Disco Bombs, Suspended Leaps, and Shadowplay Explode At UP Vargas Museum

The UP Vargas Museum seems to have become a pretty exciting space this past year.  While it had always housed an important

By Jose Tence Ruiz

collection of paintings and memorabilia, it has transformed into a significant venue for contemporary art. In the past few months, we have seen a series of  exhibits by artists represented by Manila’s leading commercial art galleries.  Consequently, university students have gained access to works by artists critical to the current art scene.  Credit must go to curator Patrick Flores. And this latest trio of shows that he put together, all three that opened simultaneously this week,  definitely underscores this  development .

In the main lobby, we find Bound, with Jose Tence Ruiz, Roberto Feleo, and Gaston Damag.  The show works with the idea of straddling two realities.  To quote the exhibit notes, “this project explores the feeling of being suspended, or the state of transition between past and future, or the thin line that divides the normal and the berserk, the gods and the erring.”

Roberto Feleo, "Agtayabun"

Gaston remounts a piece from Synthetic Reliquiaries,  his SLab show of earlier this year.  His resin bululs, arranged on a steel scaffolding, speak of his taking the traditional and indigenous into the industrial.  Bob Feleo brings out two creatures from Filipino mythology, part of his Tau Tao series of a few years ago.  The Agtayabun, the hawk-man or the winged god that either maintains peace and order or becomes the source of chaos, hangs beside a Bakunawa, the sea serpent-god of the underworld who has the power to cause eclipses.  I had only ever seen photographs of his Tau Tao pieces, so seeing two in the flesh?  What a treat!  His version of

"Agtayabun", detail

Agtayabun is super, both fascinating and menacing, full of multi-layered details. Please bring out more of them!

Above the gallery’s stairway landing hangs a bright orange sculpture, another incarnation of Bogie Tence Ruiz’s adventurous Christ.  This one uses his cross as a surfboard,  with arms outstretched like UP’s Oblation, sporting a Unicorn’s horn.  This absurd amalgam somehow works, a beacon that compels you to come closer.

Kawayan de Guia Bomba installation

Look up and beyond Bogie’s surfer Christ hovers a glittering display that beckons you up the stairs.  Ascend to the museum’s third level and Kawayan de Guia transports you from the world of folk beliefs into his glitzy exhibit, Bomba.  An array of torpedo-shaped disco mirrors hang from the ceiling, at the center of which a chrome bomb houses speakers that blare out psychedelic music.  What a hip, fun, fantastic installation!  Ever wondered how Kawayan would top his jukeboxes?   Well, here we have the answer!  How does he dream of these things?  He creates a video that plays along with the flashing lights, an absorbing film that I actually viewed from start to finish.  To use Bogie’s description, Kawayan…”beautifully edits a combination of porno and violence without being gratuitous.”  He also assembles another jukebox, this time made to look futuristic, without the folk embellishments he used before.  This show alone makes the trek to

Kawayan de Guia's futuristic jukebox

Diliman worth the cost of gasoline.

Back on the ground floor, at the gallery adjacent to the main lobby, Anino Shadowplay and invited guest artists mount Yari.  Taking off from shadow puppets, the accoutrements of their craft, they developed pieces that viewers can interact with and manipulate.  You have kaleidoscopes and laser guns sharing space with clocks, a mix-and-match installation, and a huge crane reprised from UP’s Lantern Parade.  Patrick Flores challenged the artists to make use of the gallery’s glass windows instead of the white walls to display their pieces.  I thought this gave the show a different feel.  Don Salubayba, one of the founding members of Anino Shadowplay, shares that the exhibit comes even more alive when dusk falls and the light allows the pieces to cast their silhouettes on the floor.

Anino Shadowplay, "Anino Bodega"

Someone had commented that while the pieces in these shows worked individually, they didn’t seem to blend when put together.  Perhaps.  It didn’t feel that way to me.  Maybe I enjoy an affinity with the works of these artists.  Maybe because I do not work as an art professional, I simply let my instincts and gut lead the way.  Maybe the students and artists milling around gave Vargas a buzz of positive energy that I enjoyed.  Whatever it is, I certainly didn’t regret crawling through EDSA’s rush hour traffic to catch this set of shows.  I bet you won’t either.

