Place of Region in the Contemporary

PHILIPPINE CONTEMPORARY NETWORK Place of Region in the Contemporary University of the Vargas Museum 8 December 2017 - 27 January 2018

Philippine Network

Patrick D. Flores Director

Tessa Maria Guazon Coordinator, Exhibition and Curatorial Analysis

Renan Laru-an Coordinator, Public Engagement and Artistic Formation

Roberto G. Paulino Coordinator, Knowledge Production and Circulation

Publication

Patrick D. Flores Editing

Carlos Quijon, Jr. Publication Coordination

Dino Brucelas Design

A.g. De Mesa Photography

©2019 Philippine Contemporary Art Network 4 PCAN: An Intro

18 Place of Region in the Contemporary Patrick D. Flores

EXHIBITIONS

28 Ayco, Imao, Bose, Junyee Roberto G. Paulino

42 Traversals/Trajectories: Expansive Localities Tessa Maria Guazon

56 An Ecological, The Obligatory Renan Laru-an

70 Raymundo Albano: Texts Patrick D. Flores

ESSAYS

86 Ayco, Imao, Bose, Junyee: A Historiography Roberto G. Paulino

122 Forays into Regions: Between, Beyond, and Not Quite There Tessa Maria Guazon

134 An Impossible Profession Renan Laru-an

150 By Way of Region Patrick D. Flores

160 Artist Profiles

172 PCAN Members

178 Object List

192 Acknowledgment 4 The project initiates the Philippine Contemporary Art Network

Philippine Contemporary Art Network (PCAN), which is temporarily based at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum in Diliman. In this preliminary task, it dwells on three activities: Knowledge Production and Circulation; Exhibition and Curatorial Analysis; Public Engagement and Artistic Formation. It endeavors to activate a network to coordinate a range of interventions in contemporary art in the Philippines and to cast a sharper profile for it on an inter-local and trans-regional scale. It is keen to confront the requirements of research and discourse; curate art and subject the curatorial gesture to critique; and propose modes of catalyzing the public sphere of art and in the process harness the energies of its agents.

It must be noted that the Philippine art world steadily produces artists through formal and informal modes of art studies and the learning of the creative form in general. The circulation of art across various fields is robust and the quality in the heterogeneity of production is relatively consistent. Discourse is not entirely absent, and there is a desire among younger practitioners to carve out spaces, organize, talk about art, and take up curatorial work. These are encouraging signs of a lively art ecology and a willingness to transcend the belabored, overdramatized institutional critique of state and market authority. Only the self-righteous intrigant, consumed by malice and unfortunately deprived of insight and instinct, seems to persist not really to critique but merely to prey on the idle and potentially insidious culture of discontent. What might be missing in the present atmosphere is an effort to harness these resources and configure a relational field in which the various articulations of artmaking and its disseminations, broadly conceived, foster certain chances of meeting. PCAN: An Intro 6 Philippine Contemporary Art Network PCAN: An Intro

7 Place of Region in the Contemporary

OPPOSITE PAGE: ABOVE: Abdulmari Imao Jess Ayco Burning of Jolo Untitled 1970/1975 Undated 8 The transient space for PCAN is the Vargas Museum, a

Philippine Contemporary Art Network university museum that speaks to the legacy of its collection of art and copious Filipiniana and coordinates a contemporary art program. It is a museum in a rainforest that responds as well to the urgencies of its histories and contexts: the university as a secular institution of supposedly universal knowledge and the national university as a rampart of the nation in its various mutations. At various levels, the “university” as a context grounds and extends the museum as it refunctions that which surpasses its borders within the long duration of post-colonial history; the crisis of human education and the conditions of work in the modern world and beyond it; and the potential sympathies between persons and phenomena across time and place. It revisits the exceptional question of Jacques Derrida: “Today, how can we not speak of the university?”1

Derrida makes an urgent plea for reflection or critique that the university guarantees, something that “must make its way through the very objects we work with, shaping them as it goes, along with our norms, procedures, and aims.”2 While it needs to be intimate with the society it renders, the university can only aspire to this intimacy if it offers the chance “for dissociation.” As he puts it: “Keep the memory and keep the chance.”3 The university, therefore, may be described as being all over, timely and untimely, an ubiquitist, or a professor at large in Derrida’s mind, an agency that is engaged and unhinged. Derrida indexes a crisis that has haunted the university, a crisis linked to what he calls mondialisation, a possible translation of globalization. The critic of education Henry Giroux for his part grapples with this global turn and converses with Giorgio Agamben when he crafts the phrase “bare pedagogy” to describe a program that “strips education of its public values, critical contents, and civic responsibilities as part of its broader goal of creating new subjects wedded to the logic of privatization, efficiency, flexibility, the accumulation of capital, and the destruction of the social state.”4 PCAN: An Intro

In 2012, a massive reform in education in the Philippines began 9

through a lengthened secondary education of twelve years from Place of Region in the Contemporary the previous ten and a compulsory or mandated kindergarten. According to a study, the policy rests on the “preparation” for higher education, “eligibility” for entering domestic and overseas higher educational institutions, and immediate “employability” upon graduation. It is within this frame that I appropriate the word “reskill” to implicate this drift towards the globalization of education in which, as the study asserts, “the global uniformity of schooling provides entrance into the global economy.”5 Such reskilling or retraining stems from what the political economist Jeremy Rifkin calls the end of work in the age of global markets and automated production. Derrida cites Rifkin in his ruminations on mondialisation or “a becoming-world of the world,” an origin heralded by the end of work. But he takes exception to Rifkin’s lapse into generality: “between these obvious indices and the doxic used—others might say the ideological inflation—the rhetorical and often hazy complacency with which everyone gives in to the words ‘end of work' and ‘globalization,’ there is a gap.”6 It is in this gap that the university is “exposed to reality,” reclaims a democratic space, and gathers its resistance with its own plural work, its ubiquitous travail.

1 Jacques Derrida, “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eye of its Pupils,” Diacritics 13, no. 4 (Autumn 1983): 3. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., 20. 4 Henry Giroux, “Critical Pedagogy in Dark Times,” in On Critical Pedagogy (New York: Continuum, 2011), 10. 5 Masayoshi Okabe, “Where Does Philippine Education Go? The ‘K to 12’ Program and Reform of Philippine Basic Education,” IDE Discussion Paper 425, Institute of Developing Economies (August 2013). 6 Jacques Derrida, “The University Without Condition,” in Without Alibi, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 227. TOP: Dumay Solinggay And All You Saw Were My Breasts 2017

RIGHT: Kitty Taniguchi Feeding Aries 2013 PCAN: An Intro

11 Place of Region in the Contemporary

TOP: BOTTOM LEFT: BOTTOM RIGHT Panx Solajes Henrielle Pagkaliwangan Henrielle Pagkaliwangan Himurasak 1 Elf White Sand 1 Elf Gravel 2016 2017 2017 12 Curatorial work at the Vargas Museum in the University of the

Philippine Contemporary Art Network Philippines foregrounds the history of the university as a colonial institution under the American imperialist regime that at the same time had aspired to be Filipino, or made to aspire to be Filipino through the tutelage of American administrators from 1899 to 1942, only to be disrupted by the Pacific War. The donor of the collection consisting of art, books, documents, stamps, coins, and memorabilia was Jorge Vargas. He was a political figure in the American and Japanese governments who viewed the collection as an allegory of the bildung or formation of the nation in the wake of a devastating war, which levelled the capital nearly on the scale of Warsaw. Here, the modernity of the university, of culture, and of the Filipino would condense in the post-war period in the Philippines. The first president of the University, who was the American theologian Murray Bartlett, stressed the “moral value of work” and believed that “the surest and quickest way of bringing about the Filipinization of government is through the university.”7 His emphasis on “character” and his call not to “breed aristocrats, but unselfish workers for the common good” cohered with his vision for a Filipino university, thus his insistence on the national: “There can be no greatness without nationality. The world-centers of knowledge are essentially national. With students from all parts of the world, Berlin is essentially German and Oxford essentially English. This university should not be a reproduction of the American university…it must grow in Philippine soil, it must not be transplanted from foreign shores.” 8

7 Donata Taylo, Bartlett as First President (1911-1915): Laying the Foundation of the University. University of the Philippines: The First 75 Years (1908-1983) ( City: University of the Philippines Press, 1985), 18. 8 Ibid., 19. PCAN: An Intro

PCAN finds space in this theoretical and historiographic scenario 13

as it seeks to participate in the post-colonial task to more Place of Region in the Contemporary diligently enhance the capacities of the agents and workers in the art world by drawing attention to the all-important aspects of the ; the curation of art; and the formation of artists and audiences. These aspects round out the constellation of a contemporary art sphere in the Philippines that is responsive to the demands of international co-locution and intense translations of the local. Through a series of initiatives, PCAN can advance research models to support existing mechanisms in in the academe and archiving by artists themselves. It can also try to survey what is happening in the different art worlds across the country, setting a more extensive horizon of the art world and the roles of those who stake out its ground: not only artists in the disciplinal sense, but cultural workers, organizers, managers, administrators, teachers, specialists in the creative industry, and so on. It can finally trace how artists emerge from specific situations of learning and taking risks and in the same vein how audiences come to belong to kindred situations of sensing and reaching out to understand and co-produce contemporary art in incidents of interested, informed reception. Sympathy might prove to be central in this assemblage of participations, but also: curiosity, collegiality, generosity, and the ethico-aesthetic commitment to do good work with others. Those who do not care are of course very free to thrive on their prosperous careers or wallow in their fundamentalist prejudices.

The word network was preferred over “center.” Network presupposes interpenetrating nodes and porous, overlapping environments of making and receiving. A center anticipates authority and standard. A network, on the other hand, encourages a more dispersed annotation of practices, true to the spirit perhaps of an archipelagic and migrant sensibility with which Philippine agents are intimate. Moreover, a network motivates interaction, excites points of contact, and charges circuits of exchange. This is the vision of PCAN: to lay the groundwork for cross-border crossings and in the process reconfigure terrains of practice. 14 The idea of PCAN crystallized more fully when Senator Loren

Philippine Contemporary Art Network Legarda expressed the need for a structure or a platform to create conditions of exchange within contemporary art in the country. PCAN strives to carry this vision through in incremental and serial projects that intuit the depth of practices and the scope of their significance. In this embryonic stage, it focuses on research, exhibition making, and publication as a way to prepare a territory for discourse, curatorial theory, and critical writing. Always in its activities PCAN tries to mingle data and discourse and to advance the awareness of both immediacy and mediation. In imagining and researching the contemporary in particular circumstances, there will be intersecting paths of thinking, feeling, making. Surely, this endeavor of continually cracking the code of the contemporary brings us hopefully closer to complexifying the Philippine. And in this regard, a word game around the contemporary might be initiated. What is it in the Philippine language? Because the contemporary is not only about the now (kasalukuyan) and the new (bago), how can it be conveyed idiomatically? And here is a proposition: kamakailan. It is some kind of a progressive past that is still being felt in the present, some kind of a “present passing” in the phraseology of Hélène Cixous.9 It may be translated into “almost now,” or better still, “lately.” The contemporary is “lately.” (Patrick D. Flores)

9 Hélène Cixous, The Hélène Cixous Reader, ed. Susan Sellers (Oxfordshire: Psychology Press, 1994), xxii. ABOVE: Installation view of the Place of Region in the Contemporary at the Vargas Museum Santiago Bose Grade School Days 1974 Santiago Bose Baguio Souvenirs 1937 1975 In this incipient moment, PCAN is shaped by the concerns the concerns is shaped by moment, PCAN In this incipient in the “Place of Region the phrase implicated in and anxieties the better term, elusive It is a deliberately Contemporary.” as it explores within a wide latitude to move perhaps for PCAN or impulses of making: making endeavors its various nodes, its At this stage, too, PCAN making relations. art, making exhibitions, to set the coordinates of the “Philippine” scans a wide horizon that reduced to the national. It is at this point that is oftentimes not necessarily a becomes some kind of a foil, though the “region” having to imagined is region The alternative. an or opposite binary and therefore a geopolitic and a geopoetic. a place, a geography, is is formulated, the geography region” But when “place of an assertion of location. instilled with the urgency of position, of positionality and locality PCAN is currently under this climate within The region can transpose and interested. that is exigent it, within a geopolitical area and through the nation and beyond or It is not only province it, across hemispheres and around it. countries co-opted under It is not only a collection of periphery. axis, travel, route, corridor, the sign of a block or a coalition. It is It can be at home and abroad, city and suburb, gap or harbor. between water and land. nexus a level as of “region” PCAN mindfully reflects on the notion be construed as hometown or island within of locality; it may the nation such as the inter- the nation or a space beyond a it is regarded, the region is turned into nation. However various scales so that it can sites and zones of trope to track from the hardened identities and of agency traces recover All this plays monolithic rubrics of nation or globalization. milieu called or a complex out in an inchoate environment the latter is re-inscribed Needless to say, the contemporary. this initial in the interrogation of both place and region. For PCAN proposes the following entry points: an exhibition foray, the country; an anthology of the art across of contemporary Albano; research on four artists who stood of Raymundo texts and a on the threshold of the modern and the contemporary; from the to modes of honing artists and spaces away revisit of the capital city. governmentality

18 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary

PATRICK D. FLORES First is the archive-exhibition that ferrets out First is the archive-exhibition artists and intellectual work of five the creative on the edge of the modern and the who worked Albano, in Philippine life: Raymundo contemporary Santiago Bose, Abdulmari Imao, and Jess Ayco, forays bring into their respective They Junyee. , the precipitates of their hometowns: also Baños. They Bacolod, Baguio, , and Los of these precipitates into condensations translate These artists to Manila and elsewhere. migration painting, forms in their studios: incubated hybrid intermedia, drawing, , photography, installation, video, and performance. Aside from the queer element figures, as strongly migrancy, the inspiring oeuvre of Ayco. by evinced PCAN conceptualizes the region as shifting strata of as shifting strata the region PCAN conceptualizes and histories are rooted in natural As locations they locations. to the region is seen in relation The transformation. historical in this its place, that is, its claim to be gauging contemporary, of this sense of in this claim, and the effects place, its stake these three is, therefore, to convene belonging. The intention point to They region, contemporary. place, utterance: in one terms positioned in a particular be To subjectivity. instance, temporality, region. encompasses the politics of the locus at a certain time as is shifting because it is construed This region as mentioned and is grounded, it is linked While it emergent and extensive. is also delinks and unhinges. PCAN hinged, as it continually unsettling, resettling. It is a interested in this process of settling, agents and structures that are verisimilarly process realized by this process. by enlivened Three templates support these initiations.

20 Philippine Contemporary Art Network ABOVE: Works by Jess Ayco, Santiago Bose, Abdulmari Imao, and Junyee as part of PCAN's Knowledge Production and Circulation coordinator Roberto G. Paulino's project on Philippine artists born or based in the regions ABOVE: Installation view of Traversals/Trajectories: Expansive Localities, an exhibition curated by PCAN's Exhibition and Curatorial Analysis coordinator Tessa Maria Guazon Place of Region in the Contemporary 23 Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place The second format is the survey presentation presentation format is the survey The second on the various art from research that accrues the aims to traverse It the country. worlds across world and thrust to the fore ecologies of this art how these art worlds productions that embody because of its horizontal survey, are produced. The It a variety of expressions. orientation, implicates a mix attention to and draws also casts a wide net gendered, queered. of subjectivities: generational, it furnishes the city its own Counter-intuitively, and inflects the so-called distinction as a region of protest, the gritty ethnographies with province not the only is and catastrophe. Diversity play, the logic of the It probes agenda of this survey. localities. nurtured by aesthetic practice in which The third format is the laboratory come research material and aesthetic proposition that together to produce pedagogical modalities political blur the boundaries between art and gesture to the This is an interesting economy. of the degree that is displaces the centrality and production of art from a singular intelligence of the consequently redistributes the energies its makers. facture of the sensible proposition and of Manila as In the same breath, the centrality the privileged source and telos of knowledge on places is disabused as it dwells transmission Baños, Dumaguete, and Dansalan/. Los like the idea of an exhibition complicates It likewise and is at once disrupted because the display and the the para-curatorial supplemented by gathering of data, reading session, post-curatorial: discussion. And the forms in the space are a cross and the documentary: between the ephemeral instruction. writing, paper, 24 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 25 Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place ABOVE: Archival materials on the writing practice Albano as part of PCAN of Raymundo Flores's project D. Director Patrick Raymundo Albano: Texts These three situations of presenting and perceiving reckon with and perceiving reckon These three situations of presenting the ambience of to simulate the promise of the contemporary there is excitement both the festival and the seminar in which of art as well as deep in the recognition and acknowledgement ramifications for the intimacies of the body reflection on its PCAN tries to panoply, in terms of a curatorial politic. Finally, contaminations, spillovers, a space that allows for choreograph of the projects. This interferences across the specific enunciations a let us say, of, out zones of interface in terms drawing is done by shared origin or a glimpse of semblances or moments of gathering image. cooking, moving an essay, like OPPOSITE PAGE: Jean Claire Dy Hallucinations of a Dumaguete Landing 2017

Exhibitions Works by Jess Ayco and Abdulmari Imao as part of Ayco, Bose, Imao, Junyee Ayco, Imao, Bose, Junyee

Roberto G. Paulino The Knowledge Production and Circulation component of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network coordinated by Roberto G. Paulino identifies research themes and issues pertinent to the vision of the network.

For its pilot research project in 2017 on the theme “The Place of Region in the Contemporary,” it undertook archival research and exhibited select works of Filipino artists Jess Ayco (1916-1982), Santiago Bose (1949-2002), Abdulmari Imao (1936-2014), and Junyee (Luis Yee Jr) (born 1942). Born or based in the regions of Bacolod, Baguio, Jolo, and Los Baños, respectively, the artists represent the disparate conditions and production in Philippine modern and contemporary art. Their artistic practices as well as writings have since been translated beyond province and nation, decentering the national and global centers of Manila and the West, and broadening the scope of locality.

More than 70 art pieces were exhibited at the Lobby and North Wing Galleries of the UP Vargas Museum from December 8, 2017 to January 27, 2018. They ranged from paintings, drawings, to photographs and journals. Among the earliest pieces was Ayco’s Japanese Bombing of Bacolod (1942) while the most recent was Junyee’s installation art Abortion, which was remounted specifically for the exhibition. The works were culled variously from the artists’ family collection, private collections (such as the Paulino and Hetty Que collection and the Rogelio and Maria Cristina Piguing collection), as well as the holdings of the Vargas Museum. Although not a retrospective, the exhibition provided a cross-section of the artists’ body of works, and were curated to converse with one another.

At the Sensorium, video interviews of the artists were looped and pertinent books and publications were made available for room use. Cross-referenced timelines and profiles of the aforementioned artists were likewise published based on annotated bibliographies of primary sources and a meta-review of historical surveys. As part of its public program, the Knowledge Production and Circulation component held an art historiography lecture at the Vargas Museum on January 24, 2018. It focused on the Filipino modernist Jess Ayco who lived and worked in Bacolod.

In mapping and retracing their places in the master narrative of Philippine art, the project reflects on the constructed notions of "region" and the "contemporary" and the former’s place in the latter.

ABOVE: Installation view, Ayco, Bose, Imao, Junyee 32 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

TOP: Installation view, Ayco, Bose, Imao, Junyee BOTTOM LEFT: Santiago Bose, NY Bleeding Heart, 1981 BOTTOM RIGHT: Abdulmari Imao, Unititled [Interior of Abdulmari Imao's First Marikina House], 1975 Place of Region in the Contemporary 33

TOP: Installation view, Ayco, Bose, Imao, Junyee BOTTOM LEFT: Santiago Bose, Wall, 1974 BOTTOM RIGHT: Abdulmari Imao, Burning of Jolo (detail) 34 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

THIS PAGE: Images from Bose's selected journals

OPPOSITE PAGE: TOP: Jess Ayco, [Genitalia Sketch], undated MIDDLE AND BOTTOM: Jess Ayco, Untitled photographs, undated Place of Region in the Contemporary 35 36 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

ABOVE: OPPOSITE PAGE: Photographs by Abdulmari Imao Abdulmari Imao Untitled Undated

38 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

ABOVE: OPPOSITE PAGE (CLOCKWISE): Abdulmari Imao Abdulmari Imao Abdulmari Imao Untitled Labandera Untitled 1985 1959 1975

Seated figures from Junyee Santiago Bose's collection The Kiss of memorabilia 1965 Place of Region in the Contemporary 39 40 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

THIS PAGE LEFT: Objects from Bose's studio [clockwise from left]: a bulol, a globe, a drum

BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT: Abdulmari Imao, Maquette, 1976; Abdulmari Imao, Nude, 1975; Abdulmari Imao, Tausug Mother and Child, 1975

OPPOSITE PAGE TOP: Junyee The Last Mile of Ho Chi Minh 1969

BOTTOM: Abdulmari Imao Mr. Clean Undated Place of Region in the Contemporary 41 Isha Naguiat Traces 2017 Traversals/Trajectories: Expansive Localities

Tessa Maria Guazon This is an exhibition to launch the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. It explores ideas of the region and the different “practices of placeness” in Philippine contemporary art by tracing numerous strains of place-making in the works of artists from different localities across the Philippines. Art by emerging artists are presented alongside more settled ones, allowing one generation to speak to another by way of art. The exhibition examines negotiations of the global by gathering various practices of making and claiming place through contemporary art. It subsequently attempts to formulate ideas of the contemporary by way of a pliant and porous local, giving form to an attitude sharply described as a “restless worldliness.” Collateral activities are organized with the exhibition, including a discussion platform to examine impulses underlying the curatorial—those that frame and activate localities in their assertion of claims to place against an overarching globality.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Martin de Mesa Noel's Shrine 2017

Place of Region in the Contemporary 47

OPPOSITE PAGE: THIS PAGE: Carzen Esprela Zeus Bascon Bag in a Boat Dead Masks 2016 2014-2017 48 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

Kat Palasi Manila Region 2014-2017 Place of Region in the Contemporary 49 50 Philippine Contemporary Art Network , 1990; , 1995 : Saddam the Martyr Chris Patten vs. The Dragon , 1990; Chris Patten CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT TOP FROM CLOCKWISE , 1999; Globocop Jose Tence Ruiz's pen and ink drawings: Ruiz's pen and ink drawings: Jose Tence Clinton Might Makes Right Clinton Might Makes Place of Region in the Contemporary 51 , 2016 Jose Tence Ruiz, S'kool Jose Tence 52 Philippine Contemporary Art Network (detail) Isha Naguiat, Traces (A series), 2017 (detail) Blank stares, empty faces hollow life Abantao, from Blank stares, Aleya Faye OPPOSITE PAGE: OPPOSITE PAGE: Martin de Mesa, Noel's Shrine

Place of Region in the Contemporary 55 2017 , 2017 for Peace Adjani Arumpac, Food Fabric of Activisms, Rocky Cajigan, Fabric OPPOSITE PAGE: OPPOSITE PAGE: ABOVE: THIS PAGE, (detail) Jose Tence Ruiz, S'kool Jose Tence Installation view of PCAN Public Engagement and Artistic Formation coordinator Renan Laru-an's project An Ecological, The Obligatory, which dwells on ecologies of artistic formation, practice, and development An Ecological, The Obligatory

Renan Laru-an AN ECOLOGICAL, THE OBLIGATORY: THE EXHIBITION

During 1970s and 1980s, the Philippine cultural sector received its most generous patronage from the state, either as part of the formation of national identity or the internationalization of the artistic as an index of the new society. All of these projects revolved around "good" or "positive" images. Images were imported to the local, regional, national, and international. Participants of culture did not receive "negative" images. Negative images were almost prohibited, or not even cared for. Why and how one could actually nourish a negative image?

In 1983, a conference was organized by the Dansalan College Foundation (formerly Dansalan Junior College) together with in Marawi City. The two-day event was titled "Our Images of Each Other What Can We Do About Them?," a gathering of educators, seminarians, church workers, local leaders, students, and staff of local institutions who discussed “negative images” that “poisoned Christian-Muslim relations in the Philippines for a very long time.” While the assembly was non-academic in nature, the conference focused on two texts produced in academia: The Image of Moros Among the Christians in Selected Areas of Southern Negros Island, Philippines (Silliman University, 1979) by an Iranian sociology student of Silliman University Kazem Tavakoley; and Muslims in the Philippines: Past, Present and Future Prospects (1971) by prominent scholar Cesar A. Majul. Participants pored over the texts, engaging with the tension and flow of negative images and organizing them into a list. These images, then, served as materials for the participants to elect guide questions for their primary task: a dialogue. Immediately after the non-art historical administration of wounded images, participants inaugurated and rehearsed seven questions:

Any other “images” not mentioned? How did these images arise? Any truth in them? What is false about them? How widespread are they? How are these images used? What can we do to change these images to better ones?

We take our task from this display and dialogue of images-as- questions. The protagonists and antagonists of our exhibition are images at risk, and the people who care for them. An Ecological, The Obligatory becomes an activity for artists to confer new obligations to their existing responsibility as image producers. We try to imagine what artistic legibility and articulation mean when artists consider practical new identities: a custodian, an administrator, a researcher, an institution builder, a social architect, an institution maker.

Artists claiming these necessary positions install critical demands in the formation of a new set of bureaucratic protocols in knowledge production and circulation. We see how radical strategies and ideologies have been recently co-opted and instrumentalized in the communities and institutions of fascism, fundamentalism, and populism. Today, artists cannot be only progressive; they must enter the pipeline and metabolism of bureaucracy. In our exhibition, we believe that artists introduce risks to institution building, and therefore, they establish tools of thinking and action that can displace feudal and neoliberal dynamics of a cultural infrastructure.

Our exhibition is, of course, mobilized by political and ethical projects. All art exhibitions can hardly unlearn the histories and institutions of corruption, nostalgia, and violence that enabled them. But we know that the politics of image and display is inextinguishable. An image is always desiring, resisting. Images and their contexts could gather and forge their own force. And, therefore, an image becomes a social technology, where any infrastructure depend and demand upon.

