Having been preoccupied by Philippine folklore, Rodel Tapaya moves forward, and his surprising new works are a thoughtful and methodical reconstruction of the grand story of nation.
BY RIEL JARAMILLO HILARIO
Image: Detail of “The Hunter's Dilemma”, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 193 x 152.5 cm
For more than a decade now, I have been fascinated by the idea of the artist’s emergence—that process where the young artist’s awkwardness, inner conflict and struggle for authentic expression develops into the seasoned artist’s restrained passion, collected creativity and consistent production of original, fresh, powerful artworks. The process is oftentimes entirely intuitional, and essentially one accomplished by trial-and-error. More often, the setbacks are too daunting, and the only thing that keeps the motor running is damned persistence. So it comes as a moment of serendipity when I get the chance to see this emergence manifest in Rodel Tapaya, 28, whose years of hard work and resilience have transformed him from a young
maverick into one of the more original and in-demand artists of South East Asia.
Epiphany and opportunity
Tapaya grew up in Montalban (now Rodriguez) in Rizal where his family was engaged in a tinapa (smoked fish) business. It was the young boy’s task to fetch old newspapers that were used as packaging material for the tinapa.
“I would take out my bike and buy these papers,” the artist reminisces. “But, time and again, I would browse the papers for the arts section and cut out clippings of exhibitions and features for my collection. It was my first exposure to the world of art.”
The first time Tapaya came face to face with an actual masterpiece was during a trip to the National Museum where he found himself staring a little too long at Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium”. A sort of epiphany came to him and he began to wonder if he could learn to be a painter as well. By sheer persistence (and some dose of competition), he applied himself to drawing
and painting in elementary and high school, often competing in interschool art contests. In 1997, he took up Painting at the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines. It was around this time that Tapaya decided to leave Montalban and live on his own. Amidst small projects and college, he was also briefly involved in an artist’s fraternity, the Artist’s Circle
(AC), where he served as the supremo for almost a year. It was through AC where he met his partner and future wife, Marina Cruz, and with her and a few other friends they formed an adhoc support group that helped organize their early group shows.
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACKA Glimpse Into Manila’s Artist-Run Spaces
TEXT BY CARREN JAO
PHOTOS BY NICKY SERING & OWEE SALVA
Image: Green Papaya Art Projects (Photo by Owee Salva)
They’re by artists, about artists, and for the artists, and the cityscape has become all the better for them. Welcome to Manila’s artist-run spaces, pockets of creativity throughout the metro that inject today’s art scene with renewed vitality. Part-gallery, part-workshop, and part-watering hole, these spaces cultivate a culture of creativity and exchange (not to mention
camaraderie) among many artists, young and old, some of whom fi nd mentors among peers. We took a tour of fi ve such spaces—White Box Studio and Black Soup Art Space in Cubao, Art Informal in Greenhills, The Cubicle in Pasig, and Green Papaya Art Projects in Quezon City—and found the passionate forces behind each of them.
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACKNational Artist Napoleon Abueva revisits his iconic “Sunburst”, a large blazing sun sculpture that has been the centerpiece of The Peninsula Manila lobby for 15 years.
BY TARA FT SERING
Image: Detail of "Sunburst" (Courtesy of THE PENINSULA MANILA)
READ MOREThere is a charming madness to Napoleon Abueva’s home, a poetic resonance to the way the spaces morph from house into gallery into workshop—the artist, his house seems to say, makes no distinctions between his life and work, and that all his passions have come to roost in one address.
Set on the brow of a gushing creek in Quezon City, and occupying nearly an entire block, the house is a large sprawl that seems to spin off into many directions and spiral skyward in surprising corners, in pursuit of something…a creative ideal, perhaps, or simply more space in which to make art. Recognized as the father of modern Philippine sculpture, Abueva was the youngest National Artist when he was conferred the honor at 46 years old; now 79, his body of works is nothing short of massive and iconic, and his inspiring pedagogy spanning decades—he has taught at the University of the Philippines where he studied under the late Guillermo Tolentino (the late National Artist best known for his UP Oblation sculpture), and at the De La Salle University’s College of Saint Benilde School of Design and Arts—has spawned generations of dedicated sculptors.