Jose Tence Ruiz for Yari, "Diablo Ex-Machina"

Bound, Bomba, and Yari run from 19 June to18 October 2010 at the University of the Philippines Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Roxas Avenue, UP Diliman, Quezon City.  Phone (632) 928-1927 or (632) 981-8500 local 4024.

By Marc Cosico for Yari

By Robert Alejandro for Yari, "Tatang"

By Brendale Tadeo for Yari, "Makinarya"

Beth Parrocha for Yari, "Puppet Show"

For Yari

For Yari

For Yari

For Yari

Bernadette Wolf, "Yari ng Diyos"

By Anino Shadowplay for Yari, "Theocracy"

Gilda’s Wondrous Whimsical Watercolors

Gilda Cordero Fernando, "Biyaheng Pinoy"

(This piece comes out in the November issue of Town And Country Magazine.  In the course of writing this, I spent an exhilarating afternoon with GCF.  As an added bonus to the great conversation, she allowed me to wander through her art collection.  I am sharing pictures of her pieces in this post.)

Gilda Cordero Fernando, "Adam and Eve's Botany Lesson"

We started our meal with dessert, chunks of refreshing buko pandan still crunchy from the freezer, made right in her kitchen.  But then, this was midafternoon, neither lunch nor dinner, and by her admission, Gilda Cordero Fernando doesn’t do too well following rules.  So as we sat in her bedroom, where she received me, it seemed perfectly natural that after dessert came pasta with fried oysters, followed by salad, and finally, bite-sized lumpia of chickpeas, her own recipe of a treat from the 1930s. As we dipped the crisp rolls into garlic-infused vinegar, she told me that the late Larry Cruz had appropriated this dish for his restaurant, Abe.

Gilda Cordero Fernando, "Historical Float"

We chatted beneath Elmer Borlongan’s mural; dwarfed by the urban denizens he had painted to span the entire wall. Gilda sat across from me, dressed casually in chic white capris and a printed tee.  Her closely cropped hair lent her an elfin, mischievous air.  I thought her eyes danced as she spoke and that her youthful features made her seem twenty years younger.  I found it difficult to believe she would turn 80 this year.

Beneath Elmer Borlongan's piece in Gilda's bedroom. She commissioned this in the 1990s, when Emong just started to make a name for himself.

Perhaps I seemed rude, but I couldn’t help ogling this room filled with art.  Olan Ventura had depicted life-sized likenesses of

Olan Ventura's life-sized depictions of Gilda's household helpers on her cabinet doors

Gilda’s household helpers on the four panels of her closet.  When lit from within, Gerry Leonardo’s fiberglass sculpture doubles as a lamp.  By the bathroom door hangs a charming painting by Spanish artist Jose Maria Ovejero. Later, as this visit progressed, I discovered that the rest of the house held just as much treasure, its rooms filled with pieces as quirky, unconventional, and priceless as its mistress.

Gilda Cordero Fernando, "Let Them Eat Cake!"

This month, Gilda opens her third solo show at SLab, the gallery for paintings of Isa Lorenzo’s Silverlens group.  Pilipinas, Oh My! Philippines will showcase her works in watercolor, Gilda’s medium of choice, in this, her latest incantation, that of a visual artist.

She started painting in the late 1990s, when she was almost in her seventies, at the studio of Araceli Dans.  Before that, we knew her for decades as an award-winning writer of fiction, and then through her essays that came out in the Sunday papers.  She also spent time publishing Filipiniana, under GCF Books, putting a team together that would bring out well-written, beautifully-designed volumes.  “I wanted books I could hug, cuddle, dance with” Gilda reminisces.  I get what she means.  I own one of her books, Household Antiques and Heirlooms by Felice Sta. Maria.  I have had it for years and I still find myself perusing it now and again, rereading portions, and learning something new.  It is a book that I live with, not consigned to the dust in my shelves.

