02.26.09 kulturnatib

Contemporganic

Too many things these days are not much better than just buzz words. Buzz words to begin with become so because they, at the very least, sound good. They create a buzz. Yet, in the end, they become many things for many people and not all of them meaning the same thing.

Organic is one of these words.

So, when the other weekend Joey Ayala came along as chairperson of the committee on music of the National Commission of Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and organizing a four-venue national musical tour for the arts month called, 'Organik Musik,' I imagined not a few eyebrows going vertical.

Knowing Joey somewhat, I had an inkling what this was about.

Looking at the lineup of bands, performers and participants of the events in Baguio, Cebu, Davao and Manila confirmed my hunch that Joey was continuing on a much larger scale and wider scope his personal musical journey forwards and outwards by digging into his personal and cultural roots.

This in essence is what contemporary art is about; The bridging of the past and future in whatever media that presents a dynamic of form and content which speaks with immediacy in the present tense.

Thus did SM City Cebu Activity Center experience a rare hybrid of musical and literary genres seldom seen there, where, as can be imagined with one of the bulwarks of Philippine Malldom, kitsch rules and karaoke culture is king.

Here, as with the other cities in the tour, a band is the pivot of the program, presenting the idea of music as a distillation and inspiration of other artistic forms, notably literature both oral and written, and dance.

Errol 'Budoy' Marabiles and Junior Kilat were the inescapable choice for this role for the Visayan leg of this tour.

Not only has Budoy become immensely popular, he remains so. He has also achieved this with his artistic integrity intact and his uncompromising artistic vision shared, understood and appreciated by a generation for whom history would otherwise be just a bunch of dusty, tattered and, to add injury to insult, mistake filled textbooks.

Providing further depth to the event where the poetry of Bathalad, the dances of the UP Cebu Upstage, the sidays of the Warays and the balitaw of a family from Carcar – a couple, the two poetic protagonists and their son who played the guitar.

Understandably, the poetry numbers suffered from the struggle it continues to wage with an audience that is weaned on spectacle, on noise, on the 'star syndrome.' They had to compete with the ambient sounds that makes a mall one gigantic noise generating machine.

Also, they had to fight for attention from people who are there precisely to escape from having to pay close attention yet remain 'entertained' just the same for their non-effort.

Yet, Bathalad rose to the occasion. The 'Habal-habal' duet by Adonis Durado and Karla Quimsing were an exemplary hit. Rightly so, as habal-habal, in all its usage but especially so as a mode of transportation, is rife with layers and layers of meaning, context, drama, pathos and sheer Bisayan joie de vivre.

The sidays were the weak link here. Not for the lack of talent from their performers, but the simple minority of those present who understood waray.

Yet, Budoy is Waray, from Law-ang, Northern Samar. Here, he showed the extent to which he imbues 'Visayaness,' in that when he speaks or sings in Waray it doesn't matter that you don't understand exactly but you somehow feel you know what he means.

In the same manner, one does not know exactly what organic in the context of this series of connected cultural events mean. Yet, one feels that it is about you and me as a people in a nation, the same yet different in a world where homogeneity is supposed to be a virtue called globalization.

Another buzz word.

02.19.09 kulturnatib

Going home coming

For most of us, between coming and going is home. Yet, for a growing number of us, as well, at both ends of coming and going is also home. Or, are also homes.

The question then of where exactly is home in this situation is answered only with many hmmms, aahhhs or interminable silence. And then, often, depending on who is asking or the context of the conversion at which this question squeezes itself in.

This is a question that has occurred to me in the past few days. I have come home for three weeks and very soon will be headed back towards my adoptive home.

Home is, of course, more than just an address or a spot in a Google map.

Before we left for this vacation, the artistic group I have joined – among the foundations of the artistic home I have started to build -- was going to have its first regular performance event for this year.

Several times last year I had been invited to join in these regular events but circumstances had always intervened that made joining just impossible, though there have been other events not organized by the group but participated in mostly by them that I was able to join. This time around, the same thing is happening.

But, I told them not to worry. I really won't be missing much. I was headed home to my original group, quite different but at the same time rather similar, who made sure that a performance event was going to be a highlight of our vacation itinerary.

As it happens, it will now be two performance events.

