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OUT of
the National Museum this year was born the National Art
Gallery of the Philippines, which has constituted itself
separately from the natural sciences and the
archaeological sections, while the Museum of the
Filipino people has been in charge of ethnic and folk
art exhibits. The National Art Gallery, which is now
presented to the public for the first time, was made
possible through the generous grants and bequests by
institutions and individuals, such as the National
Commission for Culture and the Arts, Friends for
Cultural Concerns of the Philippines, Fundacion
Santiago, The Philippine National Museum Foundation, the
Museum Foundation of the Philippines, Washington SyCip,
Mr. and Mrs. Luis Ablaza, Robert Aboitiz of the Aboitiz
Foundation, Antonio O. Cojuangco, Dr. Jaime C. Laya,
Eleanor L. de Gracia, Susana L. Mysen, Trinidad L.
Sensenig, William Alain Miailhe de Burgh, and the family
of National Artist Leandro V. Locsin. Doubtless, the
new gallery was also brought to realization by the
managerial foresight of director Corazon Alvina and the
visionary curatorship of Patrick Flores.
The new
disposition of the gallery, which separates the exhibits
from the administrative offices, gives a necessary and,
at the same time, delightful coherence to the visual
artworks which, as Flores emphasizes, belong exclusively
to the gallery collection with no loaned works from
collectors. This, therefore, ensures a stability to the
disposition of the works of the collection which is
accompanied by explanatory notes of their place in art
history.
A tour
of the gallery begins on the steps of the neo-classical
National Museum building with two monuments flanking the
entrance. National Artist Guillermo Tolentino cast the
two larger-than-life figures in metal: on the left,
Manuel Quezon, former Senate President; and on the
right, Sergio Osmeña, former Speaker of the House. The
lobby of the building features two reliefs on hardwood
by another National Artist, Napoleon Abueva. Historical
in subject, they portray Rajah Sulayman, His Court
and the
Palisades
(1967) and Legazpi and the Founding of Manila
(1967). Not to be overlooked—and this is the occasion to
name the artists—are the sculptures of the front and
back pediments of the building done by Otto Fisher
Credo, Walter Strauss, Vidal Tampinco and Ramon
Martinez. The visitor is greeted at the lobby by the
large glass chandeliers by Impy Pilapil which provide
festive lighting in the form of intricate pastillas
wrappers, a folk art of San Miguel de Mayumo in Bulacan.
From
here, one opens directly to the large Hall of Mirrors
dedicated to two 19th-century Filipino painters, Juan
Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, who achieved
prominence by winning gold and silver medals,
respectively, at the 1884 Madrid Exposition. Luna’s
Spoliarium in the context of the reform movement
spearheaded by the ilustrado expatriates in Spain was
seen as a metaphor for the condition of the
Philippines
in Spanish colonial times. The principal image is that
of the Roman soldiers dragging the dead and dying
gladiators across the ground while some Romans,
vulture-like, quarrel over their last effects and a
woman, her back turned, grieves over a loved one.
Resureccion Hidalgo’s Assassination of General
Bustamante and His Son, recently donated to the
museum by National Artist Leandro V. Locsin and family,
depicts a dramatic moment in colonial history. An event
in 1719, it was the climax of the crisis between the
Church and the State after Governor General Bustamante
imprisoned the Archbishop of Manila on financial issues.
The friars and their lay cohorts carrying ecclesiastical
banners and accompanied by the tolling of the death
knell, proceeded from San Agustin Church in Intramuros
to the general’s residence, where they struck down the
general and his son on the steps of the palace.
Other
well-known works of the two painters are found on both
sides of the hall, among them, Luna’s Una Bulakeña
and portraits by
Hidalgo.
The text of the hall is José Rizal’s famous tribute to
the two artists in his speech at the banquet in which he
sought to blur the hierarchical distinction between
mother country and colony in the propagandists’ campaign
for equality.
A
striking comparison is achieved in the Holding Room (Silid
Hintayan) in which the large commanding piece is a
digital transposition of Luna’s Spoliarium into
Mallarium in the context of the present mallgoing
culture and frame of mind. In brilliant but controlled
coloration, it is a collaborative work executed in
inkjet on tarpaulin by a group of contemporary artists.
The black-and-white tiled floor and the soft transparent
curtains enhance the sense of cultural space. This hall
serves as a function room for symposia, concerts and
similar events.
The
Arellano Room is dedicated to the designer of the
National Museum building, Juan Arellano, architect and
painter in the early American colonial period. From the
archival materials, an admirable feature surfaces: his
artistic flexibility which enabled him to move from
neoclassicism (the National Museum or, formerly, the Old
Congress, the Post Office) to Art Deco (Metropolitan
Theater), to vernacular architecture in the Visayas and
Mindanao. He initiated interest in vernacular and
ethnic, indigenous styles which is not pursued by many
contemporary builders.
From
here, the
National Art Gallery
names its halls after phrases in the national anthem.
The hall Beloved Land (Bayang Magiliw) presents a
timeline that shows shits and continuities in visual
culture, which is not so much linear or chronological
but shows the converging points of certain concepts or
forms. The gallery exhibits thus bring together various
forms from different periods to stimulate comparisons
regarding similarities and differences. A prominent
installation is Roberto Feleo’s Tao-tau, inspired
by Bagobo mythology and its narratives of the afterlife
made of a nontraditional medium that allows the greater
flexibility of figures. Indigenous concepts are
juxtaposed with Christian tenets in the figures of
saints and friars from the Western context placed
alongside the installation. Also in this hall is the
Manunggel Jar, our most popular artifact, with examples
of art from all over the country in the various
traditions.
This
proceeds to the Hall of the Vessels of Faith, where one
sees magnificent examples of Spanish colonial retablos,
carved in the indigenous styles and implying their
wealth of rituals. Vicente Manansala’s Give Us This
Day is a concise image of Filipino piety. But then
on the center of the floor is Jose Tence Ruiz’s
installation piece Paraisado that places the
complex structure of a cathedral on a poor man’s
pushcart of salvaged rubbish, thus bringing out ironies
between the promise of heaven and its realization,
especially in this country.
The hall
of Freedom Yearned For (Paglayang Minamahal) invokes the
heroes of the long struggle from colonial times to the
present by paintings and sculptures that embody this
aspiration. The rare sculptures include a bust of
Gregorio Aglipay and the first anticolonial hero,
Lapu-lapu. In the center is José Rizal’s own sculpture,
Mother’s Revenge. This brings us to the adjacent
hall that showcases the struggle of women for
emancipation through the centuries by means of excellent
paintings and sculptures, mostly by women artists. One
other hall is dedicated to the national artists
represented by their work.
The
National Art Gallery is, thus, not a mere random
exhibition of works: unlike other museum collections,
its style of curatorship is not merely presentative, but
it stimulates questions, brings out comparisons,
examines diverse approaches to a subject or theme and,
most of all, foregrounds and celebrates the plurality of
Philippine culture in its wealth of artistic
traditions—indigenous, ethnic, regional, or national—at
the same time that it seeks to bring out greater
understanding and sympathy among our people. |