An Ecological, The Obligatory is an exhibition-institution of practical and social images—always at risk. An Ecological, The Obligatory is an artistic position and proposition in building a new institution for all images and image practitioners. AN ECOLOGICAL, THE OBLIGATORY: THE PROJECT

An Ecological, The Obligatory is a year-long instantiation of the research direction of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network on public engagement and artistic formation. Laying out the ground for accumulating and reviewing resources (institutions and/or infrastructures) and references (actors and/or agents), it sets four terms (the public/s, engagement, the artistic, and formation) into motion as generative intermediaries in studying attachments and affiliations in the contexts of artistic production, and in the histories of institutions and institution building. The method of temporarily collapsing the clusters of “public engagement” and “artistic formation” aims to design pathways for reading the multiple gaps and intersections across practices of access, exchange, custodianship, and reception in the Philippine cultural sector.

An Ecological, The Obligatory extends the lines of divergence, and deepens the nodes of convergence in the research by setting up a knowledge structure that accommodates alternative modes of inquiry, including the interstitial substrates of the interdisciplinary. The method of reading becomes a conduit—of amplifying distinction, of animating artistic practices as they settle, or as they gather resonances in the fields of reception and consumption, and between the distances of places of production. The analyses come in the differential interaction of an ecology of practices thriving in the terms of local, national, and international infrastructures.

An Ecological, The Obligatory is loosely divided into four segments: Scenes of Access, Patterns of Exchange, Modes of Custodianship, and Fields of Reception. These rubrics allow the overlapping thematics of the research and PCAN, and their temporalities, to cohabit in a generous terrain of shared production, where ongoing and past initiatives are enriched, sustained, and/or problematized. These terms are introduced as artistic, speculative, fictive, and empirical vectors for reading, documentation, and navigation. Some of the keywords/questions that can be collocated with each node include:

Scenes of Access: educational and pedagogical programs in a public cultural institution (regional), fine departments (university), self-organized cultural activities (private patrons,

2017 artists, internationally-mediated)

Patterns of Exchange: artist-artist patronage, mentor-artist patronage, mutual support as patronage (artists with other cultural agents)

Modes of Custodianship: collaboration as custodianship, critique as custodianship, facilitation/administration as custodianship (working within institutional terms)

Fields of Reception: What are the reading infrastructures of an , Hindi Musika ang mga Bomba, Adjani Arumpac , Hindi Musika (artistic) ecology? What are the obligatory reading optics and

ABOVE: mechanisms of analysis of the said ecology?

64 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 65 66 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

Mark Sanchez Rice Food Web 2017 Place of Region in the Contemporary 67

Place of Region in the Contemporary 69

LEFT: W. Don Flores Ornaments 2017 Installation view of Raymundo Albano: Texts Raymundo Albano: Texts

Patrick D. Flores To introduce the writing and the textual work of Raymundo Albano (1947-1985) is to sort of glide across terrains of “serious games.” Serious because Albano ponders. But he also plays a lot. Thus, the game of figuring out, challenging, contesting, losing, gaining, testing, teasing, baiting, biting. He does not seem to mind that the thinking meanders, or that no thought coheres. That being said, he, too, stakes certain claims, and with conviction at that. He rolls the dice, makes his moves, and leaps into the “unthought known” of Mieke Bal. You might want to call it his gambit, but for him, it is by constantly paving paths, following through efforts, and building on frameworks that an art context may be able to vivify itself, to achieve, in his words, “style.” In Albano’s agenda, “roots, basics, beginnings” (taken from an eponymous exhibition in 1977) matter, and primarily because they constitute the material through which process or method takes place. Whatever may be inferred or alluded to or implicated emerges from these: lineage, rudiment, origin. Whether critique comes in to complicate or relations intervene, the “intelligence” of the material cannot be severed from the “integrity” of the lifeworld from which it is generated and through which such lifeworld is reinvested. Some would call this “context,” others would say it is “impulse” or “urge.” Whatever it is that may be brought to our attentiveness as that which excites what we broadly reference as art, it should, in the imagination of Albano, stir up a world “suddenly turning visible,” a condition quite akin to Michel Foucault’s “sudden vicinity of things.”

This anthology project keeps to the register and acuity of Albano’s improvisations on the essay, criticism, think- piece, polemics and poetics, theoretical tract, manual or memorandum, field notes, journalism, diary. To weave in and out of these circuits of rhetoric and reflection is an achievement in itself. So few have been able to mingle all these pursuits and at the same time direct a museum, create art, write poetry, present papers internationally, and attend to other errands besides. In this volume, the multifaceted subject is situated in the mangrove of his devotions and responsibilities. His texts are freighted and leavened by registers of the curatorial, the critical, the cultural, and the creative. He renders their membranes permeable. They are analytic, poetic, performative, and polemical. They are finally framed within occasions of responding and asking. In the beginning of the collection, he answers questions fielded by fellow critic Cid Reyes; and at the end he pitches questions to fellow artist and thinker Fernando Zóbel. Such back and forth is a symptom of Albano’s ample inventiveness.

Raymundo Albano Untitled Undated

Place of Region in the Contemporary 75

OPPOSITE PAGE: ABOVE: Albano's archive of textual productions Raymundo Albano, Shape of series, 1969 and poster designs 76 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

ABOVE: OPPOSITE PAGE: Albano's entry to the Tokyo International Albano's self-portrait Biennale of Prints in 1974 titled Step on the Sand and Make Footprints Place of Region in the Contemporary 77 78 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

Albano and colleagues in Fukuoka in 1980

ABOVE: OPPOSITE PAGE: Albano with fellow artists and government Excerpt from Sound Bags, a performance officials, including the First Lady Imelda piece written and performed by Albano, Huge Romualdez Marcos Bartolome, and Judy Freya Sibayan

80 Philippine Contemporary Art Network

ABOVE: OPPOSITE PAGE: Raymundo Albano One of the issues of Marks, a journal Albano Lady Forever Young initiated with artist Johnny Manahan 1976 Place of Region in the Contemporary 81

Place of Region in the Contemporary 83 at the CCP in 1979 A Decade of Developmental Art A Decade of Developmental poster design for the exhibition Albano's OPPOSITE PAGE: ABOVE: Another poster design by Albano for a Jazz fest at the CCP's End Room in 1976

Essays

Untitled (detail) Ayco, Jess

, 3 June 1956, 42. 2, no. 1 (1954):42–3. , February 1954, 3. , February

by Roberto G. Paulino Roberto G. by modern on Philippine examines the literature essay This Santiago (1916-1982), Ayco artists Jess and contemporary and Junyee Abdulmari Imao (1936-2014), Bose (1949-2002), in their place It reconstructs how Jr) (born 1942). Yee (Luis primary correlating by has developed Philippine art history It further studies texts and surveys. sources with canonical Jolo, Baguio, or based in Bacolod, these artists—born how their craft and respectively—practiced and Los Baños, national with the de facto out a career negotiating carved Their West. and the and global art centers of Manila the production and circulation exemplifies historiography the place of in Philippine art and suggests of knowledge region in the contemporary. JESS AYCO AS THE “FATHER OF IN NEGROS” OF MODERN ART AS THE “FATHER JESS AYCO from the 1950s A number of contemporaneous accounts in the on account of his participation Ayco cite Jess would Philippine of the Philippines (AAP) and Association Art and clustered him with exhibitions Art Gallery (PAG) Ayco Among the earliest mention of Jess modern artists. 1954 issue of the February was publication in a national AYCO, BOSE, IMAO, JUNYEE: JUNYEE: BOSE, IMAO, AYCO, A HISTORIOGRAPHY Ricaredo Demetillo, “Art in the Philippines,” Sunday Times Magazine in the Philippines,” Ricaredo Demetillo, “Art Ibid., 43. Emphasis added. Ayco was not even mentioned in Fernando Zóbel’s review of the same exhibition. of the same exhibition. review Zóbel’s mentioned in Fernando was not even Ayco Philippine Studies Annual AAP Art Exhibition,” “The Seventh Zóbel, , “Notes for Purita,” AAP Monthly Bulletin Arcellana, “Notes for Purita,” Francisco Emphasis added.

2 3 4 1

86 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 87

1 Ayco started to Ayco 2 3 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A 4 Indeed, the spirit of boldness and exultation boldness and exultation the spirit of Indeed, Philippines the best of our art in the characterizes of painters One thinks of the best works today. Magsaysay-Ho, Aguinaldo, Ayco, as as different Zóbel, Fernando Legaspi, Oteyza, Luz, Manansala, and one is both Ocampo, and Hernando Tabuena, and impressed… grateful A word about the special awards: The special award special award The awards: about the special A word to a went painting which the best non-objective for been just as well could have Oteyza Victor piece by pieces of the two to his other piece; or to any awarded piece Ayco the J.R. not to certainly of Nena Saguil; but piece. Cattaneo R. not to the Lucy and probably be grouped with the Neo-realists and PAG artists two years years artists two and PAG be grouped with the Neo-realists Times 1956 Sunday Magazine article, 3, In his June later. art critic Ricaredo Demetillo remarked: Edades in his 1956 review for The for Edades in his 1956 review Fookien Yearbook Times Demetillo distinguished “established names” like Victorio Victorio like “established names” Demetillo distinguished and Zóbel, , Manansala, Vicente Ocampo, Edades, and “others who promise to be as challenging from Oteyza Jose , Ayco , important”: Constancio Bernardo, Lee Aguinaldo. Joya, grouped Filipino loosely art in the last 30 years, of Filipino non-objective expressionists, categories: artists into five or surrealists, super-realists abstract artists, painters, as an Ayco Jesus] Jose [sic, He classified and muralists. Rodriguez, Arguilla, Joya, Tabuena, expressionist with Luz, like and not as a non-objectivist [Elizalde], Navarro and Jerry Aguinaldo. and Saguil, Bernardo, Oteyza, Zóbel, Ocampo, H.R. Although inauspicious in his 1954 debut, Although inauspicious . In Francisco Arcellana’s award- Arcellana’s In Francisco . Bulletin the AAP Monthly AAP, of the the 7th annual exhibition of review winning he noted:

Young Widow by the Church Door Door Church the by Widow Young (detail) Ayco, Jess The Art of (Manila: s.n., 1958), 23–4. 5 (Manila: Associated Publishers, Inc., 1958), 64. Ayco experiments in tempera and enamel, reconciling reconciling and enamel, experiments in tempera Ayco the PAG Although he joined accident with design. it and prolific, is both inventive group in 1954 and able to select he was that 1956, not until May, was and merit enough paintings of sufficient coherence paintings In his last four a one-man exhibition. for Anniversary 6th in the Gallery during the PAG shown in seeming- uses futurist idioms, Ayco Exhibition a feeling to create amorphous shapes and luminosity of enormous space. The catalog further compared Ayco with his cousin Emilio J. cousin Emilio J. with his Ayco further compared catalog The a predilection in in media, Lopez in their experimentations luminosity. in achieving and success enamel, Another two years later, Ayco would be featured in be featured would Ayco later, years two Another with 18 other together of the PAG, Years 7 the catalog Bernardo, Arguilla, Ang Lyd Kiukok, artists: Aguinaldo, Emilio J. Joya, Estella, A. Ramon Concepcion, Florencio B. Mauro Malang Santos, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Luz, Lopez, Cenon Oteyza, Ocampo, Cortez Medalla, David Manansala, His abstract piece, Zóbel. and Jr, Yonzon Hugo C. Rivera, M. read: His caption reproduced. was 1957) Promenade (c. collection, there is an excuse slip of Jesus Ayco signed by . signed by slip of Jesus Ayco collection, there is an excuse , n.p. of Aiko The Paintings Aiko, J.R. 7 Years of the PAG [1951-1957]: A Report Covering Seven Years of Philippine Contemporary of Philippine Contemporary Years Seven [1951-1957]: A Report Covering of the PAG 7 Years Philippine Art Gallery the Art as Noted through the Philippines, 1521-1957 in Art: 1948-1957,” Winfield Scott Smith III, ed. “Philippine Contemporary was definitely at UST in 1940; in the Rogelio and Maria Cristina Piguing Ayco

6 7 8 5

88 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 89 8 Born in 1916, Ayco was was Ayco Born in 1916, 6 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A (It is not indicated whether he finished his whether he finished (It is not indicated 7 degrees.) The UP SFA was then associated with the so-called with the so-called then associated was UP SFA The degrees.) Amorsolo and Guillermo art of Fernando conservative Arts and College) of Fine (later School while UST’s Tolentino bastion of modernism under Edades, the was Architecture biographical note Ayco’s according to However, its director. he II that War World after only it was in his 1967 book, he exhibited in annual art “began to paint seriously…when of the Philippines.” Association Art exhibitions of the closer in age with Legaspi (born 1917), Magsaysay-Ho (1914) Magsaysay-Ho Legaspi (born 1917), closer in age with Joya Aguinaldo (1933), than with (1913), and Galo Ocampo quite older than Luz Although and Medalla (1942). (1931), considered as second- likely he was (1924), (1926) and Zóbel AAP and PAG. in the membership later due to his generation his interest in modernism It has not been established how According to art historian and abstraction emerged. the took courses in painting at Ayco Santiago Pilar, Arts (UP SFA) of Fine of the Philippines School University of Santo the University at and architecture in 1935-1936, (UST). Tomas Since Ayco started exhibiting at the PAG only in 1954, he in 1954, only the PAG started exhibiting at Ayco Since Exhibition included in the First Philippine Cultural not was the PAG organized by D.C. Washington, and York in New not part he was the same reason, For from 1953-1954. exhibition non-objective first completely of the PAG’s AAP founder thesis, In her 1955 M.A. in December 1953. there are “[a]ctually, concluded that Purita Kalaw-Ledesma paint in the who truly painters modern Filipino ten only modern manner and who consider painting as an essential of public in spite of difficulties and lack part of their lives the future of modern It is upon these ten that appreciation. The Art of the Art book The survey 1958 AAP-initiated In the III, Scott Smith Winfield 1521-1957 edited by Philippines: as well Aguinaldo and Joya clustered with again was Ayco distinguished were They Edades. and Joan as with Medalla H.R. Edades, namely moderns, “first generation” from the Ocampo, B. Galo Manansala, Legaspi, Oteyza, Ocampo, and Zóbel. Luz, Magsaysay-Ho,

Acturian Nocturn #3 Nocturn Acturian (detail) Ayco, Jess , 25 January 1969, 24–5. (Manila: National Museum, 4 (1961-1962): 8–13; and 10 Modern Art of Asia: New Movements Modern Art of Asia: New Movements She did not identify the ten, ten, not identify the She did 9 A Brief History of the Development of Modern Art in the Philippines A Brief History of the Development Limited, 1961), 69. Emphasis added. Shuppan Company, Toto (Tokyo: Contemporary Painting of the Philippines Painting Contemporary Modern art has therefore at length come of age…Still at Modern art has therefore media to suit their individual experimenting in new Lim, Gregorio G. Rodriguez, Ayco, talents are Jesus is a noted Abueva Napoleon Bernardo. Tomas and sculptor in the modern group. , 6 September 1959, 18–20; Demetillo, “Image of Man in Contemporary but these can construed from the 14 artists she had earlier the 14 artists she construed from these can but Saguil, Zóbel, Luz, Magsaysay-Ho, Ocampo, H.R. profiled: Galo Ocampo, Rodriguez, Tabuena, Manansala, Oteyza, Joya, Ayco. Excluded was and Legaspi. Arguilla, Bernardo, (1959) seems Art” of Philippine “Evolution Galo Ocampo’s Philippine art in the estimation Ayco’s of representative considered a notable He was end of the 1950s. at world leading and not the latecomer a relative practitioner albeit style. exhibitions and in the modern AAP and PAG name in continued to be listed in some—not all—historical Ayco A Art: “Philippine In his in the 1960s and 1970s. surveys Lim noted that: Gregorio (1961), Brief History” Filipino painting depends.” painting Filipino of the Philippines, 1955), 29–48; 125. (M.A. thesis, University Today” Chronicle Magazine Chronicle Demetillo, “The Vigor of Filipino Art,” from 1928-1962 (Manila: National Museum, 1963), 28. from Ricaredo Demetillo, “Imagination and Growth in Modern Philippine Art,” Sunday Times Ricaredo Demetillo, “Imagination and Growth in Modern Philippine Art,” Magazine College Journal University Philippine Art and Literature,” Galo B. Ocampo, and Old Traditions 1968), 14.

in Gregorio G. Lim, “Philippine Art: A Brief History,” Benesa, V. Leonidas in the Philippines Critical Analysis of Modern Painting “A Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, 13 10 11 12 9

90 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 91 11 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A On the other hand, in “Philippine in On the other hand, 12 Ayco was also not mentioned in the “Modern Art “Modern also not mentioned in the was Ayco 13 J.R. Aiko was born in Manila. He studied at the the He studied at born in Manila. Aiko was J.R. of the University Arts at Ateneo de Manila; Fine of the University at the Philippines; architecture after the He began to paint seriously Tomas. Santo when he exhibited in annual art War World second in the Philippines,” an article first published by the 1963 an article first published in the Philippines,” likewise He was Yearbook. Ateneo de Manila University Arts director Dominador of Fine excluded in UP School Art in the Philippines (1964). Castañeda’s was book on the artist, the only Paintings of Aiko, the Its one-page artist profile provided published in 1967. the artist. for standard biographical format Contemporary Art as a Post-War Phenomenon” (1970), (1970), Phenomenon” Art as a Post-War Contemporary as among those who began to Ayco named Benesa later sixties with fifties and early in the late assert themselves the appearance of Zóbel and Luz. "others who promise to be as as Ayco After including Demetillo article, and important" in his 1956 challenging least three of his subsequent in at Ayco since omitted essays. Although he did not cite Ayco in “Filipino Art” (1957) and (1957) and Art” “Filipino in Ayco not cite Although he did Galo (1966), Art” Religious Element in Philippine “The the in his 1968 lecture at the latter Ocampo reincluded of the Painting “Contemporary Museum titled National Joya, Zóbel, clustered with Luz, was Ayco Philippines.” and Bernardo, Magsaysay-Ho, Saguil, Aguinaldo, Rivera, “between became known Rodriguez as the other artists who AAP…” the the PAG…and Moreover, almost all citations merely mentioned Ayco Ayco mentioned merely almost all citations Moreover, A Brief History Benesa’s In Leonidas a list. as part of in the Philippines Art of Modern of the Development who Ayco, “Jesus the one-line description of (1963), abstract and symbolic with highly concerned himself in the artist one of the longest for is already experiments…” Philippine art history survey. a contemporaneous

Rough Study for a Station of the Cross the of Station a for Study Rough (detail) Ayco, Jess CCP Encyclopedia of CCP Encyclopedia 14 (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1994), 181. (Manila: Cultural exhibitions of the Art Association of the Philippines. of the Philippines. Association Art of the exhibitions some time in for and stayed in Europe He traveled one-man show He had his first and Paris. London shows Art Gallery; group and one-man the Phil. at and Dumaguete cities. , in Bacolod, stage sets and costumes He directs and designs instructor in is a drawing in Bacolod City and in Bacolod. He lives Architecture. , n.p. of Aiko The Paintings Subsequent biographies added details but retained the added details but Subsequent biographies B. Jorge The his Pamana: in Pilar, structure. narrative purported Ayco’s provided Art Collection (1992), Vargas and UP, at years inclusive of birth, date middle name, Pilar though deleted AAP winning pieces. details of his only seriously began to paint Ayco that the statement not only Ayco He also claimed that II. War World after he ascribed Further, studied in Europe. but travelled (hitherto last cited in 1963) to experimentations Ayco’s and though the dates exhibitions even his provincial are unavailable. descriptions of the exhibited works the visual arts for biography Pilar also wrote the artist’s Center of the of the first edition of the Cultural volume Art in 1994. Philippines (CCP)'s Encyclopedia of Philippine awarded Pitang was year Changes included correcting the of death the date were additions Key (from 1953 to 1952). and Constantino S. Tantiado; courtesy of Robby 14 January 2014, Martinez, interview, of Negros—Its Radical Artists and Obsessive “The Wild Art Art Collectors,” C. Tejero, , 15 January 2018. Philippine Daily Inquirer Basilio Esteban S. Villaruz, “Aiko, Jess,” in , vol. V of in Philippine Dance, vol. Jess,” Basilio Esteban S. Villaruz, “Aiko, Philippine Art SunStar, 4 August 2016; Rodney of Art Association of Bacolod,” Luci Lizares, “41 Years Aiko, Aiko, 16 15 14

92 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 93

15 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A Bacolod artists Rodney Martinez, Martinez, Bacolod artists Rodney 16 This man was a genius. But the lesson that But the lesson that a genius. man was This with me is when I realized…that transformed and to live he chose this heritage behind him, in Bacolod. work means. that what you, to spell it out for have I don’t to be part of Bacolod life the rest of my I dedicated Aiko was one of Bacolod’s leading painters. Noted leading painters. one of Bacolod’s Aiko was the at he exhibited nationally, his drip technique, for Galleries Art Gallery and the Solidaridad Philippine the art and He also observed among others. in Manila, Asia. scenes in Europe and theater Tunogbanua, and Fergus Martir consider him a mentor. him a mentor. Martir consider and Fergus Tunogbanua, Ayco as a major Peque Gallaga cites filmmaker The influence. His relocation and involvement with various dance dance with various and involvement His relocation from the 1950s to the 1980s may Visayas troupes in the on him as explain the dearth of periodical articles partly recent articles However, a painter beginning the 1960s. the in participation his active reveal and interviews works as in theater of Bacolod as well Association Art in Negros. Aside from an entry as a painter in the volume on visual as a painter in the volume Aside from an entry and entry as a choreographer merited another Ayco arts, on volume edition of CCP Encyclopediadirector in the first ’s his dance and theater listed Villaruz Basilio Esteban dance. The third paragraphs. productions in the entry's first two a painter. and last paragraph noted him as as well as the attribution of Ayco in the formation of the in the formation Ayco of attribution as the as well that deduced Pilar somehow of Bacolod. Association Art a witness to the and well-read, well-travelled, was Ayco a general He then gave painting in Paris. vigor of abstract the implying abstract paintings, Ayco’s description of to be has yet of which date experience—the Paris artist’s his abstraction. influenced determined—directly

Untitled (detail) Ayco, Jess

Contemporary Contemporary Art Philippines: A History, Art Philippines: A History, (Manila: The Japan Foundation, (Manila: The Japan Foundation, 17

Contemporary Philippine Art from the Fifties to the Seventies Philippine Art from Contemporary Ruth R. Roa and Lourdes Gatbonton, Jeannie E. Javelosa, , ed. Juan T. society and establish myself as a Negros artist. artist. as a Negros establish myself society and Imperial term now we of what need to be part I didn’t to this I teach and now taught me this, Jess Manila. me. all who come after However, Ayco still exhibited at the Solidaridad Galleries the Solidaridad Galleries at still exhibited Ayco However, a provided catalog accompanying The in Manila in 1970. and concerns. description of his work three-paragraph artists modern to references Noticeable are the Husserl, Pollock, Miro, Dali, (Tanguy, and philosophers There art. and not to local and contemporary Lonergan), from of and direct quotation of biography is also a lack the artist. Report Trends In his Philippine Artistic A Expression: Ayco after Benesa (1963) regarded Dacanay Julian (1972), Aguinaldo, of Joya, in the company “ultra-modern,” as an Except Medalla and [Roberto] Chabet Rodriguez. Navarro, Cf. “For Gallaga, it was nothing more than an artist making connection with his roots. Gallaga, it was nothing more than an artist “For Cf. 1998), 44–5. Inc., 1972), 57. City: Vera-Reyes, (Quezon on Arts and Education Selected Papers Philippine Culture: 1521 to Present Emphasis added. 1992), 163. The Crucible Workshop, (Pasig: Manuel D. Duldulao, Manuel D. in Visual ,” Brenda Fajardo, “Contemporary , World Wander Wonder [not Ayco],” to Jess Aiko Tribute “Paying Urra, WoaWomen accessed 29 September 2017, http://woaworld.blogspot.com/2015/05/paying- tribute-to-jess-aiko-not-ayco.html. from being home in Bacolod, where he had come to inspiration drew great Jess Ayco Jess Ayco Bebol Carreon, “Unveiling the depths of his .” and to express, discover, 2014, 1. SunStar, 21 November the Artist,” in “The Fifties: The Rise of Neo-realism,” Emmanuel Torres,

20 18 19 17

94 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 95 20 In 19 18 Alfredo

‘Jess Ayco,’ ‘Jesse ‘Jesse Ayco,’ ‘Jess

Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A If art which distorts the representational image distorts the representational If art which which that fifties, disturbed gallerygoers of the early Modernism more. them even got rid of it cofounded represented however, form, in its non-objective artist with no to the young challenge the ultimate and Ayco Bacolod artists Jess to lose…The reputation of success. Emilio López tried with a modicum Roces, and Emmanuel Torres, hardly, if ever, mentioned if ever, hardly, Torres, and Emmanuel Roces, one instance in Art In the in their books and essays. Ayco curt. was Torres Philippines (1992), “Contemporary Visual Arts in the Philippines” (1998), Brenda (1998), Arts in the Philippines” Visual “Contemporary and Emilio Lopez as Neo- Ayco revisioned boldly Fajardo and Legaspi, Tabuena, Ocampo, together with H.R. realists, visual a Manila-centric She further noted that Manansala. main the two aside from Hitherto, changing. arts is fast galleries Manila that “it is in Arts, Fine offering universities exhibit get media attention.” exist and those who On the other hand, Kalaw-Ledesma, Paras-Perez, Kalaw-Ledesma, On the other hand, for Chabet, Manuel Duldulao (1972) also considered the also considered Duldulao (1972) Manuel Chabet, for Rivera, together with moderns as second-wave above Lanag, Laygo, Zny Ang Kiukok, Edades, Jean Alcuaz, and Sansó. [Rod] Paras-Perez, Rodolfo Jr, Yonzon Ayco was not mentioned in Antonio Manuud’s “Philippine “Philippine Manuud’s Antonio not mentioned in was Ayco published by the Ateneo Accompli” Contemporary Art: A Fait “Modern nor in the Press in 1967, de Manila University in The Filipino Nation published by essay Art” Philippine Alice Critic and art historian in 1982. Grolier International omitted him in her numerous historical Guillermo likewise not represented in the 1990 Modang was Ayco surveys. and the Metropolitan Museum of Manila Modern exhibit at he was Neither Guillermo. by essay in the accompanying represented in 1994 Philippine Abstract exhibit at Painting Torres. the CCP and in its monograph by He has been listed the age of 65. 1982 at 2, died May Ayco Aiko,’ ‘J.R. Ayco,’ ‘J.R. Ayco.’ as ‘Jesus R.

