on the raging issues at the time, any or all the three major events of the decade. But Malang is apolitical. And that's that. The 1990s The decade of the 1990s effected a reversal of attitudes, readjustment of mindsets, refocusing of concerns obtaining in and out of one's universe, among other things. The elimination of a man as a thematic source turned practically unabated with the coming of the cyber age. Conventional ways of thinking and actualizing thoughts affected many artists, some just to be with the tide as it were others due to identity loss. The Gawad CCP awardees are aware of such changes in the in-national and even local art scenes brought about by the cyber age. But in their works in this decade point a common denominator, a 3-word one-liner: What the heck. This finds a variance in their refusal to identify their artistic periods. Their common reason: They are still active. Bencab is informed of the fast changing times and the resultant changes in technology. But rather than be consumed by technique, he would rather focus on ideas. His works prove this much. The hard facts of life have made Imao practical. He is now into commissioned works sponsored by Christian and Muslim alike. So he is making monuments to heroes rising to more that 100 feet high. Among these are Pres. Elpidio Quirino, Aman Dangat and Aman Pakpak. Triumph over adversaries is a reward worthy of ebullient kinetics, or body language. Accoutrements and adornments that bespeak of one's cultural identity reveal much more than the person as a hero. They are symbols of an image, in this case the image of a people who fought for human dignity over and above socio-cultural levels of identification. These emerge as the virtues of the monuments to Dangat and Pakpak. Luz in one of this sculpture has sustained his sleek lines found in his paintings. Table Sculpture illustrates this predisposition. Three human figures, as inert as can be despite their diagonal positions in and out of the open rectangle, interface with each other in parts for a cohesive figural arrangement. The circular thing wedged in-between the lower twin levers is an alien shape and therefore useless. Malang is eternally enamored with women as subjects, making them look tall with their long necks, but remain transfixed on the lower half of the composition by virtue of gravitational pull. This is due to the wide butterfly sleeves and equally wide skirts, like the women were wearing three or more layers of petite coats. In all his works, including his recent series on children, Malang continues to demonstrate his impeccable color sense. No color goes wayward in his visual harmony. Shanties still recur in Malang's works in the '90s. This is both sad and happy. Sad because the barong-barong is a continuing reality not yet solved by the various political administrations. But happy likewise because they are images of familial cohesion and where, on a larger scale, community bonding is built. The works of the other Gawad CCP awardees in the visual arts, now in the great beyond, are not covered by the present study. What kinds of works did they create? That's an open-ended question, indeed.
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Copyright
© 2000 The President's Committee on Culture and the Arts |