Gilda Cordero Fernando, "Urban Rich"

Alongside the publishing came her theater productions, Jamming With An Old Saya and Luna: An Aswang Romance. Somewhere in this list of past lives is a stint as a proprietor of an antique shop, dealing with and trading wonderful knick-knacks.   

These last two years, Gilda has focused on her watercolors.  She paints from midnight until about two in the morning.  She brings forth whimsical, casual, colorful images of Philippine life and history, paintings filled with her joie de vivre. Gilda deals with social realities lightly, treating societal ills with wit and humor. Her works follow no accepted precepts of perspective and composition except her own.   But by no means is her talent left unguided.   She relies on a formidable group of friends to critique her.  Or at least lend tacit approval to her technique.  “I visit Danny Dalena with pancit, then I ask him to look at my pieces” she says with a laugh.  “The first time he saw my paintings, he told me ‘Ikaw Gilda, huwag na huwag ka mag-aaral ng art’” she recalls, chuckling.  He wanted her pieces to remain fey, as untethered to accepted mores as she herself.

In her dining room, a tableau of a harried housewife by Julie Lluch and two Onib Olmedos which Gilda remembers acquiring for P15K each

Another buddy, sculptor Roberto Feleo, passes on advice.  “He showed me how to do image transfers” narrates Gilda, “so easy pala!  But first I had to buy him chicharon.”

Gilda Codero Fernando, "High Life and Low Life"

When she finds herself in need of even more help, she seeks it from those who have passed on.  One night, confronted with blank paper and with no idea what to do, she meditated and summoned the spirit of old friend Onib Olmedo.  “I saw them, the yagit,” forlorn faces peered at her from inside two glass cylinders, features so characteristic of Olmedo’s paintings.  She incorporated these images into two of her pieces, Let Them Eat Cake and High Life and Low Life, for this show at SLab. 

I marvel at how effortlessly Gilda has moved through life, gliding through her transitions as suavely as the steps of the freeform dancing she loves.  She shares that she never had qualms about blazing trails and trying something new.  “I just knew that as a pioneer, I wouldn’t make any money.  Ako ang taya.” She credits Marcelo, her husband of 57 years, for providing well for their family, thus allowing her to be.

A bust of Gilda's husband, Marcelo Fernando, by Julie Lluch

While she hasn’t gotten the hang of the Internet, and still writes in longhand, she keeps pulse with Manila by going out and experiencing its cultural life.  She makes the rounds of art galleries and art events, keeping tabs on her numerous artist friends.  She watches movies and tries out new restaurants, even by her lonesome.   Gilda shrugs when asked what she sees for herself after this show.  “I don’t know. Iba naman.”  She’s all set for the next adventure.

When darkness had fallen completely, we took a tour of her house which National Artist Lindy Locsin had built in the 1960s.  Soon after, I took my leave. I had had my fill of Gilda’ delectable food, engaging art, and inspiring conversation.  As I made my way out, through the pebbled paths of her husband’s garden, I thought to myself:  when I grow up, I want to be like Gilda Cordero Fernando.

Wall-bound piece by Roberto Feleo

Pilipinas Oh My! Philippines runs from 21 October to 14 November 2009 at SLab, 2f Yupangco Bldg, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City.  Phone (632)816-0044 or visit http://www.slab.silverlensphoto.com

Kitchen cabinets painted by Karen Flores

Roberto Feleo mosaic at the guest bathroom

Detail of Ann Wizer installation on Gilda's living room wall

Roberto Feleo at The Drawing Room

Roberto Feleo, "Ang Pinteng ni Pedro Mateo", note flaming headress for decapitated Ifugao warriors

When an artist of Roberto Feleo’s stature puts together a show of recent works, you try and make time to see it.  Admittedly, art took a back seat this past week. I stayed glued to the tv or to my laptop following current events as they unraveled, leading up to the momentous People’s Funeral of President Cory Aquino.  But an exhibit by Feleo does not happen every year, and with The Drawing Room just a fifteen-minute car ride away, I found myself taking a break from all the news.