Bluemist Algol Bluemist (detail) Ayco, Jess Like 21 , 28 August 2014, The Visayan Daily Star The Visayan many of aspects his life and works, sources are scant to and works, of aspects his life many inconsistencies. details and resolve provide in the Ayco to recuperate initiatives been recent have There held in Arts Fair National In the First narrative. national exhibited in a retrospective were works his Bacolod in 2007, of the Beloved Remembrance of deceased Negrenese artists. organized in in Meaning to be Modern, shown (1951) was selections from the to showcase Art File the Finale 2010 by collection of Philippine paintings and Hetty Que Paulino included in The was same work The from 1907 to 1959. , Scale the Past and the Possible To Philippine Contemporary: the Metropolitan Museum of a long-term exhibition at Flores in 2013. D. Patrick by Manila (MET) curated Ayco,’ ‘Jesse R. Ayco’ and ‘Jess Aiko.’ His works are signed are signed His works Aiko.’ ‘Jess and Ayco’ R. ‘Jesse Ayco,’ His middle ‘Encarnacion.’ and ‘Aiko’ Ayco,’ ‘J.R. as variously ‘Ramon’ [sic, but according to Pilar ‘Encarnacion’ name is article by A 2014 newspaper Villaruz. to Ramos] according “[t]he elder of was Ayco that Cordero stated D. Jennylind Encarnacion and the former Ayco Leon sons of the late two but Ayco, Ramos earlier as Jesus known “was and Ramos” ‘Aiko.’” his name to the spelling of changed later Jennylind D. Cordero, “Do You Have an Ayco?” an Ayco?” Have Cordero, “Do You D. Jennylind http://www.visayandailystar.com/2014/August/28/starlife.htm. The Visayan Daily The Visayan sa Bisaya’,” ‘Garbo ExCon Honors Ayco, “VIVA Quoted in Snow, 2014. Star, 17 November 2011. See also Lizares. Bacolod, 15 November Haus, Martinez Art Roberto G. Paulino, Martinez, interview by Cordero; and Rodney 22 23 21

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Visayas Visayas th Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A The recent exhibits however recent exhibits however The 23 22 The history of art in the Philippines after the Pacific after the Pacific history of art in the Philippines The the struggle of been defined as has largely war is the This ascendancy. inevitable modernism and its the heroes of this tale, In the telling main narrative. It is a partial in Manila. men working are mostly of the efforts over glosses one that surely, story, a significant roles in creating played others who have of modernism in and textured character more robust the Philippines. likewise curated by Flores, as well in the latter’s book Art in the latter’s as well Flores, by curated likewise (2015). After War of “Father being hailed as the is sometimes now Ayco Art in Negros.” Modern featured not only abstract paintings, but also photographs, also photographs, but abstract paintings, not only featured costume designs, even and nude drawings, figurative as as well sympathy representing his broad artistic thereby medium and themes. his diverse SANTIAGO BOSE AS THE BAD BOY FROM BAGUIO—AND BRISBANE BAGUIO—AND FROM BOSE AS THE BAD BOY SANTIAGO his region artist identified with Another multi-media Arts president of the Baguio founding is Santiago Bose, is his bibliography Ayco, in contrast with However, Guild. Bose Ayco, after Born in 1949 thirty-three years copious. solo and 80 group exhibitions) (20 exhibited extensively a time and practice which in the Philippines and abroad, press and reviews, catalogs, voluminous generated including the internet. releases in more media platforms Every in the exhibitions Every featured was Ayco Subsequently, 2016), Taiwan, Art Center, Island from Sea to Sea (Mind Set Fugue Frolic: Jess Ayco in Bacolod Ayco Jess Fugue Frolic: curated Flores also part of 13 Occidental as Negros City, Talisay in Islands Visual Arts Exhibit and Conference (VICA ExCon) in ExCon) (VICA and Conference Arts Exhibit Visual Islands he forwarded: In the exhibition notes, 2014.

Marlboro Series Marlboro (detail) Bose, Santiago

Espiritu Santi: A Century of Realism ( City: Water Dragon, Dragon, (Makati City: Water , ed. Angel Velasco Shaw and Shaw , ed. Angel Velasco Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American The Philippine-American of War: Vestiges [Baguio Arts Guild newsletter] 1, no. 1, accessed 16 , 19 April 1975, 8. Press, 2003), 2; and Cambridge University (Cambridge: Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information, RAND Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information, In the Bag (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1976), n.p. See also (Manila: Cultural (San Juan, : Fine Arts Corporation, 1982), 306. (San Juan, Metro Manila: Fine Arts Corporation, Nonetheless, an orthodox narrative on Bose has an orthodox narrative Nonetheless, Espiritu Santi: The Strange Life and Even Stranger Legacy of Santiago Bose Stranger Life and Even Espiritu Santi: The Strange 24 emerged, shaped by certain institutional writings as well as as well certain institutional writings shaped by emerged, statements. own the artist’s Bose himself was a prolific artist in various media with various media in a prolific artist was Bose himself and installations, prints, paintings, 5,000 documented interviews, lectures and numerous gave he performances; pads and journals. 50 sketch and kept more than between distinction Treverton’s Gregory Appropriating Malcolm Gladwell, by as highlighted puzzles and mysteries as a puzzle—i.e., historiography Ayco’s one might consider as well whereas Bose’s—as not told enough”; were “we “the hard wherein mysteries and Junyee’s—are Imao’s too have we but too little information have part is not we much.” in Philippine Art reprinted in in Press, 2002); revised University York New (New York: Luis H. Francia his shift, see Castillo, 8. explaining an early document For Thirteen Artists 1976 in of Selected Artists,” Sketches Duldulao, “Biographical Manuel D. and the lyrically mysterious woman of Filipino lore.” Maribel Castillo, “Santiago Bose as woman of Filipino lore.” and the lyrically mysterious Philippine Weekend Himself,” 69–70. The term “willful Memory,” Quoted in Alice G. Guillermo, “Renewing Historical in Bose in “Baguio Graffiti,” chaos” was used by Gregory F. Treverton, Treverton, Gregory F. Analysis Studies in Policy , 8 January 2007, https://www. The New Yorker Secrets,” Malcolm Gladwell, “Open newyorker.com/magazine/2007/01/08/open-secrets-3. 1899-1999 and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream War Legacy of Santiago Bose Stranger Life and Even The Strange 2004), 114–7; also in (Makati City: Water Dragon, 2004), 88. Dragon, (Makati City: Water September 2017, http://members.tripod.com/in_the_bag/graffiti.htm. 24; 1975, , 2 February Philippine Panorama and Landscapes,” A.S. Consignado, “Walls

Greer a liberated odd mixture of Diwata, “an named his first child Germaine He even

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28 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A 25 at Sining Kamalig at His first solo exhibition Chameleon Years his nostalgia for City in 1975 evinced Gallery in Pasay he juxtaposed A self-styled surrealist then, rustic living. Manila with landscapes from in and walls windows, doors, don’t you “In the country, . the former quoted in a he was need a gate,” don’t you need a front, is simpler there unlike in “Life article. Philippine Panorama the country to the city.” prefer I always a city. his “awards and distinctions”—which in the 1976 CCP in the and distinctions”—which “awards his “numerous filled-in as he blithely Thirteen Artists catalog second prize in the 1969 ICUP and insignificant”—were and first prizes in both his editorial contest photography design thesis. design thesis and advertising non-Christian ethnolinguistic groups in the Cordillera non-Christian ethnolinguistic groups called Igorots. collectively college where he studied to Manila for He moved from 1965 Technology the Mapua Institute of at architecture UP from 1967 to 1972. Arts at and Fine to 1967, Born and raised in Baguio, Bose experienced early the Bose experienced early Born and raised in Baguio, and order Western the image of between difference Air Base and the Hay Camp John say, progress exuded by, and undisciplined irrationality” “willful chaos Alice Guillermo, who wrote the entry on Bose in the first on Bose in the wrote the entry who Alice Guillermo, Art in 1994 the CCP Encyclopediaedition of of Philippine exhibition of his posthumous essay catalog as the as well noted consistently others, among many the CCP in 2004, at including the media in different his experimentations indigenous materials. pioneering use of use of Philippine out the artist’s She also pointed with are sometimes juxtaposed which precolonial symbols, is the in his works theme underlying An symbols. Western indigenous and the colonial/ the between cultural tension neocolonial.

Untitled (detail) Bose, Santiago , 142. , 16 April , 9 August , 15 April 1979. , 3 June 1976, 42; , 23 October 1981, 26. , 92. Indeed, his second solo Indeed, 30 , 6 August 1988, 14. For some reason, this second some reason, For Espiritu Santi 31 Baguio Connection,” , 92–3; and Guerrero, “Bose’s , 10 October 1988, 13; and Caesare Syjuco, “Bose , 89. What Is Philippine about Philippine Art? And Other Essays Espiritu Santi , 114; 116. he 1980 Mobil Art Awards The Philippine Star , 25 July 1980; reprinted in Espiritu Santi exhibition a year later did away with details, shifting from with details, did away later exhibition a year of freer and figures to a near-abstraction collages of shapes his wife family, the demands of a growing given Still, space. “a little Bose was wrote that as Peggy) Imelda (better known about this series. anxious” exhibition is not listed in his published CVs. exhibition is not He also disclosed that painting was not financially not financially was painting that He also disclosed what and that’s I’m doing “I like what but rewarding to repeat “tend painters successful noting how counts,” to please an audience. themselves” Castillo, 8. The issue of business dictating style was likewise foregrounded by Albano in foregrounded by was likewise Castillo, 8. The issue of business dictating style catalog. his introduction to the 1976 CCP Thirteen Artists Nova: Return of the Native,” The Manila Times Return of the Native,” Nova: Alice G. Guillermo, T 1979, 17; reprinted in , 1 August 1988, 16. See Business World Marge Enriquez, “The Igorots Did Him Well,” Art Must Reflect the ‘Our also Agatha Farolan, “Santiago Bose, the Provocateur: Filipino Soul,’” Woman’s Home Companion Woman’s End to Detail,” A. Bose, “An Peggy Celebrity Magazine Amadis Ma. Guerrero, “Santi Bose, Ethnic Artist,” reprinted in Times Journal Mural,” The other articles were the ff: Guerrero, “Extraordinary 1981, 10; reprinted in 1979, 13. Times Journal Asiaweek a Modern Mythology,” “Forging Breton Woodward, , 20 April Philippines Daily Express Benesa, “Bose: Artist as Medicine Man,” V. Leonidas Times Journal of Life,” to a Dying Way Tribute Quoted in Guerrero, “Bose Pays

36 37 33 34 35 30 31 32

100 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 101 36 It was first first It was 37 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A This practice was often attributed often attributed practice was This 34

33 Leonidas Benesa tagged him as “would-be “would-be tagged him as Leonidas Benesa 32 Guillermo also clarified that “[i]n appearance, “[i]n appearance, Guillermo also clarified that 35 they were neither , nor any particular northern group nor any neither Ifugao, were they quality, an international had rather they but in derivation, Amerindian groups.” recalling the ethnic expressions of to Bose’s Baguio roots, sometimes even to his partial even sometimes Baguio roots, to Bose’s the CCP at in a forum However, ethnicity. Tingguian it was he said that Art Museum in 1988, Contemporary parents “I had to hassle my also a question of economics. So it turned into a drag. Ultimately, art materials. to buy If Picasso in Baguio. to live be cheaper I thought it would well be influenced I might as Africans, by influenced was Igorots.” by exhibited at the CCP Small Gallery in Manila and then exhibited at His numerous Japan. Fukuoka, in Art Show Asian 1st at in his career identified the CCP early group exhibitions at him with the so-called Cultural Center Group directed by defined this movement Rod Paras-Perez Albano. Raymundo moving easily all the current ideas abroad, “exploring as Enriched by his Northern travels such as in Sagada and such his Northern travels by Enriched a grant by facilitated further later the Ilocos provinces Living Council for from Linang Project in Ilocos by Bose appropriated in 1980, Foundation and Ford Traditions aesthetics. indigenous culture within his contemporary Albano as an described by His hanging sculptures were other and beads, feathers, leather, “assemblage of twigs, tribal memorabilia.” Bose considered Art of the Regions (1980) as one of “it expresses his major group exhibitions then because traditional concepts in contemporary terms.” Hanging Sculpture titled Hanging solo exhibit By his third Sculpture the Kamalig, 1979 also in Sining held in and Drawing Artists Thirteen in the 1976 CCP impulse noted indigenous folk and ethnic to moved had firmly Bose catalog, Awards Bose articles he wrote on least five In one of at themes. Guerrero titled him as an Amadis Ma. during this period, “Ethnic Artist.” or medicine Man” and his exhibition as a “Search “Search exhibition as a and his shaman or medicine Man” Roots.” One’s for From Santiago Bose's sketchbooks (detail) sketchbooks Bose's Santiago From

, 60–5. Memories of (: (Quezon , January - February Espiritu Santi In Memory of a Talisman: In Memory of a Talisman: , 102. , 144–5. (Manila: Museum of Philippine Espiritu Santi Espiritu Santi Visions & Voices

(Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, (Manila: Cultural 38 Bose moved to New York in 1985 York to New Bose moved 39

Image to Meaning: Essays on Philippine Art , 118–9.

Espiritu Santi but came back in 1986 when his mother died. His sojourn in 1986 when his mother died. came back but Although a few of his works during this period were this period were during of his works Although a few and Guerrero contrived and Ma. Guillermo deemed by identity and national issues of henceforth decorative, frame the frequently in art would social engagement discourse on Bose. first time in 1980 on a the for United States Bose visited the with the Marcos dissatisfaction due to a Partly grant. travel regime, martial law from Minimal Art to Serial to Happenings to Funk to to Funk to Serial to Happenings Art to from Minimal art of is the now to whatever to Environmental Conceptual scene.” the international Bose was included in the 3rd ASEAN Art Exhibtion, whose catalog introduction Bose was included in the 3rd ASEAN Art Exhibtion, Art, 1980), 130–3; 141–2. in ASEAN Art Entries,” Albano. Albano, “Introduction to the Philippine was written by in Exhibition ([Manila: s.n., 1984]), excerpted in “The CCP Artists,” Rod. Paras-Perez, , ed. Wayne Baerwaldt Art, ed. Wayne in Contemporary Philippine Diaspora Overdevelopment: 1997), 30; Irvine, Art Gallery, of California, (Winnipeg: Plug In Editions and University in revised in Press, 2001), 69–78; excerpted Ateneo de Manila University Bose by Santiago An Exhibition of Works 2004), 39. 1, no. 2 (1988): 12–7; reprinted in Kultura Alice G. Guillermo, “Renewing Historical Memory,” Asian Art News Alice G. Guillermo, “Renewing Historical Memory,” 2000, 55–7; reprinted in self-confidence and his “brimming according to Cesare Syjuco, Bose’s However, him that his proper place was in the art occasional visits abroad had convinced The Manila Times, Return of the Native,” Syjuco, “Bose Nova: capital of the world.” 6 August 1988, 14. Wife Imelda and daughter Lilledeshan quoted Bose, “When to New I first moved A. Bose Peggy was in the right direction.” it was to validate if the art I was making York in Sketch,” and Lilledeshan A. Bose, “Santiago Bose: Personal Guillermo, “Renewing Historical Memory,” 72. Guillermo, “Renewing Historical Memory,” in at Indigenous Art: Notes in Transit,” Look Savage Santiago Bose, “A Bose, “Santiago Bose: Ethnic Foragings through Sagada and the Big Apple and Back,” Apple and Back,” through Sagada and the Big Bose, “Santiago Bose: Ethnic Foragings

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40 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A 41 In 1978, I decided to do a show about Igorots, about about about Igorots, do a show I decided to In 1978, Igorots out that I found But do. the kind of art they things that gather They carve. they draw; don’t their at random and put them together in find they other times at purposes, ritual sometimes for houses, whimsical impulse. to express a spontaneous, simply make the To So then I decided to do installations. I did drawings however, viable, commercially show of the installations. autobiographical “Baguio Graffiti” (1997), he referred to he referred (1997), “Baguio Graffiti” autobiographical although that and concluded Boy” “Baguio himself as a into Filipino and research States in the United his travels Bose himself had written at length on these concerns. A length on these concerns. Bose himself had written at included in Espiritu Santi: number of his writings were Legacy of Santiago Stranger Life and Even The Strange after years two tome published in 2004, a tribute Bose, “Santiago Bose: article is Among his earliest his death. Apple and through Sagada and the Big Ethnic Foragings are the genesis of his Of particular interest (1988). Back” with the art market: and his negotiations installations in the United States would broaden his romantic Manila broaden his romantic would States in the United accrued of 1975; his works country dichotomy city-Baguio recognition. as international well rhetoric as a more global and alienation diasporic experience of marginalization The of alluded in Refugees (1980) wherein figures already was from ) (a 6th century the and Island, of Manhattan waters transposed to the were figures) placed inside exiled Bulols (Cordillera ancestral His (1980). York Winter in New in Igorot bus a Greyhound resistance of [folk] “a symbol his art as use of talisman in him a new earned world” against…[a] homogenizing Maker. moniker: Anting-Anting More polemic is “A Savage Look at Indigenous Art: Notes Indigenous Look at Savage “A More polemic is “the rise (1997) where he proclaimed that Transit” in of postcolonial sentiments and postmodernism is fast art and values.” Western of eroding the myth From Santiago Bose's sketchbooks (detail) sketchbooks Bose's Santiago From , , 28 , 16 January 2007, http:// He resigned from the He resigned from 43 The Examiner BAG in 2002 due to personal differences and he founded the and he founded 2002 due to personal differences in BAG keep its UNESCO to an effort in In 2018, Group. Eye Fish - the Department of City," as a "Creative designation the BAG. and institutionalize revive Cordillera set to and his 1990, his first stroke in September Bose suffered Despite partial blindness in his later. three months second, 1990 the July and amid the destruction wrought by left eye and organized the he continued to work Luzon earthquake, 1993. in 1991 and Arts Festival Baguio International migrant workers confirmed his “faith in the sustaining in “faith his confirmed workers migrant and prepared it was beliefs,” traditional of Filipino power in Baguio. childhood his by inspired Eric de Guia (Kidlat Bencab, Baradas, with David Together the Baguio he co-founded Villanueva, and Roberto Tahimik), more to have the artists “for in 1987 Arts Guild (BAG) the community.” interaction with 17 May 2004, E3. 17 May July 2006, D5–6; reprinted in Alfred A. Yuson, “High Spirited Bose: Portrait of the Artist Without a Conventional Top Top of the Artist Without a Conventional “High Spirited Bose: Portrait Alfred A. Yuson, , 15 September 1981, 42. Observer Hat,” The Manila Times Mari Asia Imao: Moro National Artist,” “Abdul Nasser Sharief, zamboangajournal.blogspot. com/2007/01/abdul-mari-asia-imao-moro-national.htm.

, 29 November 1987, 24. , 29 November Philippine Daily Inquirer the Fast Track,” “Off Michele Logarta, The Philippine Star Art of Santiago Bose,” Savage “The Noble, Ramon E.S. Lerma, 45 46 43 44

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45 44 or as “first Muslim “first Muslim or as

Such cultural qualifier, cultural qualifier, Such 46 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A National Artist in the Philippines.” National however, dated further back; it seemed to have defined it seemed to have further back; dated however, artistic identity from the onset. Imao’s (playfully persistent), he was called he was persistent), and makulit (playfully Irreverent in His death his family. by Art” of Philippine “Bad Boy the with tributes. his family December 2002 though inundated and theses continue exhibits, awards, hence, Sixteen years of label belies the confluences “Bad Boy” The over. to wash of his influence. his sources and the reach ABDULMARI IMAO AS THE “FIRST MUSLIM NATIONAL ARTIST” AS THE “FIRST MUSLIM NATIONAL ABDULMARI IMAO by Artist in Sculpture as National Since his proclamation Abdulmari in 2006, Arroyo President Gloria Macapagal “first been introduced as the Imao has almost invariably Artist in the Philippines” Moro National Krip Yuson wrote in 1981 that “Bose will never be a “Bose will never wrote in 1981 that Yuson Krip thank God.” that, for He is too quirky mainstream artist. A watershed was his participation in the First Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific First in the his participation was A watershed Australia Gallery in Brisbane, the Queensland at Triennial and Australian contact with intimate enabling in 1993, be cited He would and writers. Asian artists Southeast Julie and Geeta Kapur, Turner, Caroline Hoffie, Pat by among others. Ewington, Until his epiphany sold. not all writers were Of course, Ramon Lerma held retrospective, during 2004 CCP exhibition overseas of many fodder “The reservations: a bigger stir abroad than creating and evidently catalogs, particularly foreign, many it incensed me to see how here, who seemed to possess a center- antipodean curators its Philippine art for and who fetishized periphery mindset, up his building were full stop, strange and exotic quality, the Bose seemed to play did not help that reputation…It to the .” stereotypical role of the noble savage

Untitled Untitled (detail) Imao, Abdulmari It 47 Order of National Artists of National Order , 11 January 1969, 24.

, 29 January 1958, 30–1. reproduced three of his sculptural pieces, all of which were were which all of of his sculptural pieces, reproduced three version a Muslim (1) Imah Muslim-related: Iban Anak, a second prize in won which Child, of the Madonna and the UP Student Catholic by 1956 exhibition sponsored in the third prize awarded , (2) Muslim Prayer Association; Annual Art Exhibition sponsored Tenth by a Moro princess. of a bust AAP in 1957; and (3) the set the practice have seemed to 1958 article likewise The struggles vis-a-vis discussing his life Imao’s of narrating recounted— articles likewise subsequent feature Many art. additional details— with occasional discrepancies and where his parents Sulu, humble beginnings in Jolo, Imao’s Although artistically-inclined, a living. crushed stones for tasks to make student doing various a working Imao was where is the 1954 Floating Exposition Pivotal ends meet. him to AAP who invited Bernardo of the Tomas he met Although he did not get the come to Manila to study. In 1958, when he was still a junior at the UP School of Fine of Fine the UP School still a junior at he was when In 1958, him published articles about one of the first Arts (SFA), “Moro Sculptor.” titled already was in Kislap-Graphic Cf. “He was challenged by the head of a prominent museum in New York to develop to develop New York the head of a prominent museum in “He was challenged by Cf. something that is indigenous to the Philippines.” Sharief, “Abdul Mari Asia Imao: Moro National Artist,” D5–6 . Imao: Moro National Artist,” Mari Asia “Abdul Sharief, Ricardo Bañez Ave, “Moro Sculptor,” Kislap-Graphic “Moro Sculptor,” Ricardo Bañez Ave, in in Unity,” Asia Imao: Diversity Sakili, “Abdulmari P. Abraham (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2006), 121–2. (Manila: Cultural 127. in Unity,” Imao: Diversity Asia Sakili, “Abdulmari Magazine The Chronicle in Glory,” Eddie Sapal, “Gloom

49 50 51 47 48

106 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 107 Ansaldo Ansaldo ) A Museum 48 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A He did documentaries of Sulu art, He did documentaries of Sulu art, 51 He had been advised by the former the former by He had been advised Soon after his return to the Philippines in Soon after his return to the Philippines 49 50 . the Office of the President by offered director of the Museum of Modern Art Rene d'Harnoncourt Art Rene d'Harnoncourt director of the Museum of Modern to explore the potentials of but “not to be another Picasso” indigenous art. people, and groups for the Ateneo de Manila Institute Ateneo de Manila the and groups for people, and the UE Grant, CNI Research of Philippine Culture, and Cultural Humanities Sciences, Center for Research 1963, he taught in Jolo at the Notre Dame of Jolo College of Jolo the Notre Dame at he taught in Jolo 1963, College (1963- the Philippine Muslim (1963-1964) and at job to eventually Like Bose who quit his advertising 1964). “primarily to Jolo back Imao went come home to Baguio, I could present people that the culture of my to re-study to the rest of the country beautiful form them in their truly quoted in a 1969 Chronicle he was and perhaps the world,” Magazine article. scholarship award at the UP SFA, Imao won the support of, of, the support Imao won the UP SFA, at award scholarship to President secretary Ansaldo, Maria Jose among others, fees school Imao’s for Ansaldo paid Ramon Magsaysay. pensionado of Imao as the approval for worked and later Non- for Integration on National of the Commission Christians also encouraged him to go abroad and apply for a Smith- for him to go abroad and apply also encouraged Imao Fulbright, Aside from the grant. Mundt and Fulbright where scholarship a Kansas University also awarded was the at He obtained further scholarships he earned an MFA. Design where he studied creative of Rhode Island School University Columbia and at sculpture and ceramics, among others. and cinema, where he studied photography see, “You Imao said, he studied filmmaking, (Asked why hometown In my childhood. to my goes back everything have a kin…It must by owned house was movie the only in-between… movies been the countless hours of watching sense of motion pictures.” my developed that of Modern Art travel grant to Europe enabled him to visit grant to Europe enabled him to visit Art travel of Modern three months. for museums various it also but to the world, “opened his eyes travels Imao’s on his ignorant he was woefully made him realize how culture.” native

