Tag: José Rizal

• Art Conversations: Critical Art Practices in the Philippines

  

  A hundred and fifty years after Jose Rizal’s death, about a hundred years after Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain, where do we actually find ourselves? We are still stuck in the conventions of the great masters of the great museums all over the world. At least, it appears that we are. How did we get here? How did the Filipino aesthetic sensibility missed the point of modern art as we proceed towards the end of a post-modern world. We are also at the balancing point as the contemporary art world tends to move beyond the post-modern. A post-post-modern perhaps? Yet, as recent controversies surface, it appears that the Philippine artworld, at least that outside of the academe, was left far behind in terms of art discourse. The national art institution–the Cultural Center of the Philippines, remains stuck within the concept of “the true, the good and the beautiful”, being left behind by contemporary art discourse.

  The controversy surrounding the Kulo Exhibit for the commemoration of Jose Rizal’s 150th birth anniversary started almost quietly, as the artworld laughed it off and regarded it as something that would increase Mideo Cruz’s market value. But soon enough, due to the influence of the netizens on the internet, it exploded into something else. There were numerous controversies surrounding the artworld before, but it has never been as widely felt as Mideo Cruz’s Poleteismo. The most obvious reason is that it went head to head against a powerful Philippine institution–the Catholic Church. Another reason is the media hype created through the use of traditional media–television, radio and newspaper and heightened by the new media–the internet. For the first time, every person who has access to the internet, which is a large percent of the Filipino people can give their comments and opinions through various sites available, as well as on the articles published by the daily newspapers. Everyone can express the voice and be heard, without the curatorship of newspapers and publishers. These comments can also be made under the cloak of anonymity, so there was a no limitation and no censorship on the opinion on the matter. Art even became a trending topic on Twitter during the senatorial hearing conducted for the controversy. There were a healthy amount of debates, not only on the “offensive” nature of Mideo Cruz’s art work, but more importantly, on the nature of art itself.

  Various issues were brought up, that in a matter of days and weeks, the art exposure and education of the Filipino population was widely exposed. Surprisingly, numerous debates that have been long-buried within the academic world was once again unearthed by the population. The very nature of art and artist was debated upon along with the concept of good art and bad art, as well as the concept and definition of beauty. Even the role of the institutions in art production as well as the rules, regulations and laws that may apply to art production was widely explored. Some concepts were surprisingly archaic while others were issues are very complex as it applies to the Filipino imagination.

   Part I of Art Conversations. I am working on this topic. I am posting it here, hoping for a response from those who wants to engage in this conversation.

  

  Related articles

  • Remembering Rizal and a Poetry Performance (portiaplacino.com)
  • Rizal Day (socyberty.com)
  • Jose Rizal (raymondolivercruz.wordpress.com)
  • An Army of One… (americanhobbyistblog.wordpress.com)
  • The Greatest Malayan Lover (socyberty.com)
  • Ebooks in the Philippines (teleread.com)
  • The nationalism in education during revolutionary period (slideshare.net)
  • Josephine : Philippines (kiva.org)
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  • The 1st International Conference on Rizal (a.k.a. So You Think You Know Jose?) (thekayumanggitrails.org)
  • GOMBURZA and Watermelons (edicio.wordpress.com)
  • Are We Filipinos Really Educated*? (mariagemmamarcelo.wordpress.com)

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  February 21, 2012

  Art Conversations, Art world, contemporary art, Cultural Center of the Philippines, José Rizal, Kulo, Mideo Cruz, Poleteismo

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• Remembering Rizal and a Poetry Performance

  

  In their late 20’s, Rizal wrote Noli Me Tangere, Luna painted the Spoilarium and Bonifacio started the armed revolution. Those of us in our late 20’s today, what are we doing with our lives? We go on Facebook and Twitter, we chat, we over-pay for our coffees, we drink and party. A lot of us are forced to work in call centers and other outbound services that pay a tad better than other workplaces. What are we really achieving?

  This musing is paraphrased from and inspired by an Ambeth Ocampo quote that spread in Facebook some time ago. I can’t remember his exact words. But it went on something like that. I am in my late 20’s. Though I have never worked in a call center or any corporation for that matter, I understand the sentiment. It’s not just because young people want much money that they go to those workplaces, sometimes (or most times), it’s just the work that is available. At least it is the work that is largely available with a good pay. I’m a teacher and I also have some research projects, I have to say that friends in corporations have more financial stability compared to myself. In today’s society, we do need money to survive. To get money, we need jobs, and the jobs that are widely available are in fact, call center jobs.

  Maybe someday, the government will help Filipinos in the creation of jobs. No, not outsourcing from foreign companies but developing local industries for our citizens. They can develop local agriculture in the provinces. We can think of ways to create jobs, so we can stop exporting Filipinos; and start to create a self-sustaining Philippines. Maybe when this happen, we can have more time, energy and resources to develop the arts. Maybe then, we can inspire more people to be like Jose Rizal.