The home, into which we are welcomed by Abueva’s wife Cherry and son Mulawin (who is also a sculptor), is one of those spaces that beg to be explored, and within minutes we were zipping through a maze of raw materials, half-finished works, and life-sized models in clay, resin, metal and wood. On one end of the property, a sloping concrete pathway winds up and around a tree, ultimately leading to what may very well be a forgotten anteroom. There is a bed, a low shelf of books and magazines left in a tumble, and, pushed to one side, numerous busts of famous faces from Emilio Aguinaldo to Manuel Quezon (and, strangely, what looked like a life-sized hyena suspended in mid-attack)—all of them covered in a sheet of dust. It’s easy to imagine that once upon a time it may have been the artist’s thinking room, and that the thoughts that percolated here then drove the hands that drew and carved and hammered and soldered and painted in the large, multi-level workshop. There are piles of discarded materials everywhere: resin hands, clay heads, wooden torsos.
Across the workshop is a mini-museum that breathes with a lively array of Abueva’s works, small to medium-sized pieces that represent various aspects of his remarkable and remarkably diverse oeuvre, in terms of style (he is a revered master of the representational and modern abstract styles) and medium (he has worked with hard wood such as molave, acacia, langka wood, ipil, kamagong, palm wood and bamboo, as well as adobe, metal, stainless steel, cement, marble, bronze, iron, alabaster, coral and brass). The gallery also displays works of other artist-friends, from Jose Joya and Onib Olmedo, to Ramon Orlina and Juvenal Sanso.
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACKRiel Jaramillo Hilario talks to Pamela Yan-Santos about the pursuit of art, life, passion and printmaking, and reveals an artist in her element
Image: Detail of "Redirection", 2005, Graphite, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 in
READ MOREThe artist at work thinks of the creative act less as a mode of production, and more of a pursuit. There are attempts to resolve and integrate as many subjective concerns with the solution of formal problems. It is not uncommon that the idea of selfhood (or artist’s identity) is tossed around the same conceptual grinder that tries to determine the right design, form and medium of a work. Thus, the artwork is not merely a representation (of an idea) but, more importantly, it is a representative of the artist’s many attempts at individuation.
Artist Pamela Yan-Santos, 36, has wrestled with this conceptual and technical double challenge in her own career. She has, in particular, devoted years to search for a union of her favored medium, print, with painting. She has succeeded in this, as can be descried in her large canvases in Like, her last solo show at the Blanc Art Space in November 2008. But what is
remarkable still is that she devoted equal time to look for her own subject matter, and found her own unique iconography springing from images of her life as a mother and an individual.
The Printmaker
Yan grew up with the clattering of machines and the smell of printer’s ink in the air. The family offset printing business was located within the compound where she lived and became a convenient source of material when the young artist turned to print as a favored medium in college. Her dedication to printmaking was enough for her to win the grand prize in the Print
category of the annual 1993 Artists’ Association of the Philippines while she was a student. Despite this, however, the medium presented several difficulties. To begin with, it was a highly precise technical craft that only an artist with such discipline beyond the mien of canvas-daubers and self-expressionists. Yan possessed the methodical craftsmanship and the passion fitting to the work. But she was also equally drawn to painting, a medium that could accommodate larger scales that print can achieve only with great cost. Add to this the gnawing self-doubt of not knowing “how to begin” her career. “I wanted to be an artist, but the most difficult thing is where to start,” the artist confesses.
Beginnings
Yan’s early interest in art developed during her elementary studies at the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS) in Quezon City. The school’s liberal learning environment and emphasis on the arts and crafts gave her an appetite for creative work. Yet the classroom art experience came to an end when she entered high school at the College of the Holy Spirit in BF Homes in Commonwealth. “It was a Catholic institution with a formal education structure,” Yan says. “I sorely missed the creative activities at JASMS. As an outlet, I took up art workshops in painting. Watercolor became a favorite medium since I couldn’t appreciate oil painting at that time. But I also competed in interschool art contests.”
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACKPhilanthropist, cultural vanguard and sometime Governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines, Dr. Jaime Laya shares a piece of his collector’s mind.
Photography by Wig Tysmans.
READ MORE
The disease is called collectivitis, and it is infectious and incurable.
Dr. Jaime Laya caught it at a young age, when his father foisted a shoebox-full of used envelopes on him, stamps still attached, to keep him busy and out of trouble. “Since then,” Laya writes in his book Consuming Passions, “I’ve had both continuing passions and casual flings with all sorts of collectibles—animal, vegetable, and mineral.”