Mang Ely Mang (detail) Imao, Abdulmari , 2 June “We “We 54 , 15 September 53 (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2006). (Manila: Cultural 52 55 Order of National Artists of National Order were married in Muslim rites; she consented to that…in to that…in married in Muslim rites; she consented were Muslim and I I am a dedicated liberal. religion I am very not be very I may life. like to remain Muslim all my would and in spirit, heart, Muslim at I am but religious or devout all that.” Imao also taught at the (UE) College the University Imao also taught at of Music and the UE School (1963-1967) and at of Education “She is a Catholic, de Leon. he met Grace B. where Arts, Fine he told Joaquin. U.E.,” student of mine at a former It was around this period that he began developing the developing he began that around this period It was Joaquin, with Nick In a 1969 interview style. I am trying to improve, is a design “This he disclosed, this on been doing research I have is why That revitalize. kind of design it into another develop Muslim motif: to Muslim.” will still be distinctively which Research, respectively. He sadly recalled the indifference he he recalled the indifference He sadly respectively. Research, lost “I almost of his community, some members met from is But it Manila. I returned to UE when subjects at all my who appreciate not people of ours, people of other lands, sacrifices.” my 1980, 19. 2015, http://ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/culture-profile/national-artists-of- the-philippines/abdulmari-asia-imao/. Also in “Abdulmari Asia Imao,” National Commission for Culture and Asia Imao,” Also in “Abdulmari , 4 January 1969, 62. Press Free "Citation,” in "Citation,” Quijano de Manila [], “The Muslim Filipino: Man of the Year,” Philippines Quijano de Manila [Nick Joaquin], “The Muslim Filipino: Man of the Year,” Ibid. Ibid. 24. in Glory,” Ibid., 6. Sapal, “Gloom Celebrity Amadis Ma. Guerrero, “The Saga of Abdul Imao, Sculptor,” Ibid., 24. 58 53 54 55 56 57 52

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57 56 Aside from the sarimanok, Aside from the sarimanok, 58 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A Conferred as National Artist in the field of sculpture, Imao Artist in the field of sculpture, as National Conferred photographer, painter, “sculptor, further described as a was cultural researcher, maker, documentary ceramist, of Philippine Muslim art and and articulator writer, in his 2006 citation. culture” Although Imao did murals and monumental sculptures like and murals Although Imao did city which monument in Cebu Antonio Pigafetta the 12-foot he is best works, he considered among his more significant Guerrero Amadis Ma. his sarimanok designs. for known to most significant contribution “Imao’s that averred in his monuments but is not found however, Philippine art, He developed paintings. in his sarimanok sculptures and from borrowing 1960s, this theme during the early Ten for his responsible chiefly and it was motifs, several 1960s.” the late in award Men (TOYM) Young Outstanding In 1968, Imao was selected one of the Ten Outstanding Ten one of the selected was Imao In 1968, art and culture in the field of awardees Men (TOYM) Young his promotion of for in sculpture, his contributions for and Badjaos Samals, Tausugs, tribes of the Sulu Muslim and photographs in national through his writings strength the and—according to one source—for magazines, accounts again News achievement. of his scholastic as a and/or religious background highlighted his ethnic him as prefaced Joaquin Sulu. Jolo, Muslim from Tausug to be thus honored.” “the first Muslim were also noted in his popularization of also noted in his popularization the ukkil and naga were indigenous motifs. four- superseded the previous classification tripartite This In her themes. Guillermo of Imao’s Alice held by one fold entry on Imao in the 1994 CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine distinct art into four the latter’s Guillermo categorized Art, sarimanok, themes: Islamic , interrelated but the artist himself Curiously, and sari-. sari-mosque, Asked the same way. his works organized seemed to have concerned as about the issues he was in a 2006 interview my on “Write a book he mentioned first: Artist, a National Photograph from Abdulmari Imao's archive (detail) archive Imao's Abdulmari from Photograph

, 17 , 30 January

59 , accessed 12 September 2017, , 27 February 1990, 25. , 27 February Accounts of Imao’s death on December 16, 2014 reproduced 2014 reproduced 16, on December death Accounts of Imao’s inspired Imao was how stating master narrative, the above of southern Muslim Mindanao, the indigenous designs by if not contemporary, with modern, he popularized which and travels His practice prefigured Bose’s reinterpretations. indigenous North. of the appropriations works: calligraphic brass sculptures, the sari mosque, the sari mosque, the brass sculptures, calligraphic works: art this indigenous so that and the sari-okkil sarimanok audience.” to a wider will be promoted form The 1989 Gawad CCP para sa Sining was conferred in 1990. “The 1989 Gawad CCP conferred in 1990. “The 1989 Gawad sa Sining was CCP para The 1989 Gawad July - August 2006, 10. 2013, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/cbb/content/292596/abdulmari-imao- presents-mythical-realms-in-celebration-of-his-77th-birthday/story/. 28 January 2013, D4. Also in Galerie Joaquin, “Abdulmari Imao Presents 28 January 2013, D4. Also in Galerie Joaquin, “Abdulmari Inquirer, GMA News Online of His 77th Birthday,” Mythical Realms in Celebration The Philippine Star sa Sining Awardees,” Para September 2007, http://www.kuyapau.org/2009/09/abdulmariasiaimaoincrossfireof. html. https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/flashback/61391-politics-arts-national-artist- controversy. Philippine Daily of National Artist Imao,” Achievements Exhibit Surveys “77th-Birthday 10. Aguirre-Jimenez, "Interview," Asia Imao in the Crossfire of Ideologies.” “Abdulmari Tomacder, Agung, 2006,” Aguirre-Jimenez, “Interview with National Artist for Sculpture, Zeny Journalese Asia Imao in the Crossfire of Ideologies,” “Abdulmari Tomacder, Pau Rappler and Arts,” A. Go, “Politics Miriam Grace 64 62 63 59 60 61

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60 Indeed, the motifs drawn the motifs drawn Indeed, Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A 63 In another interview, he said that he said that In another interview, 61 “many believe that I should have it (National Artist Award) Award) Artist it (National I should have that believe “many Award…” CCP the Gawad ago after I received ten years from various received He also pointed out the support he of Folks Organization International including the sectors, and National Muslim congressmen, twelve Arts (IOFA), . and Abueva Artists Napoleon and popularized by Imao from his Tausug and Maranao and Maranao Tausug Imao from his and popularized by with Galerie Joaquin by been correlated lately heritage have traditions. Asian mythological Southeast Another issue pointed out are the seeming incoherence (and sometimes Christian) sculptures figurative of Imao’s yes,” “Well, images. prohibition of graven within Islam’s broken I have “but quoted Imao, again Joaquin Nick and Drawing guilty about it. tradition—and I do not feel Felipe M. de Leon Jr., then commissioner of the NCCA and of the NCCA then commissioner de Leon Jr., M. Felipe (National sa Manlilikha ng Bayan of the Gawad chair “those who run that proffered Awards), Treasures Living belong to the pop and academic Award Artists the National “the whereas are the most westernized” cultures which They Asian. subcultures are the most Moro and folk , Westernized.” are the least Imao opined, “I know I deserve the award. No artist from the award. I deserve “I know Imao opined, the indigenous art has won promoting for the South known ‘unfair.’” is which award, Abdulmari Imao’s selection as National Artist in 2006 by by Artist in 2006 as National selection Imao’s Abdulmari was prerogative presidential Arroyo’s Gloria Macapagal as some by construed because it was controversial initially as referred of political accommodation—deridingly a form only happened “This wit: To Artist). (Dagdag National DNA Arroyo Gloria Macapagal of Pres. after the intervention to a strategy was to political analysts, according which, of the Muslims who comprise majority from gain favor hand, the president’s without In fact, Southern Philippines. to make after he failed the award of Imao had no chance [National by the NCCA prepared it in the first shortlist Arts].” and the Culture Commission for

Untitled [Interior of Abdulmari Imao's First Marikina House] (detail) House] Marikina First Imao's Abdulmari of [Interior Imao, Abdulmari ,

65

He disclosed that he He disclosed that 66 , 18 October 1967, 3; Shell Companies of the (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1994) (Manila: Cultural 67 Objective knowledge about lslam’s position on about lslam’s knowledge Objective by expressed as those such representation figurative Ahmad Muhammad Isa of Abduh and Muhammad that has proven Egypt in Cairo, al-Azhar University has also done a memorial park angel and a marble study of study park angel and a marble has also done a memorial I do these things…I would but “I’m a Muslim, head. a nun’s to I have further but the sarimanok theme like to develop I guess that’s practical. very been always earn a living…I’ve survived.” I’ve why In a 1980 interview with Ma. Guerrero, Imao answered, answered, Imao Guerrero, with Ma. interview In a 1980 I be should why So I possess is God-given. “Anything Muslims in “The He noted that, that?” punished for tend to be so they know, you mestizos, Sulu are mostly art in Muslim for seems to be a demand liberal…There I’m sure and eventually however, market, the international trend.” there will be a liberalizing scholar Abraham Sakili, who wrote the essay who wrote the essay Abraham Sakili, Islamic art scholar Artist commemorative on Imao in the 2006 National “Islamic or the the concept of taswir clarified that edition, has been representation” proscription of figurative misunderstood. painting were my first interest; carving came later.” carving first interest; my were painting 414–5. CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art CCP Encyclopedia typescript, [1967]. Philippines, “XVII National Students Art Competition,” “Shell Art Exhibit,” The Philippine Collegian “Shell Art Exhibit,” Sakili, “Abdulmari Asia Imao: Diversity in Unity,” 121. in Unity,” Imao: Diversity Asia Sakili, “Abdulmari , 25 August 2018, https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/303993/tps- Philippine Daily Inquirer balag-angud-spotlights-art-life-junyee. eldest son Toym. Imao’s the set design was by Interestingly, Guerrero, “The Saga of Abdul Imao, Sculptor,” 19. Guerrero, “The Saga of Abdul Imao, Sculptor,” 14 March 1980, 15. IV of in Philippine Visual Arts, vol. Luis Enena,” Jr, Alice G. Guillermo, “Yee Weekend Muslim Artist’s Homage to Pigafetta,” Benesa, “A V. Quoted in Leonidas Junyee,” Amadis Ma. Guerrero, “TP’s ‘Balag at Angud’ Spotlights the Art and Life of de Manila [Joaquin], “The Muslim Filipino,” 7. de Manila [Joaquin], “The Muslim Filipino,” Ibid. 72 73 68 69 70 71 65 66 67

112 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 113 68

72 69 special award, Society special award, 73 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A 71 A sub-plot is Junyee’s Romantic choice of art as Romantic choice A sub-plot is Junyee’s 70 Imao violated no lslamic rule as the prohibition as the prohibition no lslamic rule Imao violated and not practice or worship against idol clearly was the artist. expression of as an aesthetic against art a career against his father’s wishes. According to the writer wishes. a career against his father’s of art and celebrates Balag affirms the power Bucoy, Layeta the courage of the artist. Junyee, though, majored in sculpture at the UP. His early His early the UP. majored in sculpture at though, Junyee, UP prize, Arts (first UP College of Fine while in the awards Shell National of merit, 1965; certificate Art Competition, 1967; Art Competition, Students In one sense, profiling Junyee as a “protest installation “protest installation as a Junyee profiling In one sense, CCP Alice Guillermo’s is consistent with artist” as an Art 1994 entry of Junyee Encyclopedia of Philippine if not the He is considered a pioneer, artist.” “installation been art in the country; he has even of installation pioneer, Art.” of Philippine Installation “Father christened JUNYEE AS A “PROTEST INSTALLATION ARTIST” INSTALLATION JUNYEE AS A “PROTEST the biographical method art historiography, Like in Imao’s on Junyee. often marked the literature Things was artistic biography his In October 2017, life “tumultuous” his 2018, August In the CCP. at launched Tanghalang by a musical the basis of Balag was , at Angud musical The drama group of the CCP. the resident Pilipino, “known artist, as a protest installation presents Junyee environment, his stand against the destruction of the for and and the greed of corporations corruption, poverty, cronies.” Alternatively, one may invoke Roces, “Why must people people must “Why Roces, invoke one may Alternatively, artist? Nobody describe Mars [Imao] as a Muslim always high time people It’s writer. to me as a Christian refers artist!” a Filipino think of Imao as

Firewood (detail) sculpture the of Model Junyee, 2, , 29 August 1994, 26. 74 , 24 April 2007, 10. . From sculptural works made sculptural works From Alice. Early cases were Danilo Dalena’s Levitation of Danilo Dalena’s cases were Early 75 and Albano’s Lazarus and Albano’s It was in installation art, as a form of new sculpture, where sculpture, of new as a form art, in installation It was A seminal text is began to get more print coverage. Junyee A Case “Installations: Albano’s director Ray CCP museum 1981 in - February January dated cover Hangings,” for journal published a bi-monthly Philippine Art , Supplement definition In the institution’s with support of the CCP. but a type of work necessarily is not an installation then, the hook-and-eye “beyond needs attachment that work any system.” of Philippine Sculptors, 1967; certificate of merit, Shell of merit, 1967; certificate Sculptors, of Philippine were in 1969) Art Competition, UP 1969; first prize, NSAC, awards, his first 16 listed 12 of as 1997, As late field. that sculpture. in were AAP, prizes from the including six major however, announcement of winners the perfunctory for Save and documented in periodicals not heavily these were Despite on the artist. feature merited an extended hardly in he quips decades, prizes across four amassing grand artist in “the least publicized is he a 2017 article that solo four because he has had only partly the country,” galleries. exhibitions in commercial Ibid., 2–3. be made after the this wood thing is in tune with the seasons, because it can only “Even Arcellana, “The Artists Y. Quoted in Juaniyo season when the kapok is harvested.” rainy The Philippine Star Son,” Mother Nature’s Junyee: Sunday Chronicle Cultures,” “Crossing Emmanuel Torres, Eric S. Caruncho, “Junyee at 75: From Mortuary Assistant to the Philippines’ ‘Orig’ Mortuary Assistant to the Philippines’ ‘Orig’ at 75: From Eric S. Caruncho, “Junyee 2017, http://lifestyle.inquirer. , 5 November Philippine Daily Inquirer Installation Artist,” net/277884/junyee-75-mortuary-assistant-philippines-orig-installation-artist/. Philippine Art Supplement R. Albano, “Installations: A Case for Hangings,” Raymundo 1981): 3. no. 1 (January - February

Ibid. 74 75 77 78 79 76

114 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 115 Arguing that 76 77 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A According to the artist, as quoted According to the artist, 78 79 by Emmanuel Torres, this represents a “cultural revolution revolution “cultural represents a this Torres, Emmanuel by by going influences of shaking off the inertia of colonial roots.” to one’s back “painting as art is a purely western phenomenon and that it phenomenon and that western a purely “painting as art is Albano presented to the Filipino,” foreign speaks a language sense of the Filipino’s to attuned as more installations and of fiestas akin to the mobility and performance space, rituals of ethnic groups. folk The “protest” in “protest installation artist” clearly connotes clearly artist” installation “protest in “protest” The of the left-wing a member was Junyee political activism. the art director of and was Brotherhood of the Plebeians, of official student publication the Philippine Collegian, In in 1972. declared was when Martial Law UP Diliman, his first solo Balag, installation the outdoor interactive formal exhibit in campus in 1970 (since argued as first solicited Junyee in the Philippines), art installation to hang on pieces of writings participants to contribute Artists grant to 13 declined the Junyee In 1980, the trellis. ,”“pakikibaka Due to same elitist orientation. protest CCP’s ng Patnubay ng Maynila, “Araw refused the 1989 he likewise Concomitant to the installation art of Junyee is its use art of Junyee Concomitant to the installation years with Bose (seven Together of indigenous materials. among others, (five), Villanueva his junior) and Roberto Guillermo as one of the be credited by likewise he would indigenous materials earliest proponents in the use of Asian art. also in Southeast in Philippine but not only are his (re)use of organic cited and detailed Frequently coconut bamboo, renewable—like but materials—ephemeral and twigs. twisted roots, dried pods, shells and fiber, consisted of kapok, example, for Things (1981), His Wood banana leaf and stalk. to hang later came works that echo the natural world. world. the natural echo that works came to hang later Regions: Art of the the 1980 exhibit Albano, to According and Banzon, Genera Junyee, Baños featuring Baguio/Los “structured Junyee’s this trend. Santiago Bose exemplified questioned instance, for vines and dry leaves,” branches, art. Western and the norms of sculpture

The Last Mile of Ho Chi Minh Chi Ho of Mile Last The (detail) Junyee, 7, , 20 January , 17 November , 17 November In the 2007 80 , accessed 12 November 2017, , accessed 12 November 2006, http://www.philstar.com/modern-living/369467/ , 18 November utilized 10,000 pieces Once A Forest Angud: installation rope as of red nylon ten kilometers of cut log connected by About his 2008 against illegal logging. a visual statement pre- life-sized seven featured exhibit Siete which Acacia and Santol wood colonial males made of discarded Sining at Karilangan Award for Sculpture” in 1989. Junyee Junyee in 1989. Sculpture” for Award Karilangan Sining at Museum Art of the Singapore the opening further boycotted invited, artist Filipino the only though he was even in 1996, Flor worker domestic of Filipina to protest the execution Contemplacion. more defined to be broadly may “protest” However, if not spiritual, encompass his ecological, appropriately to comment uses indigenous materials Junyee concerns. climate and biodiversity as such issues on environmental he began his career “[a]lthough notes that Guillermo change. drawn he became increasingly painter, as a social realist with indigenous materials to composing and working concepts and values.” in space to convey 2011, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/content/211035/junyee-the- The Treasure,” A Cultural Pilapil, “Junyee, See also Impy revolutionary-artist/story/. Philippine Star at 75.” and Caruncho, “Junyee junyee-cultural-treasure; Pam Brooke Casin, “Junyee: Sans Worldly Pretenses,” Manila Bulletin Pretenses,” Sans Worldly Casin, “Junyee: Brooke Pam 2008, F3. at 75.” Caruncho, “Junyee https://www.up.edu.ph/index.php/ups-cultural-landscapes. World Sculpture News Sculpture World Nature, Intimating Spirit,” Alice G. Guillermo, “Celebrating China Business Males, Crosses, Penthouses,” “Tattooed no. 1 (2001): 131. http://chinabusinessphilippines.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article& id=257:tattooed-males-crosses-penthouses&catid=42:art-music-cult%E2%80%A6. Emphasis added. GMA News Online Artist,” the Revolutionary Anna Lamentillo, “Junyee, , 25 July 2017, UP Forum Landscapes," Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta, "UP’s Cultural

85 82 83 84 80 81

116 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 117

85 84 81 83 paulit-ulit, hanggang hanggang paulit-ulit, Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A Regarding installation and the use of Regarding installation 82 indigenous materials, he claimed in a 2017 Philippine indigenous materials, there was that not aware “I was article that, Daily Inquirer by influenced I wasn’t art in other countries. installation my used our culture, I always other artists here or abroad. as an inspiration.” being Filipino, His installations are impermanent hence uncollectible, are impermanent hence uncollectible, His installations akin, “Yung resisting commodification. and nonsalable, like more of a vocation it’s , ang art hindi hanap-buhay Pero and good. well kumita ka , Kung the priesthood. ka, ‘yung gagawa hindi naman interviews. he has said in several na lang,” ka mamatay A “country boy” at heart, Junyee was born and raised in born was Junyee heart, at “country boy” A Tess with his wife has been living and , Makiling of Mt. the foothills in UP Los Baños in Laguna at the most have and we is a beautiful place, “This since 1986. are complete here… We beautiful campus in the country. the mindset is different…It’s but modern here, very We’re because of the campus’ birth. because of the environment, the surroundings.” And it’s Ours is agricultural. “Protest” can further refer to his general eschewal of the eschewal to his general can further refer “Protest” Junyee 1970s, During the Manila. art market and urban three pairs for possessions—save all his worldly burned start unlearning, personal effects—to of pants and some and to spare lifestyle, to break free from the materialistic I stopped years, three “For influences. Western himself from TV and reading newspapers I stopped watching smoking, sa college ko na kasing bumalik Ayaw and art materials. he told western ideas,” with filled mind was where my Manila Bulletin. covered with modern symbols, Junyee disclosed, “What I’m “What disclosed, Junyee modern symbols, with covered they culture (but) a good have we is that here say trying to were We young. very were we came in (when) [colonizers] are a lot of things there but their culture, by overwhelmed So this is my thing. is a good which to preserve, want we of more It’s (statement). This is not (a) political statement. ” an anthropological kind of thing.

Old Map of Memories Part 2 Part Memories of Map Old (detail) Junyee, Art

(Manila: University of (Manila: University , January - March 2000, 2–3; reprinted in 2017, B5, http://www.philstar.com/science- , 25 May His installations continue unabated but late in in late but continue unabated His installations 86 Installations, however, depend on institutional grants grants on institutional depend however, Installations, Unfortunately, produce. sponsorships to and corporate difficult to system is from the gallery independence when Junyee not surprised was Torres Emmanuel sustain. held solo exhibitions in commercial (and Hermisanto) Junyee’s bared that Reuben Cañete also galleries in 1980. in sculpture and painting increasing participation “to earn more to a way 1997 was competitions since money.” Compare: “Mention the names Santi Bose and Roberto Villanueva, both sadly now his career, Junyee has also been more active in mounting in mounting has also been more active Junyee his career, exhibitions. and group individual Pilapil, “Cultural Treasure.” Treasure.” Pilapil, “Cultural generation.” influence on the younger get the full import of Junyee’s gone, and you 2017, https://businessmirror.com.ph/phl-biodiversity-sustainable- , 28 May Mirror Museum to Open in “Biodiversity and Rhodina Villanueva, action-plan-launched/; The Philippine Star Quezon City,” since been compared. “The lush Mt. Baños have and Los The art scene in Baguio Baños more Los and fauna only makes hot springs and rich flora Makiling, its natural there was little appreciation as observed, for the arts. ‘But as Junyee conducive nut there was no movement,’ could sense arts, You compared with Baguio, maybe. Stirs Science Movement Maricar Cinco, “Art says.” Al] Benavenete [photographer , 11 September 2013, http://newsinfo.inquirer. Philippine Daily Inquirer Town,” net/485751/art-movement-stirs-science-town. and-environment/2017/05/25/1703195/biodiversity-museum-open-quezon-city. Reuben Ramas Cañete, “Junyee,” Liham Reuben Ramas Cañete, “Junyee,” Essays, Reviews, and Interviews on Philippine Art and Its Contexts: Publishing House, 2012), 294–6. Santo Tomas - December 1981): 2. (November Business Jonathan L. Sustainable Action Plan Launched,” “PHL Biodiversity Mayuga, Treasure.” and Pilapil, “Cultural Son”; Arcellana, “Mother Nature’s Philippine Art Supplement Baños Site Works,” Ground: Los Halfway “A Junyee, 89 90 88 86 87

118 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 119 87 89 The The 90 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A This begot the Baguio Arts Guild and begot the Baguio This 88 later the Baguio Arts Festival. According to artist Impy According to artist Impy Arts Festival. the Baguio later guru. their called Junyee Villanueva and Bose, Pilapil, solo exhibition produced articles that 2012 Dark Matter solo exhibition produced articles that “black This the process of his soot paintings. enunciated is then complemented with all-white pieces in period” Celebration, the 2014 CCP Earth Day For The Silence of J. The literature on Junyee has since surpassed Imao’s in has since surpassed Imao’s on Junyee literature The majority an overwhelming However, terms of sheer number. in the published only were of the writings on the former Most of publicized. more last decade when his projects were and 2018 musical— as the 2017 book the articles—as well Albano-Guillermo trope of (1) reproduced the unwittingly and (2) an of struggles, biography a retelling the artist’s materials. art and indigenous of installation edification or the specifying a particular work by mainly varied They used. materials Open Doors work articles about his 2009 example, For symbolisms on the Philippine on Junyee’s ruminated , his Ugnayan Ditto for refugees. Jewish to welcome policy pillars and metal hardwood “recycled of an installation nations of 21 to visualize the unity and cooperation Economic Cooperation.” Asia-Pacific comprising the The Los Baños workshop, which ran until 1983, had Bose ran until 1983, which Los Baños workshop, The reportedly Junyee its participants. among Villanueva and “marami in Baguio since them to continue the work advised naman sila roon.” Like Bose and Imao, Junyee also writes about (his) art. (his) art. also writes about Junyee and Imao, Like Bose Art to Philippine contributed himself in Supplement Junyee The Works.” Los Baños Site Ground: Halfway “A 1981 with asked to artists were participating that article disclosed Baños campus setting as component the UP Los incorporate of discarded only and to avail of their art installation, materials raw nature’s “By utilizing from nature. materials its the art object and between the relationship as medium, whole.” further into one cohesive surrounding is fused

Abortion (detail) Junyee,

91 92 1981): 14. 2, no. 1 (January - February And we should not only discover our sources in discover should not only And we should also see them in We local contemporary art. able to make a claim and be may We art. international it be if part a more meaningful experience would what the recognition that of our preserving our tradition is its scope of presence is worldwide. articles noted the use of 300 bamboo poles topped with a 300 bamboo poles the use of articles noted the CCP transformed which , Buhay in Hanginpropeller ay of windmills. into a cluster front lawn in his site- indigenous materials espousal of Junyee’s national has not precluded him from specific installations installation His first indoor recognition. and international the as chosen the CCP in 1981 was Things at Wood year Paris Biennale a entry to the 12th official Philippine exhibitions. 21 international least one of his at later, remounted as the largest installation It has since been Scale To The Philippine Contemporary: in the MET’s He organized the Movement the Past and the Possible. on and lectured Cuba, Art in Havana, Indigenous for Australia, Art in Lismore, on Indigenous the workshop Junyee’s that observed Torres activities. among many There insularism. is not necessarily “cultural revolution” to accommodate “internationalism” is a need to redefine to global knowledge World Third of the the contribution West.” of the “the hegemony hitherto determined by Interestingly, similar pronouncements were uttered by uttered by were similar pronouncements Interestingly, Albano in 1981. Torres, “Crossing Cultures,” 26. Cultures,” “Crossing Torres, Philippine Art and Westernization,” Albano, “Philippine Art: Tradition Raymundo Supplement

91 92

120 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 121 Ayco, Bose,Ayco, Imao, Junyee: Historiography A Based on primary sources and surveys, the archival research the archival research Based on primary sources and surveys, but represents the disparate Bose, Imao, and Junyee on Ayco, intersecting production of Philippine modern and contemporary the positioning of the selected artists in the art. Retracing and notes how their narratives this essay Philippine art history, multi-media forms, appropriation of practices—Manila-schooled, the indigenous, international encounters, community engagement, since been translated struggles with institutions and market—have nation, decentering the national and global and province beyond of and broadening the notions centers of Manila and the West, nation and identity.