Virinas installation

It turns out Virinas perfectly suited my nationalistic mood.  Once again, Feleo makes sociohistorical commentaries, this time via small-scale figures in sawdust, the medium most associated with him. The show brings us vignettes of Philippine history, indigenous and pre-colonial images, even personalities from Feleo’s past.   He encloses each episode, some composed of single figures, others a grouping of various-sized subjects, in glass bell jars,

Roberto Feleo, "Ang Bigatin"

the virinas of the show’s title. These glass containers, perhaps just a foot high, recall the casing of ivory santos and other holy figures found  in our old stone churches. He paints most figures in acrylic, adopting a palette reminiscent of the colors used in wood carvings of old.  The skin tones, for instance, come out a pasty pink, a friar’s cassock, a dull brown.  He also incorporates devices found in these old religious works, like a flame atop subjects’ heads to indicate the presence of the Holy Spirit.  A wooden base serves as platform for each piece,  a miniature stage if you will, of the stories Feleo tells.

Roberto Feleo, "Kathang Isip na Larawan ni Esteban Villanueva at Ang Kanyang Mga Tularan"

The 19th Century Basi Revolt looms large in this show.  This was a violent protest against a monopoly imposed by the Spanish government on the sale of the native Ilocano liquor. Feleo devotes four pieces on the subject. In Kathang Isip na Larawan ni Esteban Villanueva at Ang Kanyang mga Tularan, he pays tribute to the artist who recorded events of the rebellion. He portrays Esteban Villanueva towering over three other figures of the uprising, ringleaders who the Spanish authorities beheaded. In another piece, one of revolt’s leaders, Salaroga Ambaristo, stands

Roberto Feleo, "Ambaristo from Life", and "Los Soldados de Espiritu Santo"

atop a carabao, his stance akin to an action figure, jets of what look like magic lasers issuing from his pointed fingers, headpieces floating around him. In my two favorite pieces of the show, Feleo depicts Ambaristo and Pedro Mateo, the revolt’s other ringleader, as pintengs,  decapitated warriors worthy of the headdresses that Ifugaos confer on their beheaded heroes. The figures in these two pieces, Ang Pinteng ni Ambaristo and Ang Pinteng ni Pedro Mateo, have been left

Roberto Feleo, "Ang Pinteng ni Ambaristo"

unpainted.  They look as primitive as bulols, their naked bodies disjointed from heads which have been pierced with  colored wooden adornments  shaped like flames.

Some of his other pieces comment on other aspects of our history.  In Ang Bendita, the lying friar’s elongated nose exposes him for what he is.  Two Makapili, informants used by the Japanese to weed out guerillas during World War II, play a gruesome game of Jack en Poy while still hiding under their bayong hoods in Bato, Bato, Pik.

Roberto Feleo, "Bato, Bato, Pik"

I love Roberto Feleo when he gives us majestic tableaux:  his Tau-Tao installation at our National Art Gallery and his Retablo ng Bantaoay, a wall-bound piece of several decorated torsos which he originally exhibited in the National Museum as part of the Basi Revolt’s 200th anniversary (this has since been acquired by the Singapore Art Museum).  This show, Virinas, allows art collectors to bring home minute, somewhat whimsical,  sketches, more manageable pieces from Roberto Feleo’s body of work.

Roberto Feleo, "Ang Pinteng ni Kristo"

Roberto Feleo Virinas runs from 1 to 22 August, 2009 at The Drawing Room Contemporary Art, 1007 Metropolitan Avenue, Metrostar Bldg, Makati.  Phone (632)897-7877 or visit http://www.drawingroomgallery.com

Roberto Feleo, "Birdmen in the Mist"

Roberto Feleo, "Maguayen"

Roberto Feleo, "Tres Amigos"

Roberto Feleo, "Autoretrato"

Roberto Feleo, "Tau-tao, Buto Buto"