By Jt Nisay
Lavanderas by legendary artist Fernando Amorsolo screams Filipino. The painting is a masterful depiction of the inferential imagery of rural Philippines, where women are by a brook, while the painter is the country’s first National Artist for the Visual Arts, as declared in 1972. But even then, some contest that the work and the artist are not all that Filipino.
The argument stems from Amorsolo’s time at Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, where he happened to apply as a student but got accepted as an instructor.
Critics claim his exposure to Western culture during his tenure at the prestigious school has influenced—or, rather, tarnished the purity of—his sensibilities as a Filipino artist. The same goes with fellow art icon Vicente Manansala, whose riveting works of cubism was influenced by his French mentor Fernand Léger.
On the contrary, there are the likes of Carlos “Botong” Francisco and Elmer Borlongan. In the painting Kalantiao at Lubluban, Francisco depicts the Maragtas, or the story of the ancient datus of Panay, in an attempt to concretize a visual identity of pre-Spanish Philippines, complete with elements of the baybayin and anito. Meanwhile, Borlongan conveyed in Quiapo the Filipinos’ religious and resilient character.
Both utilized iconographies that are deeply embedded in Filipino culture, but both are criticized to have used them a tad too much, as experts argue that works with Filipino subjects command a relatively small value in the international market.
With the unforgiving extremes set, what then constitutes Filipino art? “We cannot define it because you can’t have a static answer to that,” Philippine art expert Ramon N. Villegas said recently, adding that the “Filipino-ness” of an artwork cannot be determined solely by referring to the artist’s name or decoding his strokes or his subjects.
This premise of Philippine art’s identity crisis (is there one?) is what fills Leon Gallery’s ongoing 16-lot curated auction, titled Two Navels. The title pays homage to the first published novel of Nick Joaquin in 1961, The Woman with Two Navels, where the literary titan implicitly explored the Filipino’s search for his own identity, coming as he does from a hodgepodge of cultures.
“In the same way Joaquin used the novel as a device to explore Filipino identity, we’re also using this curated auction as our jump-off point to know what is a Filipino artist,” said Lisa Guerrero-Nakpil, who cocurated the auction along with Villegas. Aside from the comparative causes of the novel and the auction, Joaquin was honored because next year will mark his 100th birth year, and that many of the featured artists in the auction are his contemporaries, like Arturo Luz and Fernando Zobel. Also part of the Two Navels are Felix Resureccion Hidalgo, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, H.R. Ocampo and Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera, to name a few.
Guerrero-Nakpil said by staging the burgeoning global format of a curated auction for the first time in the country, they hope to eliminate the cacophonies of traditional auctions and underscore what matters most. “The curated auction is our attempt to bring people beyond what they see at auction, like energetic bidding and high prices, which overshadows what art is really about. This is meant to refocus the public.”
In closing, she said the concern over what Filipino art is something that haunts a lot of contemporary artists, but one that is ultimately illusory. “There is no hidden deformity of being too Filipino or not Filipino enough. What actually it comes down to is ‘What is great art?’”
- In line with Leon Gallery’s The Magnificent September Auction 2016, Two Navels carries 16 lots and is ongoing until September 9, with the auction to be concluded on September 10, 2 pm, at Leon Gallery.