Fabric of Activisms of Fabric (detail) Cajigan, Rocky 2, no. 6

He threw three He threw 2

4 He described it as “handy container”; “handy He described it as 1 Three more were submerged into the waters after submerged into the waters were more Three 3 by Tessa Maria Guazon Tessa by for one of the flashlight “discovered” Albano Raymundo site works. his early being thrown from a nearby boulder. One was swept away away swept One was boulder. from a nearby being thrown the last and on surface, another floated the currents, by the bottom. became lodged at had a stone weight which Albano urged his companions to After taking photographs, the lights die. before leave it was memorable because He described the work works. flashlight had him plan several This ritualistic. a hundred flashlights submerged in to have He wanted of site restrictions (there because but breakwaters Manila’s very dark spot) wanted a he light reflections, too many were the project flashlights, and the high cost of the waterproof “it had to remain this He thought that did not materialize. “experience the that but realized be to not work the for way,” can happen within the mind.” a “holder of mystery and symbolism.” “holder of mystery a flashlights into a brook in Ugong, . All were All Bulacan. a brook in Ugong, flashlights into “to emit light tape, on and sealed with electrical switched forever.” FORAYS INTO REGIONS: BETWEEN, REGIONS: INTO FORAYS THERE QUITE NOT AND BEYOND, Ibid. Ibid. Culture360, 18 July 2011, https://culture360.asef.org/magazine/ephemeral-and- place-less-emergent-public-art-modalities. Ibid. - December 1981): 16. (November Raymundo Albano, “Three Early Site Works,” Philippine Art Supplement Albano, “Three Early Site Works,” Raymundo and 'Place-less': Emergent public art modalities," Maria Guazon, "Ephemeral See Tessa

3 4 5 1 2

122 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 123 How are events- How 5 Forays intoForays Regions: Between, beyond, and not quite there based and time-bound art projects received by audiences by received based and time-bound art projects be in the instrumental can they and participants? How to gauge begin even do we of art publics? How formation art? contexts for in such reception and participation comprise and whose in the Philippines that Art festivals increased is centered on contemporary art have activation regional origins and continue have Several in recent years. others while a few to be organized outside Metro Manila, on sites, All are premised taken place in the capital. have or functioning aswhether as counterpoint to Manila happen in the may former The historical frames to art. cities like the between organized alternately regions, Commission for the National ExCon, VIVA long running Arts Arts Sungdu-an Culture and the Travelling National in Assembly or the first segment of the Lucban Exhibition, take place in Manila in sites of may They Quezon province. historical significance: examples are the more recent Manila and the 2016 London last 2017, Biennale in the Metropolitan Manila Biennale Pollination project at under reconstruction. a heritage building Theater, Albano’s flashlight project aptly illustrates these “forays “forays these illustrates project aptly flashlight Albano’s and originate depart typically that activities into regions,” Often planned of art. center or a perceived from a center can be best these efforts on-site, off-site and realized Albano by of the flashlights thrown the fate captured by Ugong. into the brook in that festivals on regional will be general reflections These and art in localities outside Manila stage contemporary frames and into curatorial their possible translations programming examine festival I do not While approaches. and tendencies consider overarching I broadly in detail, in localities, contemporary art intervenes consider ways AXIS on I look back or otherwise. whether productively projects I visited festival Studio, Transient Art project and noted ideas I In an article I wrote, in Baguio City in 2011. as possible rubrics “ephemerality” and “placelessness” of critical writing on art festivals. for

S'kool (detail) Ruiz, Tence Jose INFINITELY FRAGMENTARY, NEAR AND FAR ALL THE SAME AND FAR NEAR FRAGMENTARY, INFINITELY in Baguio Arts Festival short article on the Philippine In my like a grandiose platform the ways I considered from 2011, smaller-scale diffused by was arts festival the national spearheaded by Tent Art Axis projects were The initiatives. Chris by Studio conceived Transient de Guia and Kawayan These considered Baguio their home. Both artists Yniguez. mind, to my yet projects shared an arbitrary character, two temporal birthed by collaborations best illustrated they fluid and time-based: were These exchanges. and spatial three a period of over sewn Axis project was the the tent for Baguio City while groups from all over youth months by artist space was Yniguez’s initially was the studio that tent was The exhibition and performances. used for later Rose Garden while the studio installed in ’s I will explore configurations of the region as mediated region as mediated of the configurations I will explore and and their structures art festivals contemporary by we position do How in the process. our efforts reflect on of culture in and advocates artists, as curators, ourselves strangers and are perpetually we truth, contexts where in of estrangement? How a location where site can become Are engage non-art audiences? platform can the festival biennials like art events similar time-bound replicating we modes of engagement can emergent What and art fairs? and their “in the region” their siting through offer festivals “of the region”? positioning See Martin Patrick, “Performative Tactics and the Choreographic Reinvention of Public of Public Reinvention and the Choreographic Tactics “Performative See Martin Patrick, 1, no. 1 (2011): 65–83. Art and the Public Sphere Space,” Ibid., 65. Ibid., 66. Ibid.

6 7 8 9

124 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 125

8

6 ; to add to the performative and ; to add to the performative 7 “Placelessness” or what Miwon Kwon Kwon Miwon or what “Placelessness” Forays intoForays Regions: Between, beyond, and not quite there 9 the participatory turns already noted in contemporary turns already the participatory to artists turn refers choreographic The art practice. actions.” creative and orchestrating configuring, “staging, A few of the questions I asked then and which I am then and which of the questions I asked A few can become art projects here include ways reviewing accidental but Can the arbitrary and almost communal. of artmaking and exhibition ways choreographed deftly to morphing central The speak to local communities? tensions, productive Studio registered Transient Axis and came from an overarching them for since support especially to Axis tent travelled The festival. state-sponsored while the studio into a bus other sites and transformed pieces and on site through exhibition project changed I noted transpired on opening day. that performances been an have may the vibrant interactions I witnessed of local artists network existing of an already outgrowth there or who of whom are based many in Baguio City, this circle of artists that evident It was visit. routinely plan and stage are strong elements of they and the events Baguio art publics. artist projects increasingly, that observed Patrick Michael shifted to a seek to engage the public sphere have that turn” “choreographic and surrounding environs were transformed by art into “an- art into by transformed were environs and surrounding project called the tent De Guia time. a given space for other” described Yniguez while to happen,” waiting “accident an indulgent.” “nearly the studio as These rely more on the temporal than the spatial, thus more on the temporal than the spatial, rely These are They “placelessness.” of the notion of his evocation often and smaller in scale, more intimate noticeably the structures of more grandiose projects and overriding noted, he likewise approaches, creative These programs. as opposed ambiguous stances” “deliberately more offer informed “politically are of projects that to the force and invested.” calls the “deterritorialization of site” seems an attractive seems an attractive of site” “deterritorialization calls the art in writing about public and efficacious framework

Bag in a Boat a in Bag (detail) Esprela, Carzen Yet one is prompted to ask whether place to ask whether one is prompted Yet 10 or site can indeed dematerialize in art projects whose projects whose in art indeed dematerialize or site can forces are hinged on and is locality, existence foundational shape artmaking. tangentially those which but outside, (PCAN) Art Network’s Philippine Contemporary The of Region in the Contemporary,” “Place inaugural project, Conceived nature. an elusive as having proposes the region a wider range of region allows the in this manner, with art and exhibition- whether to do interventions region is The of relations. networks making or establishing zone that a productive and location, imagined as position It is thought of as a site and the globe. to the nation is foil on multiple correspond to a locality and can take may that It can also be a island or town. whether configurations, and enactments of agency register where the articulations backdrop the inchoate against can be traced and revived of the contemporary. for the the first project framing of the region informs This network. node of the analysis exhibitions and curatorial Its make exhibitions. component aims to not only This to analysis thought goals include subjecting curatorial would We scrutiny. gestures under and placing curatorial and its numerous formats; like to rethink the exhibitionary some contexts may a concern arising from the idea that them. we know benefit from exhibitions as not necessarily that there are other exhibitionary approaches Perhaps can greatly that and formats locales, can best articulate engage art publics. initiatives. Quoted in Patrick, 66. Quoted in Patrick, 10

126 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 127 Forays intoForays Regions: Between, beyond, and not quite there Traversals/Trajectories: Expansive Expansive Traversals/Trajectories: exhibition inaugural The of artists by the works place-making in explored Localities presented and gathered artworks The generations. different through various and events places, objects, memories, these practices that exhibition proposed The materialities. across regions negotiate from localities originate of art that travel the artists themselves While globality. an overarching a tension that embody their works islands and the globe, constructs received certainty of widely defy the order and it was framing the region, In curatorially of time and place. and cross miles between geography necessary to traverse the contexts of art I needed to be acquainted with islands. from locations while severed production because artists, often would training or practice, whether places of birth, the requisite While return to origins. look to and even in these a stranger I often felt the miles, covered travelling never have We I had little discomfort. places; about which we current times yet as as fervently experienced dislocation traversing productively not just become quite adept at have also deftly we that but altogether, numerous locations the detours marking our journeys. articulate artist Panx captured by best estrangement was This Haiyan recollection of experiencing typhoon Solajes’s Tacloban. is from family Solajes’s across the globe. halfway lost all connection to them when the typhoon They image relied on a satellite They their hometown. ravaged long as the roof As fate. to keep tabs on their family’s they Maps, house appears on Google Tacloban of their Solajes province. there remained a home in knew this paradoxical nearness and translates eloquently video piece The of ). (A Harvest distance in Himurasak emphatic visually exhibition in 2017 was the PCAN for in the hear from voices in its restraint with stories we The framing images of a placid sea. poignantly background were to current time because they foil itself was narrative told after the of a tragedy, about premonitions (foretelling) the present of viewing entangled: the is tightly Time event. earlier and an even the past where loss transpired, work,

Noel's Shrine Noel's (detail) Mesa, de Martin

11 Touring Touring harvested these harvested Himurasak omens appeared. when time, images. screen of looped and unceasing in a timeless cycles and spoke to state, this ambiguous captured work The fragmented amidst locations or a self fractured locations It maps. satellite-generated by nodes beamed are static that points to. “not quite there” the that is to this ambiguity and staged describe orchestrated Placeless and ephemeral with involvement greater seek artists that actions by of public reorientation as there” “not quite publics; while or unified.” comprehended easily “not space is something Publics are elusive as they are numerous and varied and varied are numerous as they Publics are elusive Less tangible constructed. are also temporally they yet artists while tactics by spaces arise from performative it to simultaneously of place allows nature the mutable Places art. by transformed and be potentially arise from, in and art, can be constructed through art themselves Yniguez Artist Chris and reclaim places. turn can rework John describes the decrepit library in Camp accurately art makes in 2011 as condition itself: a site that Hay to heritage and the and where art is made; where claims collide. frantic pace of development , ed. Kalissa Alexeyeff and John Taylor (Canberra: Australian National Australian (Canberra: and John Taylor , ed. Kalissa Alexeyeff Cultures Pacific Press, 2016), 245. University 116. cited in Peterson, Wee C. J. in Across the Pacific” Indigenous Sovereignties Phipps, “Performing Peter Ibid., 113. 245. Indigenous Sovereignties,” Phipps, “Performing Patrick, “Performative Tactics,” 66. Tactics,” “Performative Patrick, at Thirty: Going Global, Glocal, “The Singapore Arts Festival See William Peterson, Journal 26, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 111–34. Asian Theatre Grocal,” Ibid.

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14

12 Works Works that 16 While Peterson and Phipps Peterson While 17 Overarching state support for the the support for state Overarching 13 The performances were recognizable were performances The 15 Forays intoForays Regions: Between, beyond, and not quite there and widely received by audiences but they failed to be failed they audiences but by received and widely he works, Such locales. grounded in specific cultures and of an orchestrated elements “sleek,” mentioned are typically “cult of the beautiful.” production of the cite festivals whose focus is not solely contemporary art, art, contemporary is not solely whose focus cite festivals fail to engage the specific circumstances of its culture do to engage fail their sleekness and apparent Yet critique. not articulate popular among global makes them greatly “easiness” apparent in more is likewise tendency This audiences. “flattening Phipps as the described by traditional festivals, available into forms life out of social and community commodification.” easy for THE ‘GLOBAL NOTHING’ AND THE ENDURING LOCAL ENDURING LOCAL AND THE NOTHING’ THE ‘GLOBAL and performative” dynamic, “transient, are Festivals meaning-making. for are platforms because they While the Singapore Arts Festival later embraced an later Arts Festival the Singapore While of including a variety interdisciplinary practice by the works and cultural vocabularies,” “performative contingencies of from began to be removed themselves place and time. Their staging is often timed to coincide with national to coincide with national staging is often timed Their of traditional festivals. in the case celebrations are the other hand, on Contemporary festivals, in regional with similar events planned to coincide become primary Festivals circuits. and international that forms showcase they when especially attractions Peterson’s William range of audiences. speak to a wide Arts Festival the Singapore of account of the development sponsorship can stunt state how illustrates however, those specifically works, of new local development to critique. given arts festival in Singapore dampened local production, local production, in Singapore dampened arts festival appeal to a global that highlighting instead works Peterson but good, and sound well All this may audience. that onslaught of forms cautions against the increasing “nothing.” are actually but enjoyable, even are palatable

Dead Masks Dead (detail) Basco, Zeus

21 In the quest for growth, the growth, In the quest for 19 It is a “global nothing,” fuelled by relentless fuelled by “global nothing,” It is a 20 The grobal melds “growth and the global…often and the “growth melds grobal The 18 at the expense of the local.” at expansion and replication across geographic borders. expansion and replication local is eventually eradicated to give way to forms that are that to forms way to give eradicated local is eventually Thus, across the globe. recognized and marketed easily devoid increasingly but accessible, “global, the grobal is of content.” Contemporary art in the Philippines embodies numerous Contemporary art in the Philippines not as prone to a drastic of critique and is probably facets happens with other culture of the kind that flattening the of tastes, it is the formation However, forms. festival presenting contemporary for structures and platforms of A flattening be vulnerable to these forces. may art that representations kind can be discerned in formulaic such whether regional or of Philippine art in the global circuit, or the global cinema biennales or triennales, international that can then begin to ask about economies We circuit. spread The “global nothing.” of this the proliferation allow has which that between “choice of the grobal posits a this worrying outcome can be discerned in the staging of discerned in the outcome can be this worrying become arts can The festivals. art in regional contemporary arts creative with development tool in economic a useful “creative or the added industries” “value subsumed under of cultural production may manner This industries.” calls the George Ritzer of what under the category fall “grobal.” Ibid., 111. the Face of Geography,” Art Journal 70, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 6. the Face of Geography,” See George Ritzer, “The Globalization of Nothing,” SAIS Review of International Affairs Globalization of Nothing,” “The See George Ritzer, 128. “The Singapore Arts Festival,” Peterson, 32, no. 2 (2007): 189–200. See Ritzer. 128. “The Singapore Arts Festival,” Peterson, Without History: Southeast Asian Artists and their Communities in “Art Taylor, Nora Ibid., 21.

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130 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 131

22 Artists from the region also find Artists from the region also find 23 Forays intoForays Regions: Between, beyond, and not quite there These regional projects underline the affinities regional projects underline the affinities These 24 The lure of the global is strong because it lends an lure of the global is strong The events festival organized to locally profile international to global awareness. It brings local contexts and projects. the regions cast a wider in art festivals More important, that awareness heightens This contemporary art. net for Regionally happen in the capital. art does not solely indeed, with also often require interaction would based festivals visiting to a component favorable local communities, should culture manner of programming What artists. undertake to resist the lure of the grobal? Perhaps festivals wherein the local approach, the assertion of a strongly present can resist contingencies of place is predominantly the onslaught of the global nothing. projects Asia regard community artists in Southeast Many a useful tool to transgress find them as they important, colonial borders. roots in place and culture and that which is depthless and is depthless and which and that place and culture roots in of its familiarity.” virtue by attractive but rootless, between artists from Southeast Asia and Asia itself. Yet Yet Asia itself. Asia and artists from Southeast between of problems. devoid these undertakings are not entirely goes that a scale project necessitates An international require They local arts infrastructure support. beyond contexts localities and their to allow thorough preparation Artists should to become integral elements of art projects. with skilled in these communities insert and intervene with specifically and sharper sense of relations deftness, those the project alters or disrupts. ties between communal projects allow community While accrue to the benefits that local and visiting artists, If art makes and often short-lived. are vague communities can place become an eloquent element of art, how place, remap localities can we How and form? of process way by uncanny similarities among places where these projects these projects similarities among places where uncanny In these contexts, and ensuing interactions happen. community by facilitated in the exchange” “art is found projects.

Blank stares, empty faces, hollow life hollow faces, empty stares, Blank Faye Aleya Abantao, Abantao, Aleya Faye (detail) 25 Perhaps our efforts can be likened to the flickering lights likened to the flickering can be our efforts Perhaps we can flashlight project in Ugong: Albano’s of Raymundo or become by the currents, away washed be afloat, stay remain that projects for Or perhaps, submerged underwater. in the mind. can just happen they unrealized, the before there are times when it is best to leave However, lights die out. and not fall prey to replicating models that may have have may that models to replicating prey fall and not departure point is often our which center, in the worked (in the case of creative A model localities? engage when we in the capital may worked have may that centers or hubs) An understanding of needs. a locality what not necessarily local contexts is crucial to placement in contemporary art’s programming. festival to these tangentially ourselves It is apt to position of the contingencies aware to become greatly endeavors, It our agenda. to inform them of the local and allow sensitive highly become we that is also necessary cliques do not to our understanding of community: at our efforts often thwart as they make communities, models importing might find ourselves We inclusivity. of awareness into localities with little and parachuting in them. contemporary art can best intervene that ways But for places and is often its cornerstone. Art references art has to speak to local contexts through this to happen, co- allow that Strategies grounded approaches. yet novel as they are often useful, enjoyment learning and make for forms of pleasure “commodified can be mobilized against a global culture.” promoted by Phipps, “Performing Indigenous Sovereignties,” 252. Indigenous Sovereignties,” Phipps, “Performing 25

132 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 133 Forays intoForays Regions: Between, beyond, and not quite there

An Ecological, The Obligatory The Ecological, An Installation view of of view Installation

AN IMPOSSIBLE PROFESSION IMPOSSIBLE AN Renan Laru-an by to a site is an unfulfilled assignment of the peripheral The this of desires animates Evacuation death-wish. from the place with expediency It takes transformation. of safety. lines the dramaturgical towards staging of threat to requires everyone the situation During this process, while they their feet, to think on of mind, presence have the A protocol, behind. unimportant everything leave harm between an operation organizes standard script that maximum to hold the transfer’s expects and salvation, a given the rescue at carrying capacity in order to execute of enforcement rescue is both a doctrine and an This time. , be left behind here the peripheral order: No one should In this paradox . elsewhere for leave must and everyone as a space of constant lies a clear picture of the periphery time is emergency. knowable Its only alertness. been the most have Impresarios of disaster discourse know They painters of peripheral landscape. faithful capture its They looks like. nature the immovable how The in quantifiable terms. surrounds it, what point, focal relies on the accurate integrity of their pictorial depiction where the distance to of hazard zones, identification to alarm systems. imminent danger is set up according committed to Assessment and response are sensibilities What risk. at and speaking to a place when looking at both micro could be qualified as context sensitivity—which and official bodies and institutions informal and macro, requirement of the the communicative perform—affirms *The familiarity of the title must be traced through Freud’s pronouncement in his famous pronouncement Freud’s through *The familiarity of the title must be traced and governance, pedagogy, impossible professions: essay in 1937 about the three psychoanalysis.

134 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 135 An Impossible Profession Impossible An peripheral: You can never speak to me unless you devote devote you to me unless speak can never You peripheral: In and environment. elements, wholeness, to my a study a system of barriers to be proves the periphery this regard, . questions are registered in situ permits entry when that recognize most of us easily the reason why that’s Maybe in front its muteness encounter when we its "passivity" openness and hospitality. assume its We of our presence. us as curious and welcomes periphery lures us in, The mission of "isolated" covert The enthusiastic trespassers. of concealment of territories, places includes protection the this sense, In and control of exchange. limitations, and viscosity like mud its thickness periphery maintains impermeable to the tropical light. its of the periphery, I postpone the analysis In this essay, of concepts it has enabled family and the terms, associated as the such within its oppositional vectors, and gathered and many the cosmopolitan, urban, the the national, center, the history of might be interesting to add into What others. people introduces how milieu that concepts is a discursive in the purpose in the periphery—or who decide to stay and sustain modes the region—inaugurate of this text, on the adjunct I focus culturally. and working of living and collective with the individual placement of "culturally" to identify aspects of the personal and professional artistically. make up the desires to produce practices that of means the declaration "producing artistically" Here, (to profess) a profession engagement with arts and culture, constraints with and for but of, not in spite to the world, with approaching I am not comfortable and insufficiencies. source of epistemology, the periphery as a metaphysical an oasis of enlightenment and criticality salubrious for nor as the industrial paradigm of the arts designs cynicism, best practices places for or worst, case studies, it: models, and the some promise of the alternative provide that in the could be generated What rhetoric of problem-solving. cry of the peripheral to see it as is? heartfelt Renan Laru-an on "Reception" on Laru-an Renan (Sharjah: The Writing of the The Writing (2002). He then

1 Crepuscular Dawn Crepuscular The Accident Waiting to Happen The Accident Waiting , published in 1979 in Marawi City, was City, , published in 1979 in Marawi (2005), Maurice Blanchot’s Dansalan Quarterly notes in Lotringer’s (1995), and Sylvere One practical adventure in thinking about the formation formation about the in thinking adventure One practical is through artistically in the region and of culturally are shared and disruptions Urgencies catastrophes. of a periphery and a in the economies attributes We these realities: Heritage and tourism verify catastrophe. resources and natural our buildings and conserve preserve both all, After or become extinct. are destroyed they before wonders of guests benefit from these the locals and their that in the relations I am not interested However, a region. efforts collaborative The produces. this type of urgency In nostalgia maintain this smoke-screen. of paranoia and as an of the region is used both this dynamo most cases, “to do something because…” of action: index and rationale come all catastrophes that to the fact instead, I am drawn, is urgent What are accidents. They to us as a surprise. is totally a building after an earthquake has decimated a group of by from the course of actions outlined different or a site visit. and restorers in a laboratory conservators it that could not believe we hits us, a catastrophe When if all of it even need to face and we did, But it could happen. quality of an accident revelatory This it did not make sense. the urgent is illuminating. that shows brings Aristotelian conception of accidents into these contemporary readings to brings Aristotelian conception of accidents into these contemporary ground some of the fundamental terms that animate the accidental. Sharjah Art Foundation, 2015), he analyzed the catastrophic event on September on September 2015), he analyzed the catastrophic event Sharjah Art Foundation, thinking through catastrophe as accident, chapters, 11, 2001 in the US into several and tragedy. interruption, virus, antidote, sublimity, Disaster Matthew Gumpert’s reading of the 9/11 accident as a study of catastrophe has been Matthew Gumpert’s reading of the 9/11 accident thinking. In his book a helpful reference in my Gumpert follows some of the recent critical discussions on accidents as catastrophes, The Accident of Art Virilio’s namely Paul edited by Peter Gowing, Director of the Dansalan Research Center (DRC). Gowing’s Center (DRC). Gowing, Director of the Dansalan Research Peter edited by initial engagement with the Dansalan Junior College (DJC) was in 1968 when he in the city college, in Asia" co-organized a seminar titled "Understanding Islam Today of led to the development The program for three years. which hosted the program materials on Muslim . He wrote the two- DJC’s special collection of library page dedication to the curator. The first issue of the

1 3 2

136 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 137 An Impossible Profession Impossible An The eulogy appears on the second page of eulogy The That is to say that the notion that I would like I would the notion that that is to say That 3 2 the journal, preceding the editorial introduction of the the journal, and voice written in a collective It is a note, publication. summarizes the invaluable that tone of gratitude a joyful to use in discussing the peripheral through the accidental to use in discussing the peripheral the that against the fantasy with pragmatism, emanates The regional is region cannot be qualified nor categorized. be individuated always is and will already a site of signs, it or the way it is, because this is what and categorized In the . This is actually happening here profoundly: Or, is. this utterance how I aim to locate course of this essay, its initial from happening here.”) moves is actually (“This “infinitesimal of to a world appearance of passivity might come off as too an exercise that catastrophes,” to Aristotelian thought of tracing potentiality to an faithful of showing the goal prioritizes the attempt actuality; but and the actual of the potential the region as an ecology with/in and working through the impossible tasks of living the accidental. “HOLDING THINGS TOGETHER” defunct Marawi-based issue of the now 81-page first The in Dansalan Quarterly (1979) announces its participation of discourse and distribution circulation, the production, the death for from the region with a public dedication of a curator. While my reading might tune into the apocalyptic, I tune into the apocalyptic, reading might my While in the regional, the accidental intend to classify only world as a defining its constitution in translates which the exceptionalism Recognizing this rejects of accidents. pastoral, provincial, rural, the in envisaging allocated I need meaning, As if unencumbered in local or marginal. is neither the a priori of the an accident to clarify that making the peripheral an behind force peripheral nor the existing field of an in converting I am not interested event. can motivation my As noted earlier, into an event. forces things operate position that Aristotelian be traced from an I call of a subject “things predicated with predicates: accidental.”

