The last time it felt like 1972

UP Artists Circle at the Whitecube Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Manila In 1972, The UP Fine Arts had just become a separate unit under the stewardship of Jose Joya it was a tumultuous time, but nevertheless a colorful oneteenagers were either so free as to be practically useless and smoke marijuana or they were so fired up by the little red book they wanted to storm Malacaang. The music that played on the radio would most likely be Gilbert O Sullivans Alone Again Naturally and the movie playing in the cinema was Star Wars. Of course it was also the time of Lino Brocka and OPM and the year when Marcos declared Martial Law. Vietnam War grinded and Manilas asphalt roads slowly became cemented, Guy and Pip was up in the air. Student power was unrelenting, after all the Diliman Commune happened only months ago. Amidst all these, the twelve men who founded the University of the Philippines Artists Circle (AC) were playing basketball, mostly confused at what they were doing but were so inspired by the idea of doing art, together. Out of this inseparable team, the group conspired to create a fraternity exclusively for artists. Napoleon Abueva supplied them with a constitution, one that was used by his fraternity also based in the UP Fine Arts that has been extinct prior to this time. Prof. Froilan T. Madrian, a freemason, instituted the rituals of initiation and fellowship for the members. The Artists Circle has not changed, it only grew in number of members and we experience versions of those conditions complete with floods, typhoons and would you believe it, Martial Law! Plus the fact that its been almost four decades since those days. This created the situation to relive the spirit of 72 in UP Artists Circle: Painting, Sculpture, Collages and Objects: 19722009, which opened on December 15, 2009, at the White Cube Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Manila. Armand Bacaltos along with Benjamin Cabangis, Rock Drilon and Pete Jimenezwho belong to the first generation of members of the UP Artists Circlepresent works that seem hardly unaffected by what was going on during that time. To think that they came from the generation when open rebellion seemed to be the mood in many quarters. What we normally know of this time is activist art but it was also that time when some artists had stopped making art altogether as they became more and more enthralled by art theory. Other artists were not really making any kind of work that could be shown in a gallery, instead presenting ephemeral installations and performances that were often documented by photography. A few artists turned to newly available digital and video technologies as a way of breaking away from traditional media, while many others chose to make artworks that could be reproduced as cheaply as possible, so that art would no longer be a commodity for the privileged few. These developments in the art world shaped AC for what it is today. For this show though, the art group recoiled from such and tried to present something they have done all along: paintings, sculptures, collages, objects. Even Poklong Anading presents us with a painting.

These can be understood in the context of AC being against the grain of what one would normally think about an avant-garde institution called the UP Fine Arts (after the Edades Guillermo rift of course) Through the years the Artists Circle, at a considerably lower profile, continued to make traditional forms of art and the most interesting of these were marked by both conceptual and technical innovation. Some of the artists, like Anading in the 90s took off from the jarring momentum of novelty, particularly the dominance of Minimalism. Again this would be best understood in the context of Popo San Pascual and Bernie Pacquing, who both came to the group in the 80s. In Pacquing, we are currently shown a grayer affair, in mood as in hue, something we cannot imagine being done by Popo San Pascual, whose works are as bright and spackling as the pigment of red that he uses. Pacquing and Poklong exemplify the reign of the ascetic, the lighthearted and the inscrutable that followed upon the episodic and relative excess of freedom after EDSA1986 while San Pascual is the odd ball, he goes way back in the light and color tradition of Benjie Cabangis but with figures that escape the canvas through the layering of exuberant pigments like silver paint over red, representing what I would like to call a continuing discovery of an artistic persona and environment. The avant-garde movements of the time when AC came to be were Post-Minimalism and Conceptual art. Reacting against Pop and Minimalism, most artists in AC went forward into uncharted directions, returning to individualism while some marched on with progressive art. The groups most revered artists received at one point the Thirteen Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines-- Benjie Cabangis, Popo San Pascual, Bernardo Pacquing, Poklong Anading, and Neil Doloricon, whose work is annoyingly absent from this show. Most artists aside from the tradition of Neil Doloricon founded their art in the absurdity, and the necessity, of making formal decisions like Drilon whose works are concerned with movement and feeling and working out with the painting elements. Therefore, his works in the Moving On series represent an abstract expressionist with full control on the throttle. Not long ago, Drilon was known for his Jeepney series which manifested an early fascination with the abstract form. His early works, particularly Jeepney IX at Bulwagan ng Dangal in UP Diliman, strangely resembles the work of Francis Bejars Kontradiksyong Bisyo, Kontra Adiksyon, included in the Kalipunan V catalog but not in this exhibit. Is there a pattern here? Are the first generation artists of AC foretelling the fate of the current residents? These are some of the points brought up by Kalipunan. Conversations Being obscure about ones intentions is artistic for some. For Mark Cosico his video attempts to surpass the level of understanding where you look for the gratification of meaning. Its about enjoying the work for what it is. To look at a video for Cosico is not about narrative but about absorption and conversation.