Th e chairmanship of his high school philatelic society was his first managerial role, foretelling an epic future in art and antique collecting that would run parallel with his achievements in business, education, and public service. Retracing these twin paths leaves one feeling that Laya always seemed to be at the right place at the right time, with an enviable knack for spotting talent.
He was certainly born at the right place at the right time. His father, Juan, wrote the award-winning Commonwealth-era novel His Native Soil, and was friends with the popular painters of his time—Amorsolo, Manansala, and Ocampo. Art and nationalism were fi xtures in Laya’s childhood milieu, but he grew up to be... an accountant. In the Sixties, he became a professor at the College of Business Administration of the University of the Philippines. He struck up friendships with fellow teacher Jose Joya, and radical artist Ang Kiukok. When he became dean of the
UP school of business, he cut “ex-deals” with the future masters—paintings for tax deductions—to perk up the school’s dreary walls. In his own offi ce, he hung a market scene bought for P35. The painter was Cesar Buenaventura.
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACKA rare glimpse into part of noted collector Paulino Que’s contemporary art collection offers compelling insight into the times. STEPHANIE DYCHIU takes a tour of the landmark exhibit and
ponders on a few key pieces.
Image: Detail of Elmer Borlongan's "One-man Show", 2008, Triptych, Oil on canvas, 60 x 216 inches.
READ MOREIs it novelty or is it art? Who decides what can be called contemporary art? Is it the critic who shapes the taste of the public? Is it the dealer who paves the way
to commercial success? Is it the scholar who bears the imprimatur of the cultural Establishment?
At a recent exhibit of the Finale Art Gallery, the arbiter was none of the above. Or in a sense, all of the above. Noted private collector Paulino Que, whose trove of Philippine art stretches from Juan Luna to today’s twentysomething wunderkinds, has long been a quiet but pervasive force in the local art scene. Prodded by Finale’s Vita Sarenas, he agreed to show a selection of 22 works he acquired from young artists in the last 10 years.
“There is no institutional collection of contemporary art in the Philippines today, so that makes [the Paulino Que] collection significant,” art historian Patrick D. Flores remarked during his talk on the exhibit, dubbed Figuring the Times: Philippine Art 1996-2009. “Most [institutional collections] start with the modern period, such as the CCP collection, but it stops with the 1980s.”
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACKIn the first installment of a three-part series, Regina P. Baxter guides us through the workings of a centuries-old relationship between art and auction.
Image: Auction Room at Christie’s Autumn Southeast Asian Modern and Contemporary Art Sale last November 29, 2008 at the Hong Kong Convention Center
Courtesy of CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2009
In Southeast Asia, more people than ever are excited by the thought of buying art, and more people than ever before are actually buying art at auctions. There is also a great deal of auction-related publicity in the media. In response to all this hype, it is essential to take a simple, conservative and sensible approach to getting involved and buying at auctions.
This article, as well as others to follow, will enlighten and inform people on what auctions are all about, how to consign and buy at auctions, and reveal facts about the present and future state of the Philippine art market. To start off, the following is a beginner’s guide to paddling your way through a week of browsing, buying, and being seen at auctions.
The simplest definition of an auction is that it is a process of buying and selling goods or services to the highest bidder. The word is derived from the Latin word augēre, which means “to increase” or “augment”. Auctions have a long history, having been recorded as early as 500 B.C. In Babylon, auctions of women for marriage were held annually wherein the auctioneer
would start with the woman considered to be the most beautiful, and progressed to the least. During the Roman Empire, following the military victory, slaves captured during war were auctioned, and the proceeds of sale went towards the war effort.
Times have significantly changed since then. Auction houses are more structured and countless items can now be sold on auction. From paintings and sculptures, ceramics, jewelry, watches, wine, collectibles, automobiles, property, livestock, and even secondhand goods. The development of the Internet has led to a rise in the use of auctions, as auctioneers can solicit bids via the Internet. Modern versions of auctions retain the same thrill of competition, glamour and entertainment. But whether the sale is that of an old Master or new Southeast Asian paintings, the lure remains the same. Bidding, after all, appeals to everyone’s fighter instinct, and the love of a good deal.
GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE APRIL-MAY 2009 ISSUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHILIPPINES TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
BACK
© Contemporary Art Philippines 2010