Ornaments W. Don Flores's Flores's Don W. of view Installation Stitched Stitched 4 5 This decision follows DJC’s DJC’s decision follows This 6 II, no. 1 (1980). I, no. 1 (October 1979): 2. I, no. 1 (October Dansalan Quarterly Shortly after the untimely passing of Van Vactor, her Vactor, Van passing of after the untimely Shortly classified and collectively to the college were contributions of Islamic and Collection Vactor Van Maise “The named as Philippine Muslim Materials.” role of an American missionary named Maise Dorland Van Van named Maise Dorland missionary American role of an Her curatorial Center. Research of Dansalan Curator Vactor, as with her contributions highlighted together tasks are the (DJC), College Dansalan Junior the librarian of the lines next The center. the research host institution of the Center…: aspect of every “in list her involvement to contributing encouraging the staff, counselling and housing and meals for overseeing DRC publications, advice friendly offering sessions, dialogue and summer the future…” and helping plan for and criticism, together to present “a tribute” and “a way of memorializing of “a way and “a tribute” together to present the collocates the dedication legacy,” [the curator’s] of an and eros pathos, custodian as the necessary bios, the where in the same text, institution of knowledge, the same as a corpus arising from is designated curator “she and the Collection were plane of its custodial function: its most important initial assets.” Dansalan Quarterly Muslims, 1950-1980,” The journal also gained reputation as a “source of factual information regarding the current situation in the southern Philippines.” mission. Additional sections related to DRC's texts The journal primarily features key the Reading News and Notes; From Reports/DRC are classified and labeled as: DRC The first issue includes the and Bibliography. Are Constantly Asked...; Room; We Dean at the Mindanao President of DJC; Mamitua Saber, Vactor, Van writings of Lloyd and Michael Sullivan. State University; See Ibid. in 1969. It was also referred to as Vactor Maise Van The collection was initiated by on the she focused of DRC, As curator Islam Collection." the "Maranao/Philippine reading room. program’s in Service: Dansalan Junior College Among Maranao “Ventures Vactor, Van See Lloyd

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138 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 139 9 An Impossible Profession Impossible An Broadening its reach, Broadening its reach, 7 Its rules diverted from the expected writing style from the expected writing style Its rules diverted 8 of a research journal, almost belaboring the potential of journal, of a research editors emphasized the accessibility and engagement; the “quality.” and language” “non-technical use of it hosted texts that discussed “the Muslim peoples of the discussed it hosted texts that promotes understanding and Philippines and all that and Muslims in this Christians between relations improved land.” The curator Van Vactor, who died from a cardiac arrest who Vactor, Van curator The figures after the kidnapping of her husband, days several a proof of the accidental in this text not as a witness nor as the curator not a "coincidental" body; She is in the region. (quantity, carries the attributes becomes a task that or action) of state position, time, place, relation, quality, This in the manner of an accident. befalls a practice that in the arrived Vactor Van practice is not hers alone: Maise Vactor, Van Lloyd Philippines in 1954 with her husband Dr. missionary appointee of the United Church an educational who took the leadership of the Ministries, World Board for The years. College during the martial law Dansalan Junior City) lies in a Marawi in Dansalan (now Vactors Van of work War, World the Second predated that timeline of initiatives into the project entered strategy evangelical when a new of the Philippines. in non-Christian populations of literacy pattern of consolidating and streamlining its initiatives. its initiatives. and streamlining of consolidating pattern to organize an effort was Quarterly , Dansalan journal, The in the establishment emerged that publications previous Since (DRC) in 1974. Center of the Dansalan Research until the first issue of the in 1975 its press operations a total of 73 mimeographed DRC produced quarterly, Papers (April of DRC Occasional issues/numbers/editions 1979), 1975-January DRC Reports (May 1979), 1975-May DRC and 1978), 1975-December Bulletin (July DRC Research These 1978). 1975-December Bulletin (July Bibliographical editorial direction to their had transferred printed matter that of the DRC, “a house organ” as Dansalan Quarterly conclusions coming “the research published and circulated Projects Community of the DRC’s from the investigations Program.” and Evaluation Research Renan Laru-an on "Modes of Custodianship" of "Modes on Laru-an Renan

on education: (such as Laubach’s) This contributed in forming positive attitude attitude positive in forming contributed This 10 to the public school system at the time—or education time—or education the at system to the public school of had enabled the accommodation which in general, As early as 1930s, Dr. Frank Laubach’s program in “Each “Each in program Laubach’s Frank Dr. as 1930s, As early of Maranaos thousands for the way paved One” Teach One writing their own of reading and the fundamentals learning language. In 1957, within the same decade when DJC was established, the national government In 1957, within the same decade when DJC was established, the national government included the whose tasks launched the Commission on National Integration, minorities in Mindanao. dissemination of scholarships to cultural Vactor American Educators in Mindanao and Sulu" Decades of (1981), Van In "Four system in reflects on the for a better understanding of the Islamic cultural need noted that when “the Japanese invaded Bentley (1983), G. Carter Lanao Region" interest and alliance in Lanao power, the Philippines in December 1941, balances of where "critical interlude" the war period as "an He characterized was disrupted.” relations between Muslim and Christian inhabitants shifted the transformations" of local Muslim leaders, the national recognition of Lanao. These changes covered adjudication, new style and modes of administration the utilization of traditional cash inflow as war of military organization, and an economic bubble enabled by damage payments. educational efforts. During this time, he points out the main more effective having reasons of the failure of the early American effort are agents of conquerors; it is educators are basically agents of an alien culture; they other impossible to change society unless that effort is supported by for education segments (52). cultural DJC’s programs and visions were recognized by an international network of funding an international network of funding and visions were recognized by DJC’s programs The United Church Board, the Philippine the Asia Foundation. agencies led by of Canada, the New Zealand Literacy World Business for Social Progress Foundation, funding agencies in Holland church and government as well as joint Government, and financial assistance to the college. The South Asia grants provided and Germany, in the Netherlands has provided Committee of the Mission of the Reformed Churches other needs, smaller For center. major support for the work of the Dansalan Research other Dutch and German church-related agencies. by were also provided grants welcome them in their initial attempt to work in the region, so they moved to other attempt to work in the region, so theywelcome them in their initial moved of the Philippines. provinces in Service.” “Ventures Vactor, See Van editions with hundreds of copies being sold. Tens of thousands of paperbound of thousands of paperbound editions with hundreds of copies being sold. Tens distributed. Some of the titled released booklets on different topics were printed and Rice,” The New Miracle Care,” “Motherhood and Baby of the Skin,” include: “Care These were printed throughout and “History of the World.” in Prose,” “Moro Folklore the province.

of Muslim-Christian Relations in the titled "The Evolution In his historical essay

did not 1915. The Maranaos in Lanao in together with his wife first arrived Laubach dictionary with ten thousand words went through three An English-Maranao 15 16 14 13 10 11 12

140 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 141

14 An Impossible Profession Impossible An In its formative years, it was it was years, In its formative 16 In 1949, something crystallized In 1949, The success of this comprehensive success of this comprehensive The 15 12 13 Temporary institutions such as the Madrasa as the Madrasa institutions such Temporary 11 into an infrastructure, a system of ideas taking shape as into an infrastructure, of an institution dedicated construction The plans of action: and meeting the serving, administering, to organizing, College opened Dansalan Junior The needs of the Maranaos. later. to the public a year not unpredictable that DJC suffered challenges, such as such challenges, DJC suffered not unpredictable that and the of support from the Christian communities lack slow by brought about opposition of Muslim population pedagogical venture would soon amount to literacy soon amount to literacy would pedagogical venture and an of transformation generator becoming a proactive index of development. Post-war social, economic, and political paradigms had economic, social, Post-war in the administration gained confidence and influence had come into light, that activities of the periphery, One of “emergence.” as scholars noted by consequently into a of literacy the conversion was these emergences pedagogical endeavour. At the same rate that ethnic relations evolved in Mindanao in evolved ethnic relations that At the same rate rehabilitation a massive and the Philippines underwent the region of Lanao saw in the Pacific, after the war of local, and formulation the pronounced integration sensibilities and aspirations. and international national, a private, Christian-initiated institution, the Dansalan the Dansalan institution, Christian-initiated a private, and to gain after the war to be established College, Junior in a public concern” with school “a private as reputation an was program “successful” Laubach’s the Lanao region. cultural territories of through the sailed smoothly ark that the region. Press, the Madrasa Folk School, Dansalan Crafts, Dansalan Dansalan Crafts, School, the Madrasa Folk Press, Center Training Agricultural Dansalan Print Media Center, side by theological functions operated whose built, were the impulses of with and by times tempered side or at translate sciences to understand and humanities and social to the service Laubach’s intelligence of The a context. into something notion of literacy the fabricated community dealt with health, that with publications especially useful, and culture. livelihood,

An Ecological, The Obligatory The Ecological, An Installation view of of view Installation (Minnesota: University (Minnesota: University account of of his 154-page , an excerpt (Minnesota: University of Minnesota (Minnesota: University 17 Cosmopolitics I The Invention of Modern Science The Invention My Twenty Longest Days My Twenty communication of the school’s purpose. But it remained But purpose. the school’s of communication training of future the especially with its mission, persistent presence, and formal habitus its physical With teachers. that for its cross-sectoral initiatives an efficacy DJC enjoyed identified who was Laubach, afforded might not had been In singular purposes. or other spaces of with the church carved the school of operation, less than three decades standing as an educational out an almost monumental gaining a distinct voice cultural mediator, institution and a leader. as a community Press, 2010). of Minnesota Press, 2000), she highlighted that “to ‘understand’ means to create a different sensible forms, of language that opens up the possibility of ‘encountering’ that would law reproducing them, without for all that subjugating them to a general to be manipulated” (156). them ‘reasons’ and allow them give for differentiation can be found in the transcript of Isabelle Stengers’ lecture, of Isabelle Stengers’ lecture, for differentiation can be found in the transcript National at the Australian delivered "Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices," reading on this Symposium (2003). Further Humanities Research Centre University topic can be pursued in her book In Stengers’s earlier book discontent and to successful assimilation of the Maranao population seems to have population seems to have Maranao discontent and to successful assimilation of the under the new who aspired to upward mobility Maranao the many been accepted by order “ (157). progressive Christian and Maranao leaders agree on is the idea that education is a leaders agree on is the idea that Christian and Maranao progressive in spite of the disagreement on the form and content towards development, pathway private colleges which combined secular and Islamic of education. Later on, several Islam College (renamed as Jamiatul topics in their curricula opened. The first, Kamilol Senator Domocao Alonto, son of late Sultan was opened by Philippine al-Islamie) and Pacasum Islam College Pangarungan Alonto, then followed by Ramain Alawya College. his kidnapping in March 1979. A comprehensive introduction to the use of the term "practice" and the demand introduction to the use of the term "practice" A comprehensive Bentley observed that “the notion that education was the ultimate answer to Maranao education was the ultimate answer to Maranao that “the notion that observed Bentley Vactor's Van Lloyd From The dynamics of reception to education became positive: Bentley noted that noted that Bentley positive: The dynamics of reception to education became 20 21 18 19 17

142 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 143 No 18 This presence is This 21 An Impossible Profession Impossible An ; in which despite of investment of investment despite ; in which 20 19 Maise and I had felt that the work we were doing along were we the work that Maise and I had felt important enough to the people in with our staff was should continue inspite [sic] of we that the community and the mental strain that involved was the risk that risk. accompanied that The risk that Maise and her husband subscribed to merits Maise and her husband subscribed to risk that The of practices differentiation OPERATIONAL RISKS OPERATIONAL argument and undeniable convenient It is an equally white (an educated, Vactor Van the multi-hyphenated that that DJC and DRC, institutions, Christian) and the female mission of liberal confirm the civilizing she represented order. colonial a new by programmed education of complicity into their roles, Lloyd asserted that they had they asserted that Lloyd of complicity into their roles, and continue their as practitioners to stay obligations the to leave, husband admitted the refusal As Maise’s work. makes a practice that becomes an operation act of staying landscape exists in a given something that intelligible, practices. is not the same with other and something that in Lanao points temporarily to fix themselves reason Their a practice can address the abstract to a possibility that a language in the rubric creating constraints of a context, annuls itself from the general which “to understand,” of rationalizes easily colonial agents) that being new (e.g. law of a specific order. actions as illustrations other valuation have had unsettled this truth, assisting assisting unsettled this truth, had have other valuation unlearning, recuperation, the promise of reparation, and of the postcolonial body and survival commemoration, that it remain so troubling to imagine does But why trauma. Did a hegemon? authorized by tasks are solely the curator’s practices to take root that general reason alone entitle these in the region? account of his abduction In an abridged autobiographical wrote, Vactor Van Lloyd in 1979, Renan Laru-an on "Mode of Exchange" of "Mode on Laru-an Renan 11, . Cosmpolitics I In Maise’s In Maise’s Cultural Studies Review Cultural 23 . For Stengers following Stengers following For 22 . . Cosmopolitics I The Accident Waiting to Happen The Accident Waiting Latour, this attachment works hand in hand with autonomy. with autonomy. hand in hand works this attachment Latour, in which of belongingness, value And this same positive of to read in a modernist strain Stengers had refuted “[practitioners] to do what allows obligations, universal not be able to do otherwise.” would they in the region was her custodianship work, curatorial ethnography, exposed to the questions of , other and many museology, tourism, heritage studies, a connection as much as it is an invention. The Van Vactors Vactors Van The as it is an invention. as much a connection and tasks, enable actions, identities that had practical have region. of the in an ecology difference roles to impose and historian of science the Belgian philosopher When “practitioners made a pronouncement that Isabelle Stengers our ability to that she underscored obligations,” have into tasks— and thinking our feeling is to employ act—that comes from our attachment. See Gumpert’s the notion that Stengers utilized in explaining Here, I refer to the "reciprocal capture" with this capture. and the relationship of constraints of value in an ecology of practices has the advantage of helping that “the reference to reciprocal capture She believes and its potential agency in us resist the temptation to confuse ideas and practices” Chapter See of modern practice. performing interrogations as actions in the paradigm 4 of Cosmopolitics I See "Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices" (2003), See "Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices" 5: Introductions (pp. 56–70) of See further discussion on this topic in Chapter Stengers’s book production In Stengers's detailed theorization of obligations and requirements: "...the of obligations pertains to the register of creation, which must be acknowledged in its irreducible dimension, while the assertion of requirements presents the problem of the possible stability of that creation, of its scope, and of the meaning it proposes to (42–55) in embody for others" (53–4). See Chapter 4: Constraints no. 1 (2013): 183–96.

Ibid. 26 27 22 23 24 25

144 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 145 They will be will be They 26 An Impossible Profession Impossible An

25 that these tasks suffer weaves weaves these tasks suffer that 27 This chance, entirely generic in character, character, generic in entirely chance, This 24 Maise’s curatorial designation and the institutional and the institutional designation curatorial Maise’s are risks that Lloyd, of her husband, administration the region. vision for are not outstanding as gesture or as I argued in the first Because the region is accidental accidents is to emphasize that part of the essay—that their risks as I take that norm, a but are not exceptions, other accidents.” integrate “accidents that disciplines burdened with (colonial) knowledges. However, However, knowledges. with (colonial) burdened disciplines Being her to stay. obliged that not the causes these are her to obliged the peripheral, by surrounded in Lanao, tasks’ installed her which on them, think them and act consider to she could never the place that belongingness to belong to her. into the milieu of practices and the ethos of practitioners into the milieu of practices and the ethos of practitioners of In this disavowal who are present in their context. facts of fields or social protection either from knowledge is predisposed to the process of materiality the terrain, the recruitment and alliance of practical identities for practices to connect. in danger. These risks will materialize, and the duty that duty that and the risks will materialize, These in danger. them as practitioners is the remains irreconcilable for these requirements do not need However, place and time. obliges that as the problem (the cause) to be satisfied lead would and to stay feel, to to think, Maise and/or Lloyd or encounter that a confrontation them to a negotiation, on things and practices. extinguishes judgment formation becomes political and ethical. here anticipation The the capture Eventually, withholds any cause for specialization, which would define would which specialization, cause for withholds any As Lloyd and the obligation. the cause between relations “important in their the necessity of continuity invoked presents and therefore, the pressure of sustainability work,” amendment of their desire to requires the consequently exposes “how” question of This “how.” of an obligation it is the same force but to risks, and puts Maise and Lloyd in their own permits them to introduce experiment that understanding of their obligations.

An Ecological, The Obligatory The Ecological, An Conceptual notes on on notes Conceptual (2010). , an em dash immediately Cosmopolitics I . Dansalan Quarterly My Twenty Longest Days My Twenty “NO ONE IS AWARE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING.” OF WHAT IS AWARE “NO ONE bring new Tragedies be tragic. connection might This or things and makers are extinguished As heritage to life. and its value of work the legacy circumstances, disabled by of producing tasks sustained a tradition originally that time in the conditions of a find their place and now must summon those who are orphaned Obligations heritage. new a tragedy. by issue of the on the page of the inaugural eulogy The readers with these confronts any Dansalan Quarterly to the place where the curator to the region, obligations passing on and belonged to and died in, Vactor Van Maise staying and actually virtually the same context by leaving values interpreting the curator’s Without concurrently. practitioner any motivate only would which and functions, like Maise—to idealize then to work to imagine on how in requirements are needed to be a curator prescribe what becomes a reference. of the curator the figure the region, not defined in terms a birth of a reference was Her death disorients and that a reference but of requirements, See "Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices" (2003). See "Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices" impact of emphasizing the contemporary follows the quote “helping plan the future,” future action: “including plans for this Quarterly.” Maise’s See Chapter 6: The Question of Unknowns (71–83) in In the same dedication in the first issue of Vactor's Van Lloyd From Ibid. 30 31 32 28 29

146 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 147 32 29 An Impossible Profession Impossible An In this sense, she was she was In this sense, 31 What resonates in this custodianship resonates What 30 This reference approaches heterogeneity: heterogeneity: approaches reference This 28 Is this really happening? Is it possible that I am being happening? Is it possible that Is this really and walking kidnapped in the middle of the morning my by surrounded off the campus in broad daylight is happening? of what kidnappers and no one is aware a custodianship that brings “the technology and the “the technology brings that a custodianship the here and while uniting into existence,” technician publication. of a into the initiation elsewhere contemporaneously making a future for accidents to making a future for contemporaneously happen. her tense, actions register in present future As Maise’s local rebels recalled his thoughts as the husband Lloyd DJC, accosted and ushered him out of The revelatory character of the regional becomes visible of the regional character revelatory The It happened to in the periphery. event in this catastrophic extension to her as a completion husband and by Maise’s this disbelief that Lloyd’s of risks. of their anticipation signals the expected daylight in him in broad risk unravels the same At the same time, spectacle of a catastrophe. his description of the verifies which is mute, catastrophe Here, I follow Stengers’s logic in apprehending Maise’s in apprehending Maise’s logic Stengers’s I follow Here, the notes that philosopher The metabolism. curatorial of practices lies through an ecology initial step in thinking feeling is, that a practice as it diverges, “approaching in which experimenting with the questions its borders, not their if they even accept as relevant, practitioners may questions…” own disoriented in “a terrain that [had] been occupied, identified, identified, been occupied, [had] that “a terrain in disoriented conduct a thousand the rules of good by and marked times over.” of the region is the way the mediating corpus of a cultural the mediating of the region is the way defences inhibits from forming labelled as curator reference trespasses porosity and untimely It allows in the border. tasks Maise’s that the editor noted When of the outside. it is as if he signified “helping plan the future,” includes risks. her task as open to any Cloth banner recreating Dansalan Junior College welcome streamer welcome College Junior Dansalan recreating banner Cloth . See quick notes on the film here: https:// , no. 1 (October 1979). The lines are originally from 1979). , no. 1 (October Goodbye, Mr. Chips Mr. Goodbye, Dansalan Quarterly I people who were supposed to be witnesses of the event as event be witnesses of the supposed to were people who realized that had this moment, in partner, Maise’s unaware. be never would because things happening actually it was abduction. the same after his with an image of an institutional essay I am closing this This in the region of Lanao. illuminated administrator and necessary frames the untimely picture of abduction a well-timed it was means that which of a curator, death This cries. of heartfelt are cavities Tragedies tragedy. artistic because already is always profession ultimate the shift from ignorance of recognition: of its catharsis to only died as curator Vactor Van Maise to knowledge. the same despite all things are always pronounce that that She revealed she took in the region. the risks that with/in the region, it is almost impossible to practice to the professions any sense, In this it could happen. but accidents will take care periphery could happen because of them. editorial note in concluded his Gowing Peter Before he registered , the first issue of the Dansalan Quarterly DRC that of custodianship at another unexpected death A release of the publication: in the timely had interfered died in a Vickie named social science researcher young tasks Vickie’s about revealed little was Very car accident. of Maise, the death in the institution and her role after if her function as a programme It is unknown the curator. yet Maise Unlike curator. officer turned into the role of the named none of her output was Maise, resonating profoundly Editor’s Page, Editor’s Page, Clark for the Petula (1969), performed by With Love" World "Fill The Bricusse’s Leslie musical film adaptation of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Mr._Chips_(1939_film)#1969_remake.

33

148 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 149 An Impossible Profession Impossible An 33 Was I brave and strong and true? and strong I brave Was world with love Did I fill the through? life Whole My after her, any custodianship she might have had maintained had maintained might have custodianship she any after her, of other individuals the work into penetrates or initiated to fascinating was What DJC. in DRC and who practiced invocation in the text is Gowing’s her practical appearance would that as an immanent force song favourite Vickie’s of of the next issues of the publication. see the production a loss and marked and Maise’s) (Vickie’s profession This the of accidents called in a world lives engendered new regional.

California Works California Albano's poster design for his exhibition at the Sining Kamalig titled titled Kamalig Sining the at exhibition his for design poster Albano's in 1979 in 2, no. 1 (January He thought that art He thought that 1 Raymundo Albano, “Dateline: Fukuoka,” Philippine Art Supplement Albano, “Dateline: Fukuoka,” Raymundo 1981): 12–3. - February

from the regions beyond the capital of Manila offered the capital of Manila offered from the regions beyond might be decisively exemplified what expression that been have may This Asian. cast as contemporary and OF REGION WAY BY Flores D. Patrick by in the concept of Albano of Raymundo investment The he had in three important essays be gleaned region may of the visual art and interdisciplinary written as the curator These Center of the Philippines. the Cultural spaces at of the government the initiative pertained to texts mainly an art-historical coordinate to of Fukuoka in Japan the prospects of this geography, From Asia. in geography contemporary art would Asian Asia or in contemporary art the rough and uneven how begin to clarify regardless this point in the to be at proven have seams of contact may Asia based a continuum across desire for The conjuncture. so strong common grounds was on a range of supposedly be would historical framework reflexive a markedly that Fukuoka to assemble. put in place to respond to the efforts an ensemble of initiatives resources for as a city parlayed an Asian art, with a collection of in this regard: a museum residencies and later, exhibition with a series of symposia, In 1979- and curators. scholars, researchers, artists, for Art Show. Asian opened the Art Museum the Fukuoka 1980, its Museum inaugurated Art Asian the Fukuoka In 1999, Triennale. Art Fukuoka Asian First the First the Philippine section at Albano curated When to he had wanted in Fukuoka in 1980, Art Show Asian Regions: the Baguio/ represent his program Art for of the to speak to the category Los Baños as a way Asian.” “contemporary and the 1

150 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 151 By Way of RegionBy Way Many things could be said about the Los Baños things Many a new or sprout It could rot in the forest Siteworks. remains that the fact it goes, way Whichever plant. despite the odds and the rain and the it happened, like urban just this once, For bees and the ants. Mohammeds who surrendered to the calm immobility the artists came and departed with a of the mountain, part of Albano’s larger strategy to decouple Philippine to decouple larger strategy Albano’s part of the of art: that legacies modernist the strictly art from along as moving be viewed always must contemporary settle in some kind of center. and west the history of the another endorsing yet also not he was being said, That and transcend negate to merely of this modernism tendency In internal. of a privileged face in the the international as the form he regards on installation, in an essay fact, to being as opposed folk inalienable and culturally bodily this alternates He modernist and western. exclusively or urges as he puts it, impulses, of installation’s ecology is new that of installation vector with the transitional once becomes at installation In this alternation, sculpture. eludes the capture medium that a local and international the In this scheme, of the indigenous and the colonial. in terms of locality and contemporaneity region mediates form takes root and the the specificity of the place in which of the hegemonic status the critique it enables in light of of Albano is particularly from an operation Such a center. it within the Cultural Center interest because he conceived fantasy nation-state incubated site that a of the Philippines, the Through experiment simultaneously. and avant-garde of the latitude inflections of his thinking and practice, widened and because and experiment considerably fantasy on the to consolidate, their motivations affected of which on the other. of play, situations and to create one hand, draw Albano would In these sorties into the region, and Junyee the artists affinities with interlocutors like For Santiago Bose of Los Baños and Baguio respectively. the region meant roots: instance, for Junyee, Albano's self-portrait Albano's

2 Espiritu Santi: The Strange Life and Even Life and Even Espiritu Santi: The Strange (Makati City: Water Dragon, 2004), 133. Dragon, (Makati City: Water 3 better understanding of their long forgotten roots. For For roots. long forgotten of their better understanding on a halfway with nature an encounter it was most, city. mountain and the the ground between Installation is considered to be a recent mode of is considered Installation Western Within working within Western art history. assumptions many challenges installation constructs, This property and permanence. including those of it is very In the Philippines, art. to democratize serves fiesta to construct altars, folks Filipino common for as part of their earthworks fishpens and decorations, in my me well traditions serve These life. everyday local audiences. and Western to speak to both attempt process is a learning mixing and searching This and ourselves us a better look at gives experience that our world. Indeed, for Albano, Junyee, and Bose, the return to or and Bose, Junyee, Albano, for Indeed, of the inter/ a reworlding repossession of region was transnational. Manila the outset that be mentioned at it must of all, First in art events put together transnational had previously be cited in this regard are the First Asian To and culture. Asian Regional Southeast (or the First Music Conference in 1956; the First Music Conference) Art Southeast Asia and Competition in 1957; the Musics Conference of Asia Theater World in 1966; and the First Third conference In the mind of Bose, the technology of the installative was was of the installative the technology In the mind of Bose, of the folk: the technology - December 1981): 7. (November Santiago Bose, “The Duality of Worlds,” in Santiago Bose, “The Duality of Worlds,” Legacy of Santiago Bose Stranger 12–3. Albano, “Dateline: Fukuoka,” Philippine Art Supplement Baños Site Works,” Ground: Los Halfway “A Junyee, 2 3 4

152 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 153 By Way of RegionBy Way

4 Why, for instance… is the show so organized within show instance… is the for Why, Asian? be mold when it should Western a highly had to be expensive works why one questioned Then had to be works one questioned why Then objects. the opening and nothing before transported one week it was one questioned why Then is left to chance. a painting and only and it was ‘festival’ called a such one questioned why Then sculpture exhibition. contemporary art had to be so bound within highly predictable rules. with the theme with the Conference and International Festival in 1971. Countries in Developing Theater Developing the global or in which important initiations were These For ways. in tangential figure would the transhistorical of prints in the MoMa inserted its exhibition instance, its premises the modern legible beyond making 1957 event, orbit War the post-colonial Cold and within York in New the it was conferences, In the music Asia. of Southeast and the intersecting with the civilizational avant-garde And Asia. music in of theory the new defined classical that the third it was in theater, conference with respect to the that and aesthetics pedagogy Brechtian and partly world performance. transnationalize are marked in intimate moments of the transnational These of the local interlocution not with the usual typologies that a category with the Philippine, or the regional but the avant-garde, modern, surmounts the antinomies of the archipelagic, Philippine is figurine, The and the third world. a shifting practical intelligence, migrant; it is polytropic, identity. of national and need not cohere as an instrument of belonging to or this political feeling sentiment, This Albano in his by be articulated would a wider world, As an agent of exceptional event. reflections on the Fukuoka in the Philippines overseas he represented sympathies, his he foregrounded in 1980, In Fukuoka registers. many against the explains his cavil which position as a curator, asked: He judiciously exhibitionary modality of the project.