  We commemorate Rizal Day every December 30. There are a lot of arguments on his being declared as a National Hero, as well as the colonial agenda behind it. Nevertheless, his words are imprinted in us. He wrote the great Filipino novel, yet to be surpassed. I found a Facebook post once, computing the costs of Rizal’s education and travels; it is substantial, to say the least. But his relatively comfortable life and his opportunities to travel the world and educate himself does not make him any less of a hero. I have great respect for the revolutionaries, of course. Yet, there is something about fiction that immortalizes an age, just like what Rizal did with his Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Through his text, his writings, his letter and his poetry, we shall never forget. What he left us should be substantial enough to remind us of our history.

  We should nurture the arts. Jose Rizal is proof enough of it.

  This reminds me of the last event I attended for 2011–2HOG: tula-dula-musika-pelikula last December 14 at PETA Theatre. Renato (Butch) Santos, as I find out through Google is a retired banker turned Palanca-winning poet. He pushes and explores the Filipino language in the creation of poetry. Though current usage such as jejemon and text renditions makes a lot of us cringe, he manipulates it into his poetry and makes it relevant to the Filipino youth. This is the challenge of art today, how can we make it relevant for Filipinos today?

  2HOG is not just poetry, but inter-media performance. PETA called it cinepoetry or moving poems. The poems were written by Butch Santos while the performance was directed by Maribel Legarda. The visual inter-play was no doubt on the theatrical side–the movements, voices and general acting is larger than life. Such performance will not be out-of-place in a theatrical space. It feels like the actors and the poetry are trying to break out of the screen into the on-looking audience.

  Though there are quieter moments in the short performance, it is not made to be subtle. This is among the events that I wish I was able to show my students. Poetry has become detached to the Filipino youth, hearing it and seeing it move would help them appreciate the experience. Uploading it to YouTube is also an excellent idea. As a teacher, I know how difficult it is to get a printed text and convince a student to actually read it. But if it’s in YouTube, it can certainly be a different conversation entirely. (See the cinepoems in Youtube here.) Butch Santos even announced the link during the event, his username is Ewanlangatbpngkuwan.

  Yet, the experience of being there, despite the smallish crowd is something else entirely. The mood, the live music, the inter-play of the senses cannot re-created online. At least, not yet. I think that we need more performances of this kind to inspire the youth. Creating and performing should re-claim its place in the spotlight. Rizal was killed for his daring. Today’s artists are killed by a lack of support. If these performances could be made widely available, the public may then re-evaluate the role of art in their lives and perhaps may inspire them to think of what they can do for our country.

  Butch Santos was a banker for most of his life, but it did not stop him from being a poet. Neither should the call center industry stop our youth from being artists. As seen numerous times before, the internet is not a place to be limited, rather, it is a place to push boundaries. It was a struggle for Rizal to publish his work, it is no struggle for us to publish ours now. Granted, the accepted avenues may still be difficult to get to, but the advent of internet technology helps us break that barrier. The challenge now is to create something of value with the medium we are provided. 2HOG is just a start.

  Here are some photos that I have taken during the event.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I still hope we can create more spaces for the arts, as well as nurture artists and future artists, so more events like this can be possible for more people. In time, we can see another great Filipino novel of Noli Me Tangere‘s proportion. It may not necessarily be in print but in inter-media such as this.

  Related articles

  • Rizal Day (socyberty.com)
  • Jose Rizal (raymondolivercruz.wordpress.com)
  • The Greatest Malayan Lover (socyberty.com)
  • Rizal and His Metaphorized Chemo (xoxocriseldalovestowrite.wordpress.com)
  • Poignant Words from Jose Rizal (edicio.wordpress.com)

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  January 2, 2012

  2HOG, Ambeth Ocampo, Butch Santos, cinepoem, José Rizal, PETA, Theater Review

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• Jose Rizal, Mideo Cruz, Kulo and Censorship

  

  150 years. Did the world really change? Most times, I feel like life is spearing ahead too fast. But if you examine our history, our legacy, you may ask, did it really change?

  150 years after. We celebrate Rizal’s 150^th birthday with exhibits, shows, parades and many other commemorative exercises. We celebrate the hero. Yet, are we really free from the things that he was fighting for, more than a century ago?

  Today, we are faced with things that I didn’t think is still possible, especially in the age of internet and new media. CENSORSHIP. Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, do the Filipinos still know that these novels were censured by the Spaniards? Why? Because it was offensive to the church. Do we not remember that? Do we not remember so many of our heroes, persecuted, tortured and killed because of causing offense to the church, because they were fighting for our rights.

