Contemporary Philippine Arts

Lesson 1 – Contemporary Arts in the Philippines

Key distinctions: Modern vs Contemporary

  • Everyday speech often treats “modern” and “contemporary” as synonyms; academically they refer to different historical periods

    • Modern Art ≈ produced between American colonial era & post-WWII (roughly 1900–1960s1900\text{–}1960s)

    • Contemporary Art ≈ art “of the present,” but definition shifts according to context (stylistic, historical, cultural)

  • Both periods may overlap; elements of Modern can be integrated into Contemporary work

Historical Overview of Philippine Visual Arts (Fajardo & Flores, 2002)

  • Focused on painting, sculpture, architecture (other forms to be explored separately)

  • Bullet extraction from the six chronological columns:

    • Pre-Conquest

    • Painting: ceramics, ornamentation, accessories (indigenous motifs)

    • Sculpture: porcelain, wood, metal-work

    • Architecture: public dwellings, apartments, ritual spaces, shrines, assembly areas

    • Spanish Period

    • Painting: orthodox ecclesiastical icons, theological human figures

    • Sculpture: decorative engravings, shrine objects, jewelry, festival adornments

    • Architecture: churches, plazas, urban planning, earthquake-baroque churches

    • American Period

    • Painting: décor, nature, scenery, impressionism; false advertising of progress

    • Sculpture: carpentry, welding, speech figures (public monuments)

    • Architecture: parks, road repair, Art-Deco & Neo-classical public edifices

    • Japanese Period

    • Painting: battlefield sequences—violence, imperialism; desire for peace

    • Sculpture/Architecture: containment structures, municipal support facilities

    • After Independence

    • Painting: traditionalism vs modernization, graffiti, progressive & conceptual work

    • Architecture: gardens, community buildings, highways, water towers

    • Modern & Contemporary

    • Painting: interactive canvases, multi-tool media, metaphorical, “art for art”

    • Sculpture: hybrid, conceptual, site-specific, performance-oriented

    • Architecture: corporate condos, prefab housing, refugee camps, conference towers

Illustrative modern artists & works

  • HR Ocampo – “The Contrast” (1940)

  • Cesar Legaspi – “Frugal Meal” (undated)

  • Carlos “Botong” Francisco – “Magpupukot” (1957)

  • Victorio Edades – “The Builders” (1928)

  • Comparison piece: Fernando Amorsolo’s “Fishing Scene” (serene, pastoral)

Neoclassical vs Modern Aesthetics

  • Neoclassicism (Amorsolo, Tolentino)

    • Idealised rural scenes, accurate anatomical depiction, “academic” style imported from Europe via Spain

  • Modernism (Edades, Ocampo, Manansala, Tabuena, Legaspi)

    • Distorted forms, compressed space, non-ideal colours, social commentary

    • Labeled by critic Aguilar Cruz as “Neo-realists” after WWII – tackled working-class oppression, poverty, post-war rebuilding

Stylistic Overview (Figure 1.9 – compressed)

  • Painting

    • Pre-colonial: animist / Islamic, community-based, shared histories

    • Spanish: devotional miniaturismo, academic naturalism

    • American: classical nostalgic, beginnings of abstraction

    • Japanese: 13 modernists, abstraction, surrealism, expressionism

    • Recent: collaborative, hyper-real, new painting

  • Sculpture – rises from abstract expressionism to junk/arte povera hybrids, site-specific and performance installations

  • Architecture – evolves from worship-oriented and earthquake-baroque to globalised, prefab, neo-vernacular & cosmopolitan urban plans

Cultural Overview (Figure 1.10)

  • Forms mapped along five cultural spectra:

    1. Indigenous Southeast Asian

    2. Islamic / Philippine Muslim

    3. Folk / village

    4. Fine / world-based (museum, gallery, single-artist)

    5. Popular / urban & mass-based (mass-produced)

  • Example artists:

    • Xyza Bacani – documentary street photographer; grew from online exposure to formal gallery shows

    • Imelda Cajipe-Endaya – social-realist mixed-media, e.g., “Filipina DH” (1995)

    • Ibn Saud Salipyasin Ahmad – Zamboanga watercolorist mixing Subanen & Maguindanaon motifs; considered contemporary yet “traditional”

General Characteristics of Contemporary Philippine Art

  • May use traditional or digital media; emphasis on mixed-media & hybridity

  • Site-specific: work inseparable from its chosen environment (gallery, street, forest, internet)

  • Process-based & collaborative

    • Artists (e.g., Kidlat Tahimik & family; Sleepyheads band) blur boundaries between life, performance, architecture, cuisine

  • Interactive & participatory: audience completes meaning

  • Not always collaborative – some (Saudi Ahmad) work solo in studio

Lesson 2 – Research on Contemporary Arts in the Philippines

Subject vs Theme

  • Subject = what the artwork is literally “about”; derived through senses (what we see, hear, smell, touch, taste)

    • Can be representational (tree, figure) or non-representational (abstract form)

  • Theme = conceptual thread linking subject to broader social, historical, philosophical contexts

    • Discovered through:

    • Title, artist, medium, dimensions, date

    • Texts, images, meanings, signs & symbols

  • Essential difference (Application #3–4):

    • Subject is perceptual/immediate; Theme is contextual/interpretative

Analytical process

  1. Sensory inventory (subject plane)

  2. Research initial data (title, artist, etc.)

  3. Identify signs/symbols, allegories

  4. Situate in socio-historical milieu

  5. Acknowledge one’s own “coloured lenses” (power, gender, class)

Thematic Clusters Explored

  1. Heroism & Identity

    • Case: Rizal Monument (Luneta)

      • Competition 19051905; unveiled 19131913; runner-up Richard Kissling executed final design

      • Rizal in European overcoat, holding a book (education)

      • Monument replicated across nation/overseas – each variant negotiates local identity politics

      • Possibility of less formal, more “human” portrayals (sportsman, doctor, lover)

  2. Heroism & Ecology

    • Rizal as proto-environmentalist in Dapitan: farming, dam-building, species cataloguing

      • Three species named after him: Draco rizaliDraco\ rizali (flying lizard), Rachophorus rizaliRachophorus\ rizali (frog), Apogonio rizaliApogonio\ rizali (beetle)

    • Parallel figure: Leonard Co (botanist; namesake Rafflesia leonardiRafflesia\ leonardi)

      • Multidisciplinary like Rizal; killed in forest cross-fire 20102010

    • 2011 exhibit “Walong Filipina” honoured Rizal/Co via 8 female artists’ interpretations

  3. Spirituality, Ecology & Everyday Life

    • Spatial context: Spanish-inspired town-plaza triad (church–municipio–elite houses)

    • Site-specific installation by Jay Ticar in San Carlos Church kumbento, Mahatao, Batanes

      • Components:

      • Shelves of blank books shaped like ocean waves – visitors inscribe thoughts, building a “collection of dust”

      • Two boats repurposed as library furniture

        • Tataya sailboat (traditional, wind-powered) – symbol of subsistence fishing

        • Larger motorised boat – stands for modernity’s pressures

      • Stones on hidden wheeled boards – movable “floating” seating

      • Goals: immersive reflection on environment, memory, cross-Asian connectedness