Untitled (detail) Albano, Raymundo Time was when a painting was a formulated a formulated when a painting was was Time and canvas, oil, elements, composition of foreign a fruition an academe, the thesis of It was the like. To artistic tools. according to such one felt of what burden of one’s would be to carry the be significant to colors in one reached or as race as one created, ways Using conventional canvases. tubes on stretched paint showing illusions, of articulation—creating chance- through gestures, expressing emotions first, personal one’s how matter etc.—no joining images, it is still the same old rock-and-roll. are, devices visionaries no longer find fulfillment Filipino Today’s unless of course their ideas in academic exercises, is not a gesture of This competence. worldwide have It is the modernity of the museum, its objects, and the and its objects, museum, modernity of the It is the here. interrogates Albano objects that of its curation as a more “festival” the implicates of his contention Part contemporary the for presumably hospitable atmosphere the In fact, regional. of the extension, and by Asian, and the be defined as an Asian might the occasions it so that latter a relay form All this may of the contemporary. articulation the logic of of the installative, leads to his conception that fiesta. or the Hispanic of the feast is a cognate which a as possible condition of the fiesta this Albano reiterates In in the region. the contemporary sensorium for different distances from the center twice: first this region his mind, of modality The and second from Manila. from the west of a matter ceases to be merely therefore, the exhibition, significantly gesture because it it is a curatorial display; According Asian contemporary. of the the form animates to him: Raymundo Albano, “The Philippine Entry to the Festival of Asian Art at the Fukuoka Art of Asian Art at the Fukuoka Albano, “The Philippine Entry to the Festival Raymundo Archive. Sibayan 1980, Judy Freya Museum: Some Notes,” Ibid.

5 6

154 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 155 6 By Way of RegionBy Way

5 Suddenly, things around us look all the more things around Suddenly, formalized and were festivals and If fiestas beautiful. had new have Asians may we dissected into rules, of things But since the structuralization of art. forms to and it is too late or order, form a western is such we ‘performance,’ ‘happening’ or a ‘fiesta’ a consider make the other elements that least investigate can at may materials New of our designs. up the framework mean may Borrowing items. mean taken-for-granted Experience may of local-color procedures. adaptation truth in us. upon seeing the mean shock-recognition of our tradition. mean a reinstatement Art may Today, Philippine art is competent, sophisticated, sophisticated, Philippine art is competent, Today, artists work Our art. of international in the level the stamina with the sense of humor of a Filipino, They Asian and the thinking of the world. of an and are quick going on, about what’s are informed arrogance, nor a perfect gauge for standards (this is standards (this for gauge a perfect nor arrogance, aspects that though, It implies, self-evaluation). only not have themselves and the objects of artmaking sensibility, the Filipino subsumed into been fully superficiality and incompleteness hence the seeming in the works. With the fiesta discourse in place, however, this anxiety however, in place, the fiesta discourse With the episteme ratifies A different dissipates. the western over Albano elaborates: of its ecology. art in the specificity Albano seemed to have sketched out a line between this a line between out sketched Albano seemed to have or of tradition” “reinstatement possibility of art as a and the on the one hand, as art, a tradition reinstated line of This on the other hand. “westernization,” limits of the symposium in at in his presentation argument thickens and Tradition Art: “Philippine In the paper titled Fukuoka. of the talent biography he casts a sanguine Westernization,” of the Philippine contemporary aesthetic:

Step on the Sand and Make Footprints Make and Sand the on Step Archival photo documentation of Raymundo Albano's Albano's Raymundo of documentation photo Archival (1974) (detail) (1974)

8 1981): 14. 2, no. 1 (January - February

7 Filipino David Cortez Medalla was a pioneer in Cortez Medalla was David Filipino Ono Yoko Japanese Kinetic art and performance. and Korean Nam June a pioneer conceptualist, was Among other things, art. pioneered in video Paik Asian influence as something recognize westerners sometimes our that It is a fact vital to their art. feel and we this matter colonial mentalities forget unrewarding, grievous, a is such borrowing that Philippine in 80’s the But act. inevitable but traitorous this bias and adopt new to remove art will have from the environment—even processes and materials In the of art itself. if it will entail a de-formalization us. for not be important may paint and canvas end, will find We might be closer to our lives. Installations there is that is the realization matters what out that in theirs. or even more of us in our works to draw the borderline. And they are active in in active are they And the borderline. to draw experiences Filipino the problems of investigating in art. The Philippine achieves a locality that is comparative and and is comparative a locality that Philippine achieves The it Finally, or belated. and no longer derivative equivalent without because it is contemporaneous is contemporary of tradition and to jettison the responsibilities having of the In this reworking the history of westernization. as too perceived usually art, of Philippine template Albano stages a different to be about itself, western of the contemporary: theater Ibid. Ibid. Raymundo Albano, “Philippine Art: Tradition and Westernization,” and Westernization,” Albano, “Philippine Art: Tradition Raymundo Philippine Art Supplement Raymundo Albano, “Introduction to the Philippine Entries,” 1984, Albano, “Introduction to the Philippine Entries,” Raymundo and Photography. Third ASEAN Exhibition of Painting

8 9 10 7

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10 9 There are four aspects that characterize much of of much characterize aspects that are four There there is a regional manifestation First, ASEAN art. dry use of plant sap, The within the country itself. is meant to in the provinces objects found twigs, the strong influence of Second, express local color. been Artists have the oriental language is there. techniques trying to make use of Chinese painting a manifest there is Third, lines. along western in the use of indebtedness to academic procedures and a compelling drive abstraction and materials, artists resort to Fourth, technique. to individualize to of materials local manipulation mythology, folk and tradition to history, surfaces, dynamic achieve a visual Literary images bring forth their own. invent sense of cultural identity. We should also see them in international art. We may may We art. should also see them in international We a more meaningful claim—and what be able to make a if part of our preserving our it be experience would its scope of presence that tradition is the recognition is worldwide. In this attempt to set up a provisional matrix of tendencies of tendencies matrix to set up a provisional In this attempt the post- Albano negotiates in the contemporary form, obtained colonial onus of locality in terms of material The discursive construction of the local—which transposes transposes construction of the local—which discursive The the contemporary, art, in manifestations into a sequence of And an aesthetic proposition as well. and the regional—is to his critical faculties Albano mobilizes in this instance, the delineates that discern a repertoire of dispositions for on the works In his essay Philippine contemporary form. Association of the states an exhibition of art of the member an to adumbrate attempts he Asian Nations, of Southeast aesthetic system: At this point, the local is international and contemporary, a and contemporary, the local is international At this point, contact: of is true to the event that mingling Albano's poster design for a Jazz listening event at the CCP End Room End CCP the at event listening Jazz a for design poster Albano's in nature. Such an onus is further mediated by certain by is further mediated an onus Such in nature. not are deemed traditions that of great impositions this civilizing Alongside Chinese tradition. like the western of of surmounting the pedagogies specter are the labor to demonstrate and the demands “academic procedures” another of and the apparatus technique” “individualized point into the as an entry is literature that artistic form is imagined Philippine artist The of identity. visualization as he or of these structures of awareness to be in a state in the interpretation to participate the agency she deploys of a reinvention and history to reach mythology of folk tradition itself. Albano reengages with the region In all these ruminations, of the it within the complex declensions situating by identity is released words, In other of identity. reifications of to imbibe the energy and made state from its normative of the historical within persons the nature the geopoetic, ceases to be therefore Identity, of art. and things conceiving it means to cipher of what instrumentalizing this alienated, activity, or an an endeavor last, at It becomes, be Filipino. through is: working that argot, in his own developmental it takes to produce local form—the whatever and towards Philippine—in a common world.

158 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 159 By Way of RegionBy Way

Artist Profiles literary journal. For his literary practice, practice, his literary journal. For literary John Mulry Literary the Albano received the from Excellence Literary Award for at first worked Ateneo in 1968. Albano assistant, and for the CCP as a museum posters for the designed six years the next for the productions of the mainly center, for which he also Bulwagang Gantimpala, He was a recipient did set and light design. in 1970. grant of CCP’s Thirteen Artists International His entry to the Tokyo 1974 was a blueprint Biennale of Prints in for a work that consisted of a ground of sand on which museum viewers were The footprints. to step and make invited mention. In an honorable work received as Artist- a grant 1977, Albano received in-Residence under the Fulbright-Hays of Scholars Exchange International Fund Stockton, of the Pacific, at the University California, USA. In 1980, Albano founded a bimonthly art , publication, the Philippine Art Supplement which assembled artists to write about contemporary the then developing art scene of the Philippines, including and installation, issues on photography, He also art education, to name a few. initiated and conducted summer art workshops and founded a photography In the club for CCP employees. the Philippine he curated same year, Contemporary representation for Festival: Art Museum, Asian Art at the Fukuoka Ileana Lee, working with artists like Dandan, and Eva Zaballero, Ginny Phyllis He represented the Philippines Toledo. , , , Tina-aw , Tina-aw (1947-1985) , Ysobel Gallery, Gallery, , Ysobel , the university’s , the university’s , Sankring Art Space, , UPV Gallery, VIVA Excon, Iloilo Excon, VIVA , UPV Gallery, RAYMUNDO ALBANO RAYMUNDO spaces of the Cultural several curated from Center of the Philippines (CCP) 1969-1970 until his death in 1985, director in becoming the CCP Museum’s 1979. Albano was a visual artist, graphic critic, and poet. writer, and set designer, He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Ateneo major in English Literature during in 1968, de Manila University which period he became an active contributor to Heights Jogjakarta (2016); Untamed Territory Bacolod (2015). Gallery Orange, (b. 1994, ABANTAO ALEYA FAYE in Bacolod a visual artist based Bacolod) is with the She started her career City. the art of prospect of photography, mind. origami and print in to the myriad She has been exposed not only in aspects of the art scene, in South Korea the Philippines but also her artist residency in where she finished August 2017. She has been part of a number of Sugarlandia as Unrefining such exhibitions, Manila Art (2018); Kada Adlaw Turns Art Fair Philippines (2018); Gallery, in Form Trails (2016); Paper Negros Museum, Bacolod (2018); Wholeness Differentiated

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(2006), (2013), an essay film on the war in (2013), an essay Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place turn in the CCP’s programming. He also CCP’s programming. turn in the “a the CCP Annual, providing established artists.” for contemporary visual forum with a range As an artist, he worked paintings,of media and forms: from prints, installations, photography, processes to video, mechanical-copy are usuallyperformance. His paintings with assorted acrylic on wood, mixed as he laid the way” materials that “get in synthesized methodsthe colors down. He brushing, wiping, of wielding his color, floor-polishing. harrowing, and even His works spanned conceptualist constructions, pop collage using comic works and shaped strips, gestural paintings. He referred to his style as a mode of abstraction painting,” “all-over with the tendencies of the that conversed American artist Jackson Pollock. Albano died on August 6, 1985 of Ray failure. acute respiratory (b. 1984, General ARUMPAC ADJANI Santos) is a documentarist and university lecturer from the Philippines. Her directorial works include: Walai a documentary about Muslim women in Mindanao, Philippines; Nanay Mameng (2012), a biopic of beloved octogenarian (2012), a biopic of beloved urban poor mass leader in the Philippines, is A Tender Carmen Deunida; and War Thing Southern Philippines told through her family’s memories of struggle. . It fleshed out what Albano called at the conference for the Asian art show art show for the Asian at the conference the Munich Japan and at in Fukuoka, in He also participated summer festival. and of Painting the ASEAN exhibition and the Biennale de in 1983 Photography He was a juror at the 1983 in 1982. Paris in Bangladesh. second Asian arts festival his efforts were vital in the As a curator, tendencies of experimental development local art scene, at the CCP and in the In 1979, on CCP’s broadly conceived. the Albano curated 10th anniversary, A Decade of Developmental exhibition Art a term that he would art,” “developmental in his tenure at the CCP. further explore was “an “developmental” As he explains, our government by word given operative projects for fast and press to government implementation. Activities that had the nature of being under fast-action plans. The building of roads, population control, or the establishment of security units to be done quickly, for instance, have Albano, the For within a period of days.” was a “powerful curatorial developmental of aware relatively that “made one stance” suddenly turning visible.” an environment It “took the risk in establishing an attitude that prepared the public towards a more of seeing.” way relevant the visual arts During his term at the CCP, an early phase From was active. program of initiating museum visitors to artworks his curatorial explanation, without any towards audience direction moved an educational inaugurating development, at the , 1952; second prize , 1952; second prize (b. 1987, Laguna) received (b. 1987, Laguna) received in 2018, and the section (Directions) of the survey (Directions) of the survey Ayco won several prizes in the Art won several Ayco (AAP) art of the Philippines Association mention namely: honorable competition, Pitang in photography, , Dance painting, Anterean in nonobjective in nonobjective 1958; and second prize , 1962. painting, Plutonian Passage Consolacion He taught at the La directed as well College-Bacolod and and costumes in as designed stage sets organize the Bacolod, where he helped AAB in 1975. to filmmaker was a known influence Ayco Basilio Gallaga, to dance historian Peque Esteban Villaruz, and to visual artist Brenda Fajardo, among others. ZEUS BASCON a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce major the from in Business Administration in 2008. He of Santo Tomas University was part of the first Manila Biennale: Open City Tunguhin The Philippine Contemporary: exhibition and the Possible Scale the Past To Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 2016. He took part in the Koganecho in Bazaar Artist in Residency Program Japan in 2014. In 2010, City, Yokohama mention from the he got an honorable Alcala Prize of the Philippine Board (PBBY). In People on Books for Young Center the Cultural 2018, he received of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Festival Festival th (1916-1982) [also Jesus JESS AYCO JESS AYCO Internacional de Cinema, et al. She is et al. She is Internacional de Cinema, that aims a platform of DoQ, convenor agency to independent and to give students, and regional documentarists, providing by media workers alternative a regular screening space, with support from partner theaters. She studied at Studies Digital Media and Cultural of London. , University Jesus Encarnacion] R. Aiko; J. Ayco; director, photographer, was a painter, born in and educator choreographer, Manila. He was one of the founders of the Art Association of Bacolod (AAB). University studied Fine Arts at the Ayco of the Philippines (UP), and Architecture He later of Santo Tomas. at the University in London in Europe and stayed travelled and Paris. In 1954, he joined the Philippine Art where he held his first solo Gallery (PAG) This was followed later. show two years in Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo, exhibitions by and at the and Dumaguete in the Visayas Solidaridad Galleries in Manila. Her works have been shown in various been shown have Her works among others, including, festivals film Documentary International Yamagata Independent Beijing Film Festival, International DMZ Film Festival, Jocelyne Documentary Film Festival, Resistance International Cultural Saab's 12 Doclisboa Film Festival,

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(2018) at (2018) at The Drawing Room (2018) at The Drawing Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Collective City and Collective MO_Space, Taguig Memories In Art), Makati City. (Contemporary 2016, Cajigan won the Ateneo Art Award Visual Art Prizes for Zóbel Fernando exhibition Museumified for his first solo Quezon City. (2015) at Blanc Gallery, work includes organizing and Cajigan’s managing art projects in the Cordillera including the AX(iS) Art Project, an organization that since 2011 has gathered artists to assess public access around art and what regional art contemporary means. He is currently based in , Philippines where he continues to his Bontok indigenous history examine and what this placement holds in identity formation and representation. Bose served again as the president as the president again Bose served Arts Guild in 1993, of the Baguio establish the Baguio and helped International Arts Festival. CAJIGANROCKY (b. 1988, Mountain in assemblage, works Province) and focuses installation, and painting indigeneity, transition, on identity, The works he has and decolonization. filled with from boxes produced range spiritual and ritual objects to installations discarded looms repurposing of back strap protest banners into threads. His recent solo shows include Sanctum (1949-2002) was a SANTIAGO BOSE SANTIAGO grant. His work is motivated by a self- by His work is motivated grant. atypical that embraces taught sensibility and idiosyncratic figuration methods of approaches to making. artist, and community installation painter, In 1987, he City. organizer born in Baguio of the Baguio became founding president association in a cultural Arts Guild (BAG), region. the Northern Cordillera Bose took up Architecture at the Mapua to from 1965 Institute of Technology of 1967, and Fine Arts at the University the Philippines in Diliman, from 1967 awards to 1972, where he received editorial design, in photography, and advertising. A Thirteen Artists laureate of the Cultural in 1976, Center of the Philippines (CCP) of the Linang he was also a grantee the Council of Living Traditions Project by prize for in 1980. He won the grand print in the 1981 Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) and was a finalist in the the 1982 Mobil Art Awards. He received in 2002 and the award ng Maynila Gawad in 2004. sa Sining award CCP para Gawad in major international events He exhibited such as the Third Asian Art Show in Biennial Japan, and the Havana Fukuoka, in Cuba, both in 1989, as well as the First Art Triennial of Contemporary Asia Pacific in 1993. in Brisbane, Australia was nominated (b. 1994, South (There is Nothing Here) was listed (There is Nothing Here) Founder of www.stories-beyond.com, of www.stories-beyond.com, Founder (b. 1977, Dumaguete) DY JEAN CLAIRE Filipino-Chinese is a third-generation media artist, and writer, filmmaker, holds a Master of Arts She educator. Film degree from in Media Studies and in New York, the New School University under a fellowship which she completed Foundation Ford from the International She is also an Program. Fellowships Writing program alumna of the Creative of Silliman University Naa film Walay Dy’s short experimental Diri as one of 2015’s Best Short of the Critics Circle (YCC) the Young by Year , a Sang Patipuron Film Desk. Pagrara short documentary film she co-directed with Manuel Domes was nominated as Best Documentary in the Sinag 2017. Her short Film Festival Maynila film Paglubad narrative for best Mindanao short film in the 2017 Asian Film Festival. Salamindanaw CARZEN A. ESPRELA of the Philippine is a graduate ) High School for the Arts, where he majored in Visual Arts. In 2016, he of the from the University graduated Philippines in Diliman, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (major in Painting). and Through sculptures made of epoxy found objects, and paintings made of Esprela oil or acrylic and rubber latex, (b. 1987, MESA (b. 1987, DE LORENZO MARTIN interdisciplinary artist Manila), an who does performance based in Manila and figurative art, video, collage art, issues on power, paintings; dealing with desire, and sexuality. bachelor's degree De Mesa finished his of the in Fine Arts at the University In 2014, his thesis Philippines, Diliman. was selected as project titled Versus Video International part of the Taiwan titled The Return of Ghost Art exhibition The at the Hong Gah Museum (Taipei). same work was featured at the Video Stage: Art Stage Singapore, held at Sands. Marina Bay a scholarship grant In 2015, he received and an artist residency at the Skowhegan and Sculpture in School of Painting Maine (USA). Also, he became one of the participating artists in the P-Noise in Copenhagen (Denmark). Festival provocation In 2017, he presented a live Yu- by at the Queen Me project, curated Contemporary Chengta and the Taipei Tua-Tiu- and co-organized by Art Center, of Arts, in Tiann International Festival Taiwan. Taipei, In 2018, he joined emerging Southeast titled Asian artists in group exhibition at the Hatch Wardrobe The Troublemaker's Gallery in Singapore.

166 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 167 , a comics (2015) for the First Lucban (2015) for the First Lucban (2016), video work dealing with (2016), video work dealing Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place production emerges from frameworks emerges from frameworks production video He has explored of collaboration. formats with L.A.-based performance M. Romano; and publication, artist Ashley formats with installation, and video Garcellano Manila-based artist Lyra in Systems with whom he participated of Irrigation Miki Ltd. Assembly; co-authored series on the Philippine contemporary artworld; and Go ahead men, everything is O.K. the problematics of art education in the Philippine context. art Flores currently teaches art history, Silliman and allied courses at the theory, Fine Arts Department. University (1936-2014) was ABDULMARI IMAO and photographer, painter, a sculptor, Born a researcher born in Sulu. cultural he was the country’s first Muslim Tausug, National Artist in 2006. Imao obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts of the Philippines in from the University Diliman in 1959, where he was mentored and Napoleon by Fulbright A Smith-Mundt and Abueva. he earned a Master of Fine Arts scholar, in 1962. of Kansas from the University He pursued further studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, and was the first Asian recipient of the Museum of to Modern Art (MoMA) fellowship grant study in Europe.

(2009) (2009) (2013) in downtown Los Angeles. Angeles. (2013) in downtown Los (Orange Gallery, Gallery, (Orange Point Drop-Off depicts his personal experiences personal experiences depicts his turn into eventually and how these has been Since 2013, Esprela memories. group exhibitions participating in various them are Base in the Philippines, among Gallery, Art Camp (Maximus x Tin-aw the Mona For Makati) in 2016, New Works City) Quezon Gallery, (West Lisa Project and and Death Cleaners Bacolod City) in 2017, (b. 1972, Dumaguete) (b. 1972, Dumaguete) DON FLORES W. from holds a degree in Psychology and the Ateneo de Manila University and research in education worked prior to pursuing formal art studies California. Flores was Angeles, in Los at part of the Art Mentor Program Santa Monica College, taught at the California State Summer School for the Arts, and participated in group including Filophile exhibitions (Art Informal, Mandaluyong) in 2018. His in 2018. His (Art Informal, Mandaluyong) was part thesis work titled Bag In A Boat Art of group shows 8 Questions (Tin-aw as one of 2016) and was featured Gallery, the Special Exhibitions in Art in the Park in 2017. in Santa Monica; and Subject at JAUS Matters from the with an MFA Flores graduated California Institute of the Arts in 2013. Sustained solo projects include Previous Confinement Action in Discretionary Wrist (2013) at the California (2012) and Fever Institute of the Arts. A portion of Flores’ at , which was at Tin-aw Art Gallery, Art Gallery, at Tin-aw was an artist-in-residence at the Takt Takt at the was an artist-in-residence in 2017; and Berlin, Germany Gallery in first major participated in her in 2018 she called Home Making exhibition Gallery, in West a three-woman show Quezon City. HENRIELLE B. PAGKALIWANGAN a Bachelor with graduated (1994, ) cum laude) of Fine Arts degree (magna of the Philippines- from the University off from natural Diliman in 2015. Taking she illustrations, history and taxonomic them familiar objects and groups draws into different schemes of order to extend to represent the capability of illustration and document things. She depicts of how the numerous configurations items form categorization of our everyday that reflect our knowledge and narratives either be personal may which experiences, shared. or collectively had her first residency Pagkaliwangan titled Tiempo Galing and solo exhibition in Kapitana Gallery, 2016. In 2017, she had a solo exhibition titled Inventory prize of She won the grand Makati City. Rum Art Competition 2017, Don Papa which included a residency in Florence, She has also joined group exhibitions Italy. in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan.