  Why then, that after more than a century, this hard-fought battle is still ongoing. Sadly, now, it is Filipino against Filipino. Mideo Cruz strikes at our culture, at our beliefs. He makes us think, he offends. But he does not attack a person; he does not curtail anyone’s right. Yes, he offends, but it is never against the law to offend. He challenges our society, is that so wrong?

  What hurts more is that the Philippine press, the very institution that should be the bastion and supporters of the freedom of expression, contributed to its curtailment. Irresponsible journalism runs amok in the country, selling even their fellow artists out for increased ratings and earnings. XXX completely misrepresented the exhibit, without any objectivity in their reporting. This was followed by other columnists and newspaper writers. Do you know your crime? Do you not honour your brothers and sisters who died fighting for just that—for the freedom of expression? Yet now, you sell us out.

  The church started calling us sinners, calling to arms their supporters. Is that not a bigger problem of our society? The followers of Catholic belief, of Christianity—creating hate pages, threatening death and violence, attempting arson, vandalizing and worse demonizing Mideo Cruz and other cultural workers, yet the CBCP thinks that the art is the problem? They never even called to their people to stand down, they never asked them to be calm, and instead, they instigated this hatred and violence. Amazing, for people who say they follow one of the most peace-loving persons that ever lived, Jesus of Nazareth himself.

  Expectedly, the Aquino Administration supports this. PNoy himself, called the board and let them know of his displeasure and of “concerns” over the issue on the exhibit. Democracy, yes. But if you are the President of the country, there is an obvious imbalance of power. There is a big discrepancy of the expression of my own personal opinion and the opinion of the President of the country. Is it really your democratic right? To censor? More so of our atrocious Senators. Senator Sotto threatens to use his power as Senate Majority Leader to deprive CCP of its budget. Along with Senators Enrile and Estrada, they demanded the resignation of the CCP Board. Over what? Do they not know that they are committing a Grave Abuse of Discretion? That according to the Doctrine of Prior Restraint, they are not allowed to go through with a Senatorial inquiry because it is a curtailment of the Bill of Rights?

  This is not the Middle Ages, we can offend the Catholic Church, there is no incidence of Offending Religious Feelings according to the Revised Penal Code—the work was not done inside the church, no religious service was interrupted and no one was prevented from practicing their religion. No public fund was spent by Mideo Cruz, it was a Venue Grant. He exhibited inside CCP but he was given no money by the government to create his work, he was not paid to exhibit. It was simply his artistic expression. The people breaking the law are the abusive fanatics who vandalized, threatened life and property, and even the Senators and the President who are abusing their political powers in order to censor, a crime against our human rights, as stated in the 1987 Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Ironic, that a law established by the first President Aquino is being destroyed by her only son, the second President Aquino.

  We Filipinos have fought long and hard, so we can attain the democracy that we have now. Yet, this democracy is being destroyed by denying us our basic human right. Even Rizal, the hero for whom the Kulo exhibit was for, died fighting for that right. People keep on missing that point, that exhibit was not about the RH Bill, it was about the struggles of Jose Rizal. We now get to experience firsthand the kind of oppression Rizal suffered from the church. What’s worse, we are suffering oppression from our fellow Filipinos rather than from foreign colonizers.

  Rizal died for us, for our country; he died fighting for this freedom. He died to show us and the rest of the world our reality and suffering. Do we continue to be oppressed people? Do we continue to be ruled by an oppressive religion? What do we do now? I can my fellow Filipinos to continue fighting this struggle. It has been too long. Too many centuries we have been oppressed, it is time we break free from it. Rizal tried, but is it all in vain? Do we all in that same trap? Or do we fight?

  I say no to censorship, as many others say no to censorship. Let our voices be heard. Let us not stand by and watch as our basic human right is denied us. It is not about Mideo Cruz and the Kulo exhibit anymore. It is about oppression, censorship, irresponsible journalism, misrepresentation of religious doctrine and most of all, abuse of power. We should not accept this sitting down. We should stand up and fight.

  Related articles

  • Statement on the Closure of the “Kulo” Exhibit at the CCP by the Department of Art Studies, UP Diliman (mandiwa.wordpress.com)
  • Portia’s Casket (On Censorship) | Voices News for the week of August 10, 2011 (portiaplacino.wordpress.com)
  • Wisma Putra: Do something about this diplomatic stupidity (dinmerican.wordpress.com)
  • [Statement] Beyond the Artist and the Art – DAKILA (hronlineph.wordpress.com)
  • Where Art Thou? (drippingmind.wordpress.com)
  • Philippines shuts art show deemed offensive (foxnews.com)
  • Over Rizal (portiaplacino.wordpress.com)

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  August 14, 2011

  Catholic Church, CCP, Censorship, El Filibusterismo, Filipino people, Human rights, José Rizal, Kulo, Mideo Cruz, Philippines

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