In a movie shot with a handycam, Cosico walks the city in a worms eye-view; following the life of a caterpillar, The black and white video and the slowness is almost a super-slow motion. The life of the caterpillar gets cut as it reaches the city. Introduction of the 5th Dimension by Paul Acena happened when he layered several coats of spray paint on a mirror and cut alternating rectangles to leave out the reflection. The psychedelic effect allows the viewer to see an illusion of delay in movement and therefore interpret this as change. Change, he says, is the 5th dimension. The Artists Circle belongs to a culture and tradition of art making that emanated from what is probably one of the hottest episodes of history and UP's seemingly contradicting formalistic approach in teaching art. Cian Dayrits There Is No Sauce in the World Like Hunger is anchored in the play with icons, religious and historical, representing a new direction of art concerned with youth-informed images and language that crosses the borders of culture, embracing a broad use of philosophy and meaning. Works that pillage over the most jealously guarded institutions of society. Today, the AC is composed of artists who adopted a cosmopolitan view of art. Getting their influences here and there and everywhere. With artists like Paul Acena and Cian Dayrit, the AC is concerned with pushing the limits of what visual art makes us see, what has not yet been introduced but was there all along. A community for artists The Artists Circle as a community became a refuge for artists who didnt want to be tied up in a certain way but are willing to learn different disciplines in art, painters wanted to learn sculpture from sculpture majors, advertisers wanted to paint and professors wanted to stay young with their students. Likewise it afforded the students extra hours of consultation with professors who belong to the art group. Art works became tests of initiation. If you wondered what they were about, it meant that you would never know. The city of their city The most lively section of the show presents paintings by Redd Nacpil, Carla Cruz, Harinam Tibon, Gino Libre Bueza, Mai Arollado and a work on paper by Caroline Ongpin incidentally relating to Paul Acena by its title Mirrors. These works evoke urban experiences, commentaries and contemplation on certain contemporary realities that have taken over the world in the last decade. EDSA billboards, postmodern thought, excessiveness in the global lifestyle, inequality in society as in the images that are permitted to be seen and the culture of cool. Ongpins Mirrors makes use of a contemplative bus ride, showing the views of the city made of steel and glass. She says, that the buildings are her mirrors, which reflect thought rather than image in the slow traffic. Urban space, according to Ongpin is a space for contemplation; the city is also made up of ideas. She commutes, estranged from this city and evokes a sullen emotion of isolation.

Geronimo Cristobal Jr.s Sa Ibabaw ng Tubig relates urban experience to the recent flood that hit Metro Manila and how it has changed the landscape and the thinking of people affected by it. He took the map used by urban planners in developing Manila as an Asian megacity, smeared it with oil to make it translucent and taped it on the canvas to cover images from World War II embedded on it. The war, Cristobal says, is like the flooda man-made catastrophe that has significantly erased and changed the landscape and thinking of an entire people. Sa Ibabaw ng Tubig refers to Manila, which is for the most part situated below sea level and the medium of oil, which sits above water. More democratic more diverse The UP Artists Circle is probably what an art group is all about. It fronts no singular notion of what art is and it does not even require you to be an artist to apply for membership. It is a black hole where everyone is accepted from romantics, loners, varsity players, activists, workingstudents, rich and poor, middle-aged returning students, experts and posers and fitted into that single term called artist. While it does not require you to do art prior to joining, it will require you to pursue an art form. Many shift to fine arts while others like Geronimo Cristobal, pursue related fields like curatorship. The roster of residents in AC composed largely of Fine Arts students are joined by a mix of members who are into architecture, interior design, music and theater. A tradition A depressing or comforting realization of the show is the fact that these new works by young artists prove that conceptually driven art, as a phenomenon practiced within art schools or outside of it, has gone essentially nowhere in forty years. This exhibit reasonablybut tediously fills in a missing perspective of an art group on the practice of art. The AC, though is not an art movement but simply a thriving community where artists of different persuasions are gathered. The Artists Circle needed to recall their past to create an exhibit that would at one time show their identity as an art group and present something that is relevant. Kalipunan gives us a peek into tradition and creativity. The 12 young artists who founded AC amidst political turmoil and crisis probably did not expect that it would live long enough to realize the fruits of their artistic tradition. That is probably the resilience of the Filipino artist and the tradition adapted by AC as an art group--to flourish where others would normally perish. For the Artists Circle, there is no creativity without tradition.
KALIPUNAN V: Paintings, Scultpures, Collages, Objects will run until January 15, 2010. A free to all, exhibit reception will be held on January 09, 2010, Saturday. For comments and inquiries kindly contact [email protected] or the curator, Geronimo Cristobal, Jr. at [email protected]