, 1960; third sarimanok, sarimanok, curated by Jenny Wu Jenny by curated motifs, which were drawn naga motifs, which were drawn He received the Ten Outstanding Young Young Outstanding Ten the He received in 1968, and the award Men (TOYM) in 1990. award sa Sining CCP para Gawad Association of the His prizes from the Art competition include: Philippines (AAP) art third prize, Animals Memorial , 1962; and gold prize, Moslem Prayer medal, sculpture, 1980. of Muslim and His large-scale monuments selected sites from regional heroes grace to Tawi-tawi. Imao popularized the ukkil, (b. 1994, Manila) is a ISHA NAGUIAT visual artist based in Manila, Philippines. of from the University She graduated the Philippines College of Fine Arts She often uses with a major in Painting. and photo transfer embroidery, textile, around to create works that revolve She has time, space, memory or identity. group exhibitions participated in several since 2011, most recently Death Cleaners and heritage, and Tausug from his Maranao and connects to Southeast Asian traditions. mythological Christina Quisumbing Ramilo by curated City, in Artinformal, Mandaluyong in Weltkutluren Pink is the New Grey and Germany; Museum in Frankfurt, Document Humans United States. She D.C., in Washington,

168 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 169 , , (b. 1987, Tacloban) is an (b. 1987, Tacloban) Singapore Straits Times Straits , and Singapore Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Chronicle the Philippine national pavilion for the for pavilion the Philippine national Biennale, which also marked 56th Venice after a 51-year the country’s return absence from the biennale. MARK SANCHEZ (b. 1987, Quezon and works lives City) is an artist who Philippines. Sanchez in Quezon City, studied Bachelor in Fine Arts at of the Philippines, Diliman. University His works are accumulation of objects, It is through information. images, and/or pseudo-standard classification inventing systems that he creates representations of identities, value or society. SOLAJES PANX finished They City. Tacloban in based artist Bachelor of Arts degree in Broadcast at the laude) Communication (cum of the Philippines, Diliman. In University Mundus was an Erasmus 2012-2014, they scholar under the Doc Nomads program a Master of Arts received in which they in Documentary Film Directing (magna Their films and video works cum laude). cross platforms from film festivals to art Some of these spaces were at exhibitions. the Chicago International Film Festival, Doc Lisboa, Stockfish Iceland, Queer- Museum, Ayala Vargas Streifen Germany, among others). In 2015, he was part of the In 2015, he was among others). the World Around Tie a String exhibition , The Manila (b. 1958, Manila) JOSE TENCE RUIZ is a multimedia artist. He graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the Manila in of Santo Tomas, University Ruiz has been 30 years, over 1979. For in various multimedia and visual involved such as painting, sculpture, practices installation, performance as well as media presentations, book illustration, publication design, and set design. The artist is also well-known for his political cartoons for the editorial pages of major newspapers in the Philippines and in Singapore (The Manila Times (b. 1970, Baguio) is an is an (b. 1970, Baguio) PALASI KAT She photographer. freelance Ibaloy of Arts degree in a Bachelor received from the Communication Research of the Philippines in Diliman, University Journalism and a Diploma in Multimedia She Manila University. from the Ateneo de Center of also attended the International City. York in New Photography of the Asian Cultural grantee was a Palasi in 1994 and City) grant Council (New York 2004, and was a recipient of the Prince in 2013. She was part of grant Claus Fund in 2005 and the Festial Photo the Angkor International Photofestival Hong Kong in 2014. With Nana Buxani and Rey of the first was part Palasi Panaligan, in Manila using exhibition photography digital prints at the Filipinas Heritage in 2002. Library

(b. 1952, Manila) Manila) (b. 1952, KITTY TANIGUCHI Gallery in Dumaguete runs Mariyah projects and She organizes art City. The most designs for art exhibitions. Animals, a recent of which is Anonymous held at the Mariyah exhibition travelling Gallery in Gallery and at the Ariniego 2018, November Dumaguete City in Commission for and at the National (NCCA) Art Gallery Culture and the Arts about arts and in 2019. She also writes culture. within the country exhibits Taniguchi and abroad. She held a solo exhibition Center of large paintings at the Cultural of the Philippines in 2008. She also had simultaneously two solo exhibitions held in Serbia at the Boem Art Gallery Museum Popovich and at the Jovan and Art Gallery in 2014. She was part City held ExCon in Roxas of the VIVA 2018; the 1st Dafen in November Biennale at International Oil Painting the Red Cube Public Art Museum and at the Dafen Art Museum in Zhenshen, of the China, 2018; the exhibition Neerja Modi School of Fine Arts and 2018; India in March, Designs in Jaipur, titled Arcadia the three-artist exhibition at Galerie Anna, Metro Manila held in August 2018, of which she was the and, the 7th Beijing major exhibitor; International Art Biennale at the Beijing Art in 2017. Museum of Contemporary , (b. 1991, , and the journal of DUMAY SOLINGGAY DUMAY Ubod Journal NCCA’s writing, Danas. She regularly women’s performs at the Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio. Her poetry and performance were stages in Malaysia, to various her tickets India, Japan, and Vietnam. She recently joined Asia Meets Asia, a Tokyo-based that gathers stories theatre company around Asia through its members and retells these tales through intimate performances. She and her friends are a currently running Garden Theater, performance space in Baguio. fermenting also likes Solinggay Dumay food and drinks, crocheting, knitting, and sewing. Her dream is to practice acupuncture. Museum, and Firstdraft Australia. In 2016, Australia. Firstdraft Museum, and and, in the same started painting they in recognized as a semi-finalist was year, Arts and Design the annual Metrobank At present, them and their Excellence. and organize their friends engage with Living "LIVErary: community through pop-up art events, Live" Books, Learning workshops gatherings, and skills-sharing advocacy. under the climate justice is a Cervantes) [a.k.a. Florenda Pedro] poet and performance artist, Kankanaey moonlighting as a journalist, based in She writes and performs Baguio City. Her and indigeneity. about transition poetry is published in local and national journals such as the UBBOG Journal

170 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 171 Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Junyee’s works are recognized for their for their works are recognized Junyee’s to and pioneering approach large-scale installation art. site-specific Asian International Exhibition in th (b. 1942, Agusan del Agusan del JR. (b. 1942, LUIS YEE, is an installation [also Junyee] Norte) and He lives and painter. artist, sculptor, Baños, Laguna. works in Los his Bachelor of Fine Arts earned Junyee of the Philippines degree at University is multiple winner Diliman in 1976. He of the Philippines in the Art Association competitions: (AAP) and Shell art Shell, 1967 and certificate of merit, second 1974; prize, AAP, 1969; grand 1977; gold medal, prize, sculpture, AAP, prize, sculpture, 1980; and grand AAP, 1986, among others. AAP, the Thirteen Artists He was awarded Center of the the Cultural by grant in 1980, and the Diwa Philippines (CCP) the National ng Sining at Kalinangan by Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in 1998. site works, a number of He has curated including the first outdoor installations Baños, Laguna, from in Mt. Makiling, Los for 1981 to 1983, and the Movement Cuba in 1991. Indigenous Art in Havana, He has participated in various such as the international exhibitions Triennale in Brisbane, First Asia Pacific in 1993; the 7th Havana Australia Biennale in Cuba in 2000; and the 16 Guangdong Museum of Art in China in 2001.

PCAN Members (b. 1969, Iloilo) is Professor of Professor of is (b. 1969, Iloilo) Remarkable Collection: Art, History, and the and the Collection: Art, History, Remarkable Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Painting (1999); FLORES D. PATRICK Art Curation Peripheral: National Museum (2006); and Past Asian of the in Southeast Asia (2008). He was a grantee a member of the Advisory Council (2010) and Cultural Art The Global Contemporary: Board of the exhibition the Center After 1989 (2011) organized by Worlds of the for Art and Media in Karlsruhe and member Asian Art Council (2011 and Guggenheim Museum’s he co-edited the Southeast 2014). With Joan Kee, in 2013, (2011). He convened Text Asia issue of Third Department on behalf of the Clark Institute and the of the Philippines, of Art Studies of the University in Southeast the conference “Histories of Art History in Manila. He was a Guest Scholar of the Getty Asia” Angeles in 2014. He curated Research Institute in Los art from Southeast Asia contemporary of an exhibition and Southeast Europe titled South by Southeast and the Biennale in 2015. He is at the Venice Philippine Pavilion the Artistic Director of the Singapore Biennale in 2019. Art Studies at the Department of Art Studies at the of Art Studies at the at the Department Art Studies he chaired from Philippines, which of the University Museum of the Vargas 1997 to 2003, and Curator of Under of the curators in Manila. He was one in Asian ArtConstruction: New Dimensions in 2000 ) in 2008. Papers (Position and the Gwangju Biennale at the National Gallery of He was a Visiting Fellow and an Asian Public in 1999 D.C. Art in Washington, in 2004. Among his publications Intellectuals Fellow are

174 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 175 organized by the Urban the Urban organized by Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place at the Kuandu Museum of of at the Kuandu Museum Cyclone Tropical at the UP Diliman campus Lawas Public Art at the UP Diliman campus (b. 1973, Manila) is curator Manila) is curator (b. 1973, GUAZON TESSA MARIA Studies at the University Professor of Art and Assistant and research curatorial Diliman. Her of the Philippines, city spaces, and place- projects center on urbanization, art. making through contemporary for institutions, most exhibitions She has curated recently: at Resonant Practice grounds and Consonant Forms, In 2017, she City. Museum Makati the Yuchengco co-curated Plying the Seas, Plying the Seas, Her exhibition Taiwan. Fine Arts Taipei, belonging, and loss place, Divining the Skies explored of in new media art, installations, and photographs artists. Taiwanese Asia Current projects include the Southeast Neighborhoods Network Knowledge Network Asia and the International Institute Institute Knowledge Network Asia and the International the Netherlands. Her case of Asian Studies Leiden, the curatorial study on art and gentrification considers She curated potential of research-oriented projects. at the 2019 for the Philippine Pavilion Island Weather Arts Biennale. Venice fellowships for research and fieldwork She has received in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, in Asia and has lived Nippon and Japan. She was recipient of the 2013 and Fellowship Asian Public Intellectuals Foundation Asian Art was researcher in residence at the Fukuoka have and reviews Museum Japan in 2017. Her essays been published in anthologies, academic journals, and catalogs. exhibition a preliminary study into the into the a preliminary study first published in first published in Mindanao Cross With support from the National from the National With support Arts, for Culture and the Commission conducting curatorial he is currently Violent Arrivals, research titled Promising Departures, relations of two community- text-image publications oriented, culture-based non-Muslim by initiated and edited produced and American missionaries, Japanese Occupation circulated after the ( height of ethno- 1948) and during the religious conflict (Dansalan Quarterly first published in 1979) in the settler island of domain of Mindanao, an ancestral predominantly ethnic Muslims. from a degree in psychology He received of the Philippines, Diliman, the University and has participated in international and regional fellowships and residencies. , Sharjah , Sharjah Agreement A Tripoli (with Brigitta Isabella), SAVVY (with Brigitta Isabella), SAVVY In his research-oriented curatorial work, work, curatorial In his research-oriented (b. 1989, Sultan RENAN LARU-AN and studies "insufficient" Kudarat) images and subjects at the "subtracted" and integration juncture of development artistic and curatorial projects. He takes of translation, mediation as practices of scenes custodianship, and invention for knowing and imagination. 2015, he directed the Between 2012 and | Research and self-organized DiscLab Criticism, a multidisciplinary platform and "virtual" organisation for critical activities, discursive writing, theory, and long-term research on Philippine network art, visual, and contemporary culture. project He initiated the transregional Islands, Rats and the Anthropocene Herding and the ongoing Lightning Studies: Centre Conflicts of Constraints, for the Translation He was and Contaminations (CTCCCs). of the 8th OK. Video – curator (co-) Jakarta Indonesia Media Arts Festival, (2017) and other recent exhibitions, including Art Foundation, Sharjah (2018); Sharjah (2018); Art Foundation, PASÁ presents Lightning Studies: CTCCCs Arts Meeting, Performing , Tokyo PASÂ Museum and (2018)/Lopez Yokohama Manila (2016); The Artist and the Library, Haus Festival, , Forecast Social Dreamer Berlin (2017); and der Kulturen der Welt, Bandung to Berlin: If all of the moons From aligned Berlin (2016). Contemporary,

176 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 177 Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place (b. 1969, Quezon City) City) (b. 1969, Quezon ELISEO PAULINO G. ROBERTO of of the Department Professor and Chair is Associate in Diliman. of the Philippines University Art Studies, in Visual Communication and He holds a double major an MA in Philosophy, cum laude), in Art History (magna Studies all from UP Diliman. He and a PhD in Philippine Award for Sycip the Washington was the recipient of the by Material given Education Learning Best General President for Academic Affairs, UP Office of the Vice Philippine on contemporary and co-author of a textbook (2016). Arts from the regions for Research of the University He is Project Leader and Core Collection Mapping Project in UP Diliman, Member of the Commission on Higher Education Training Group for Teacher Working Technical (CHED) TeachTIP). (TWG and Instruction Programs

Object List

Untitled Undated plywood Chipboard panels on Collection Sibayan Judy Freya Albano Raymundo Untitled Undated Chipboard panels on plywood Collection Sibayan Judy Freya Raymundo Albano Raymundo

Raymundo Albano: Texts Albano: Raymundo Raymundo Albano Raymundo Shape of Gold IV Shape of Gold V 1969 Stencil on paper Finale Art File Collection Albano Raymundo Shape of Gold VIII 1969 Stencil on paper Finale Art File Collection Albano Raymundo Shape of Gold XXIV Untitled 1975 Juan Martin Magsanoc Collection Albano Raymundo Young Lady Forever 1976 Monoprint Collection Sibayan Judy Freya 1969 Stencil on paper Finale Art File Collection Albano Raymundo 1969 Stencil on paper Finale Art File Collection Albano Raymundo

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Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Jess Ayco Untitled 1957 Piguing Rogelio and Maria Cristina Collection Jess Ayco Bluemist Algol 1961 Oil on board mounted on wood Hetty Que Collection and Paulino Jess Ayco Landscape Sketch 1968 Oil on canvasboard Rogelio and Maria Cristina Piguing Collection Jess Ayco Rough Study for a Station of the Cross Undated Rogelio and Maria Cristina Piguing Collection Jess Ayco Untitled Undated Adrian Lizares Collection Jess Ayco Untitled Undated Photograph Mariano G. Montelibano III Collection Jess Ayco Japanese Bombing of Bacolod 1942 on board Pastel Collection Museum Vargas Jess Ayco Sunset 1942 board on Pastel Museum Collection Vargas Jess Ayco Dancer in Costume 1947 Rogelio and Maria Cristina Piguing Collection Jess Ayco Lullaby 1947 Oil on canvasboard Museum Collection Vargas Jess Ayco Door Widow by the Church Young 1947 Oil on canvasboard Museum Collection Vargas Jess Ayco Acturian Nocturn #3 1957 Oil on masonite and Hetty Que Collection Paulino Ayco, Imao, Bose, Junyee Imao, Ayco,

Santiago Bose Wall 1974 paper media on Mixed Bose Family Collection Santiago Bose 1937 Baguio Souvenirs 1975 media Mixed Bose Family Collection SantiagoBose sa Mata Mo/ Prinsa Kabayo Berdeng 1975 media Mixed Bose Family Collection SantiagoBose NY Bleeding Heart 1981 on handmade paper Watercolor Bose Family Collection SantiagoBose Herring Bone Weave 1987 media Mixed Bose Family Collection Santiago Bose Untitled 2002 media on poster Mixed Bose Family Collection

University Library Collection Library University Undated Photograph III Collection Mariano G. Montelibano Jess Ayco Untitled Undated Photograph III Collection Mariano G. Montelibano Jess Ayco Untitled Undated Photograph Mariano G. Montelibano III Collection Jess Ayco Untitled Undated Photograph Mariano G. Montelibano III Collection SantiagoBose Series Marlboro 1971 Acrylic on board Bose Family Collection Santiago Bose School Days Grade 1974 media Mixed of the Philippines University Jess Ayco Untitled

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Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Abdulmari Imao Labandera 1959 Adobe Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Lola Maria 1959 Plaster Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Burning of Jolo 1970/1975 Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Untitled 1970 Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Boat People 1973 Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Nude 1975 Juan Sajid and Cielo Imao Collection Abdulmari Imao First Untitled [Interior of Abdulmari Imao's Marikina House] 1975 Imao Family Collection

CCP Main Gallery Junyee The Kiss 1965 and adobe Wood Artist’s Collection Junyee The Last Mile of Ho Chi Minh 1969 Santol wood Drilon Collection Tommy Junyee Blue Ladies 1975/1976 and wood Ceramic Ed Lapiz Collection Junyee Model of the sculpture Firewood 1976 Artist’s Collection Junyee Abortion Site-specific installation First installed in 1979 at the Junyee 2 Old Map of Memories Part Undated scroll on canvas Work Artist’s Collection

Abdulmari Imao Untitled 1985 Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Country Boy [Mang Ely] Undated Plaster Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Clean Mr. Undated Plaster Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Untitled Undated Imao Family Collection

1975 Jose Abdel B. Langit Collection Abdulmari Imao 1975 Jose Abdel B. Langit Collection Abdulmari Imao 1976 Juan Sajid and Cielo Imao Collection Abdulmari Imao Untitled Untitled Maquette No. 1 Sketch Colored 1983 of a study Photograph Juan Sajid and Cielo Imao Collection 1975 Marble Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Abdulmari Imao Sarimanok 1975 Collection Juan Sajid and Cielo Imao Abdulmari Imao Mother and Child Tausug 1975 Imao Family Collection Abdulmari Imao Untitled

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Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Isha Naguiat Traces 2017 on fabric Photo transfer Artist's Collection Henrielle Pagkaliwangan 1 Elf Gravel 2017 and ink, and watercolor on paper Pen Artist's Collection Henrielle Pagkaliwangan 1 Elf White Sand 2017 and ink, and watercolor on paper Pen Artist's Collection Kat Palasi Manila Region 2014-2017 C-prints Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Bloated Military Budget 1986 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Express Ceasefire 1987 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection

(A series)

thread, fabric, and wire loom paraphernalia, back strap, weaving, remains of a burned “afong” 2017 canvas media on Mixed Artist's Collection Bascon Zeus Dead Mask 2014-2017 media on tarpaulin, Acrylic and mixed Artist's Collection Rocky Cajigan of Activisms Fabric 2017 wood, Protest banners, carved Artist's Collection Martin de Mesa Noel's Shrine 2017 Installation of paintings and various objects Artist's Collection Carzen Esprela Bag in a Boat 2016 object and epoxy Found Artist's Collection Faye Aleya Abantao Aleya Faye empty faces, hollow life Blank stares, Traversals/Trajectories: Traversals/Trajectories: Localities Expansive

Bulacan marble, porcelain, bamboo, polyurethane, bitumen, enamel epoxy, Jose Tence Ruiz Jose Tence Lion Dance Singapore 1997 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Exit Suharto’s 1998 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Right Clinton Might Makes 1999 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence S’kool 2016 media installation: wood, metal, Mixed Artist's Collection Solajes Panx Himurasak 2016 Video Artist's Collection Solinggay Dumay Breasts My Saw Were And All You 2017 Performance

Jose Tence Ruiz Jose Tence Tibet Revolt 1987 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Dead-end Streets 1988 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Emergency Rule Inoculation 1988 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Globocop 1990 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence Saddam the Martyr 1990 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection Ruiz Jose Tence vs. The Dragon Chris Patten 1995 and ink on paper Pen Artist's Collection

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Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place An Ecological, The Obligatory JEAN CLAIRE DY not to take learned I have the years, Over Reynolds granted. the power of story for need to tell and hear Price said it well: “A the species Homo stories is essential to apparently sapiens—second in necessity and before love after nourishment and or without love Millions survive shelter. home, almost none in silence; the opposite and of silence leads quickly to narrative, the sound of story is the dominant sound from the small accounts of our of our lives, to the vast incommunicable events day’s constructs of psychopaths.” Hallucinations Landing of a Dumaguete (2017) is a video based on the image of a postcard of Thomasite missionaries landing on the shore of Dumaguete who later were part in of the founding of Silliman University 1901. I found the postcard, among the pile documents about the Endhouse of archived Art Center that once was part of Silliman in the 1990s. University The second video that dialogues with the first, entitled House of Memory (2017), is based on a painting of the Endhouse Art which was once the residence of Center, Albert Faurot, an art collector and former professor at Silliman. with the themes of the persistence I play of memory through repetition but such repetition does not necessarily establish Solinggay Dumay My Breasts Saw Were And All You 2017 of performance Video documentation Artist's Collection Kitty Taniguchi Aries Feeding 2013 Oil on canvas Artist's Collection The collection is representative of the of is representative The collection accumulation of an aleatory experience to their no particular regard of forms with practicality, structural technical production, or prescribed use— historical development through communicated only their existence structures the most basic of organizational The ornamental of visuality and placement. no authors but have forms themselves historical and gesture vaguely to some Their rendering historicizing comportment. them from the in platonic formats removes use and shunts them into the space of lived of idealization and the space of province institutional mandates. Beside other work based on documents of the collection particular historical events, creates a tension between the permanence of the institution and the seeming inconsequentiality of the forms that this permanence might take. ARUMPAC ADJANI City in Mindanao 23, 2017, Marawi On May a band of fundamentalists. by was attacked Duterte On the night of the same day, on the island of declared Martial Law Siege displaced over Mindanao. The Marawi 460,000 people, with only about 30,000 are centers. The rest in evacuation staying in what are called with relatives staying centers. At least home-based evacuation died due to illness and have 40 evacuees in these spaces, most vulnerable dehydration of which are babies and small children. In banded weeks, various initiatives the next Network (BWN) to create Babai Women’s to pool resources together to help the presence. Documents like the images Documents like presence. as can also function in the two videos, in a more of existence a questioning speaks of the sense. No one instructive as if it has Endhouse Gallery anymore history of artists in in the not existed In the University. Dumaguete and Silliman the history of the missionaries same way, as documented in the landing in Dumaguete, of in terms of spoken postcard, is no longer history of the problematizing the colonial in the history place. These two instances of Dumaguete, particularly in Silliman but events, to be disparate seem University, of the are interconnected as evidence they short-sightedness of remembrances. own personal I treat the videos as my formation as an artist— of my reckoning both a product of colonial American education, and of the group of dreamers that once gathered throughout the two- in of the Endhouse Gallery existence year Silliman University. DON FLORES W. Ornaments Commissioned for the exhibition, (2017) collects ornamentation across the buildings of the core campus of Silliman forms Included are decorative University. by structures erected from the physical American founders and the institution’s financiers, modified and added to later on its Filipino proponents and custodians. by All these buildings are maintained in their various offices and staff, current state by daily weathered through their physicality processes of use or non-use.

188 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 189 Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place Almayrah Tiburon’s account of the Marawi of the Marawi account Tiburon’s Almayrah interview during a Skype Siege was recorded forum BWN-initiated Laoanen in the first about Saber’s essay in July 2017. Mamitua 1895 Battle of in the his great grandfather person account of is the only first Marawi printed in the a local out of all the articles produced by Dansalan Quarterly volumes Center to document the Dansalan Research in Mindanao. Muslim-Christian relations the haystack. are pins in These voices the war-torn The machinations mapping Mindanao region that wrest exigency to focus on from the human voice away the spectre of conflict is a trope that needs as unreliable, Perceived reexamination. non-omniscient, and imperfect, the personal that remains pared and persecuted holds the sense of urgency that can reclaim a people’s to the curatorial from long history of tragedy a state of reification MARK SANCHEZ other Asian In the Philippines as with many nations, it can be said that no other kind of plant could be as socially and culturally significant as the rice plant. As a staple it is the food and a precious commodity, crises, conflicts, and reason behind many struggles throughout the course of the history. region’s the An Ecological, The Obligatory, my For (2017) uses Web research project Rice Food the rice plant as the starting point from a map traversing which I attempt to draw its the local sociopolitical context—tracing power relations as well as its systems of internally-displaced people of Marawi. We We people of Marawi. internally-displaced of information campaigns started a series is A Tender of War screenings through fora; Thing film about the (2013), a documentary family’s my through Mindanao conflict told activities to fundraising memories; and other last of which was a the sustain the initiative, in UP Diliman. forum and film screening of all in this space is the transcript Found family not included the interviews of my my autoethnographical in the final cut of documentary film, which was screened as for the campaigns part of the fundraising internally displaced persons of the Marawi Siege. These accounts were not included directorial due to limitations in time and my up the negative decisions. But these make that informs the pathos that permeates the film. The most difficult to bare remain buried in these documents. The interventions that utilize and suppress the first person forms but the comes in many narrative end is a uniform product—the precarious I, the authority of the curatorial tempered by As in media, war is a tally of fatalities. voice. In of events. history is a parade As in texts, no one will remember narrative, the grand how a pregnant Muslim woman fled the city for grieving during the airstrikes, of Marawi the loss of home where she wanted to raise her unborn child. No one will know how, more than a century before the Marawi Siege, a Muslim father calmly told his sons knowing death was his to run to safety, against fate in the coming battle in Marawi the Spaniards. Unless, of course, these come through and surface intact. narratives control and violence. This map takes the violence. This map takes control and web diagram. food expanded form of an of energy in nature Here, the transfer fauna up until then from the sun to flora, to culture, decomposition is connected economics, and politics. to the food web as I am particularly drawn a map of power/ form because I see it as itself makes energy relationships that (predation) and possible through violence frame Using it as a death (decomposition). to view the sociopolitical realm creates significantly different and interesting to that is contrasting meaning/metaphor of) the ecological— destructive (and even of reality illustrative and interestingly very under Capitalism. This project has a simple aim of rendering visually the dynamics of our political landscape. It really is more often than not that people do not see different issues as interrelated and are simply manifestations of a historically pervasive (2017) Web Rice Food political reality. of seeing that would help suggests a way people see how pieces fit together.

190 Philippine Contemporary Art Network Place of Region in the Contemporary 191 Place of Region in the Contemporary of Region Place BELOW: Artist sketch of the Dumaguete art Artist sketch BELOW: and Jean Claire Dy Don Flores W. scene by Map of Artists, Dumaguete, ca. 1995 Artists, Dumaguete, of Map Map of Artists, Dumaguete, ca. 1995 Artists, Dumaguete, of Map ABOVE: W. Don Flores's typology of the W. ABOVE: the buildings of ornaments on structural an institution founded Silliman University, in 1901 in Dumaguete Kat Palasi Kitty Taniguchi Mar Gajo Maria Kristina Carreon Mariano G. Montelibano III Mark Sanchez Martin De Mesa Martinez Haus Marya Salang Solajes Panx and Hetty Que Paulino Bose Peggy Janio Rizalyn V. S. Tantiado Robby Rocky Cajigan and Jane Martinez Rodney Rogelio and Maria Cristina Piguing Roldan Sandra Drilon Tommy Imao and Lee Toym Don Flores W. Bascon Zeus Adjani Arumpac Adrian Lizares Angelyn Marquez Carzen Esprela Con Cabrera Czarina Lopez Atienza Dawn Dennis Ascalon Solinggay Dumay Ed Lapiz Abantao Aleya Faye Albano MacLean Fe Gerick King Henrielle Pagkaliwangan Imelda A. Bose Isha Naguiat Jean Claire Dy Joanne Que-Young Jose Abdel B. Langit Ruiz Jose Tence Juan Martin Magsanoc Juan Sajid and Cielo Imao Sibayan Judy Freya Junyee Finale Art File Center Museum and Filipiniana Research Jorge B. Vargas Inc. Art Management, Tin-aw of the Philippines Main Library University – Special Collections Section of the Philippines Main Library University ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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