The first one was last Valentine's Day at Mango One that even on a regular weekend with its crush of young, curious and appreciative crowd lends itself to the kind of guerilla performance that the group, XO?, is slowly but surely getting known for around town.

I joined the stalwarts of the group, Chai Fonacier, Russ Ligtas and Raymund Fernandez with my own performance for an event that surely made an otherwise ordinarily special night an extraordinarily memorable one especially for those whose idea for that night didn't go far beyond chocolates and red roses.

The next event will be tonight. It will be at the Handuraw Cafe at Gorordo Avenue, Lahug. The same quartet who performed at the event last Saturday will be joined by Winston Rellosa with his merry band of musicians.

The theme for the evening is, “Going Home Coming.” It will be a 'despedida' event. But, it could be seen also as a 'bienvenida' performance, to welcome continuing performances for XO? here and for Fait Maison in Quebec.

More than that it could also be taken as a further encouragement for bigger, more ambitious dreams that include a possible collaboration for both groups in a performance art festival some time in the near future.

When that takes place, there can be no possible confusion as to what or where home is. They will all come together somewhere at the center of heart.

And, of art.

2.08.09 mendoza exhibit review

As many of you know I also write exhibit reviews. Below is my first for this year.


A long stretch
Whether one dreams in color or black and white is a question that is often asked.

From artists you would expect that the answer would be the former since color is simply or expectedly part of the immediate range of an artist's vocabulary.

But not necessarily with all artists.

In his thesis exhibit, 'Odyssey,' currently on show at the Cafe Capriccio, graduating UP Fine Arts student, Ramon Carlo 'Caloy' Mendoza hints that he is an exception.

This is not to say, however, that his works are devoid of color. To the contrary, many of his works do have color. But they play a secondary, layer determining or enhancing role, although having a more varied spectral dimension color does, in some of the works where they are present, tend to overstep this role.

Nonetheless, the stellar billing still belongs to images which are in stark, non-gradiated black renditions.

These images, sourced from pictures, illustrations or drawings bear the second exceptional feature in this show. They are not painted images in the traditional sense. They are processed, edited, manipulated using the tool that is now ubiquitous with many artists: the computer and its concomitant software.

Immediately, this raises the stylistic banner of pop art which is, indeed, acknowledged by Mendoza.

While the pioneering work of Warhol, Johns and others set the discourse for pop art in both the elevation of popular, mostly consumer imagery – product labels -- to a level approaching that of the 'fine' bourgeoisie hagiography of traditional painting and the utilization of media that lent itself to mass production – silk screen printing, for example – Mendoza leans on the diffusive possibilities of digital imaging and processes.

And for image content Mendoza is less obliged to pay tribute to the consumerist crowning of the original pop art. Instead, there is a movement towards an ironic nod or frank acceptance of the banality of everyday life.

Again, while in Warhol and Johns – more with Warhol than Johns – the consumer product is presented in bare minimalist fashion, although repeated ad infinitum, the layering remains flat and determinedly on the surface, Mendoza's layers have highly wrought yet decorative functions that highlight not so much a minimalist as an emptimalist core.

In this, Mendoza is right in step with the times, especially youth techno-gadgetry culture that ostensibly celebrates digital connection yet somehow is at a loss on what to do with connectiveness. Or how to achieve and maintain it.

On the technical level, the layering is done in the most painterly way. There is, of course, the pigment of paint – the use of which tend to be confused or slapdash and takes on the quality of wallpaper -- but more in keeping with Mendoza's method, it is the vehicle of paint – here, glue – that allows for physical layers of images on paper one of top of the other.

The works where such layering is most pronounced, which, in the nature of this technique, makes it the most subtle, coupled with a restrained use of images are those that come out as most attractive or most able to afford the possibility of deeper discourse.

Yet, for the most part, deeper discourse is elusive with these works. Not least because Mendoza in his exhibit statement – unfortunately just read during the opening and not made readily available to the public-- opts to stay within the comfort zone of technical explanations and gives precious little about content.

However, such absence does not prevent the works from presenting an interesting departure from the image generation of traditional painting. In many works – though one is at a loss to explain the variety of sizes – the various visual and textural elements brought on by layering comes together to make these pieces feel just right.

Even with these, a walk would be more than enough and an odyssey is a long stretch.