10.23.08 kulturnatib

Art auction
No word can be more appropriate for what will take place tomorrow at SM City Cebu Art Center. The word is 'auction,' and is derived from the Latin augēre, which means to increase or augment.

Increase and augment are precisely the objectives for Mugnang-Halad. Fund-raising is the more popular term for this.

But, since this is also an exhibit, the organizers, Pusod, Inc., surely hope that it won't only be funds that will be raised but certainly art awareness and appreciation as well.

With the works on the block and on exhibit the viewing and bidding public will be treated to one of the finest artistic smorgasbord from artists across the country.

The artists are grouped into six groups or sets with an equal number of art works per set and an even distribution among them of the better and less nationally known. It will be the sets that will be up for grabs or bids.

All it takes is a P3,000 ticket or joiner's fee.

The money that will be raised with the auction, which is, frankly, the more immediate concern, will go towards increasing and augmenting the funds for the hosting of the Visayas Islands Visual Artists Exhibit/Conference (VIVA ExCon).

The bulk of the funding, however, is provided by a grant from the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the main partner of VIVA ExCon since its inception.

This ExCon, established in 1990, happens every two years – making it a biennial – is the longest running, uninterrupted art event of its kind in the country. It will be its 10th edition or the 18th year in existence.

More significantly, it will be the repeat edition here.

After going around the major Visayan islands, a move that was strongly endorsed by the Cebu delegation, it subsequently saw uneven hosting success yet at the same time significantly increasing interest for the visual arts in the host areas, the VIVA ExCon is returning to Cebu next month from the 27th to the 29th.

In 1998 Cebu hosted the 5th edition, after Bacolod (twice), Dumaguete and Ilo-ilo. That hosting provided some benchmarks for the VIVA ExCon and similar events in the country; The most well attended, the most extensive simultaneous exhibits in three different venues and the longest in duration and, most importantly, exemplary financial management.

This, admittedly, is not one of the most attractive colors for most artists especially for an event of this scope and complexity. Yet, in 1998 Cebu artists proved that it can be done.

This year, beginning with this auction, a new generation of artists who have graduated from playing assisting roles in 1998 to leadership positions now, will prove it again.

What will be more difficult to prove is where the Visayan artists or Visayan arts is headed. In all these years that has been a question that the ExCons succeed mostly in side stepping. Or, even not bothering to ask.

This is the million dollar question that will take more than an auction or, perhaps, even an ExCon to answer.