Report from Singapore

Poklong Anading's basahan installation

Asian ties and rants about the poor economy at Art Stage Singapore 2012

In many of its nooks and corners, Singapore embodies the best of modern Southeast Asia. The theme of Art Stage reflects this: We Are Asia. It is a claim to a place in the sun for a region that has been uncharted territory even under the greater attention given to Asian art in the last decade. A lot of people are saying that this fair is worse than the previous one because of the looming crisis in Europe. But this observation seems only to matter if you look at the fair in the lens of the economist or the businessmen (who comprise most of the fair’s collectors).

For Yumie Wada of Wada Fine Arts Tokyo, this year is better. Her gallery, long established in Tokyo now has two wheels with a big Beijing gallery opened last year. In her second participation in Art Stage, she punched in the most recent darling of Southeast Asian Art, Rodel Tapaya. He is reckoned in the region for winning the coveted Signature Art Prize competed among artists in the Asia-Pacific this year.

Rodel Tapaya’s two mural-sized and four medium-sized acrylic on canvasses have caused a lot of traffic in this section of the fair with collectors of every race and country flocking to see his follow-up. Will he disappoint? Will he falter like everyone else did after winning a major award like some of those who won the Turner? I too had my qualms but by all accounts he did not. I don’t want to send the wrong message across that sales are equivalent to the success of the artist but there is something beyond marketing genius with his works selling faster than we can mount them on a wall. As assisting curator to his solo exhibition booth at the fair, I am met with awe and slight curiosity about the art market. Everyone’s complaining about the crisis but the long waiting list of clients who want to buy a Tapaya just keeps on adding up.

The Japanese collector of Aida Makoto’s ash-colored mountains also on view at the Singapore Art Museum, Mr. Taguchi, has recently acquired one of Tapaya’s murals.The Taguchi collection is one of the most prominent in Japan, a country whose art scene is dominated by old collectors who buy mostly modern pieces. The young collectors are just few but influential. They are fascinated by the Filipino painter, the only Southeast Asian in Yumie Wada’s roster of artists to date. Her business partner remarks that “Tapaya reminds you of a dream of something but you cannot remember what about or when. It speaks to you like a distant memory from childhood.”

The remarks seem honest. These collectors want a piece because of a strong emotional affinity they create with the artist’s subject. I am surprised that they take time to read the stories culled from Philippine pre-history featured in Tapaya paintings, show it off in their living rooms and keep it like they would a beloved family heritage, even if they are culturally-bound. The viewers, although aware that these are Philippine folkore, imagine the paintings in the way they would imagine their equivalent in their own culture. They care not of weak economy. Evidence of this is Wada Fine Arts itself which used to be a strictly Japanese gallery, as most Japanese galleries have been for the longest time until recent economic crisis and the tsunami have forced them to look out to neighbors. One recalls that Japan and the Philippines have a long relationship. Both are on Asia’s frontiers to the Pacific, both shared their stories and beliefs from Animism to Anime. During the Spanish colonial times, a Japanese community had been set-up in Pandacan for Christian Japanese fleeing their homeland. It is no surprise that the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, wrote stories about his stay in the land of the rising sun where he fell in love with a Japanese painter named O Sei San who taught him the techniques of Sumi-e. During the 1896 revolution the Japanese government had sent a shipment of armaments in support of the revolutionaries but this ship was sunk before it reached Manila. Almost half a century later, unfortunately the old allies found itself on opposing sides of World War II. The ties were severed and the two nations were alienated after that. It is said that in terms of economic power, the Philippines along with Japan dominated Asia in the early second-half of the previous century but one had managed to industrialize and prosper, the other slumped into permanent calamity. In lieu of war-reparations, most of the public infrastructures in the Philippines are funded by the tax payers of Japan.

That a Filipino painter should enter the closed circle of Japan’s art scene comes as nothing but a natural incident. But Filipino Artists when exhibited in by a Tokyo gallery are no longer just being initiated into the Japanese but the Asian art scene as well. People have learned to accept their past and see themselves as part of a larger weave in history. The motto of Art Stage Singapore is echoed in the lips of young Japanese collectors, “I am no longer Japanese, I am Asian.” Upon learning of the courteous if not flattering gesture of his Japanese admirers, Tapaya admitted that his work is partly influenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s galactic imagination. Miyazaki is arguably Japan’s best-known animator for his work in Spirited Away. The Japanese instantly said, “aha!” over this. Many of them have suspected the connection for some time. On the night of Rodel Tapaya’s awarding, Yumie Wada tells the story of curator Fumio Nanjo’s phone call to her gallery. “Congratulations,” he said. “Your artist has won Asia’s most prestigious art prize.” Baffled, she could only say thank you. But which artist won, she asked Nanjo. Apparently, Rodel Tapaya had not bothered to inform her about getting in the shortlist because he did not expect to win.

An avid collector of Rodel Tapaya in Japan read about Aida Makoto placing second in the art prize but the news article did not mention the name of the “Filipino who won the first prize.” He asked around and was pleased to know he was right in his suspicion. It is no other than Rodel Tapaya.

***

Elsewhere in the art fair, Filipino artists stand-out with their stunning presentation. It saddens me a little bit that they could not receive the overwhelming attention they get here in Manila. In this tiny island, newspapers get gaga over the events in the arts. One can easily spot Gaston Damag’s Bulol installation at Galerie Zimmerman Kratochwill for its distinct macabre sagacity- the wax Bulols melted under the bulb and one of them had its face peeled off and lying on the floor, seemingly looking at its viewers like a cadaver in a casket.

Around the walls are Manuel Ocampo’s paintings which surprised some Singaporeans who followed the Filipino painter in the 90s. “This is not the Manuel Ocampo I know.” I recall an interview he gave during that time where he said he left painting that comments on Western Imperialism in the twentieth century because he “was bored with that shit.” While on the surface, Ocampo may have changed subjects, drifting from the perceptively figurative to a wilder abstract form, his attitude did not. This reflected in his advocacy back in Manila where he invites international artists and curators to teach workshops. He has also engaged in curating a show for a selected group of artists in Berlin called Bastards of Misrepresentation. His self-aware mockery of the show he organizes reflects his non-traditional attitude. Perhaps more than his paintings, Ocampo is a startling personality armed with international experience and insight uncommon in many of the artists in the Philippines. It is interesting to note that not until 2010 through Valentine Willie Fine Art in Singapore did he exhibit in any other part of Southeast Asia and not until last year with the opening of Department of Avant-garde Cliches, a gallery showcasing contemporary prints and drawings did people see him as a permanent fixture in the Manila art scene. Nevertheless he maintains a studio and remains almost half of the year in Europe.

Alfredo Aquilizan’s boat installation had a little trouble with lighting. It didn’t seem to put justice on the installation form, an unstable accumulation of packaging cartons piling up on a steel boat forming the shape of an ancient galleon. He managed to put up an eloquent concoction of elements from the Philippine’s past and present. It retells the story of sea-faring people that other Asians can definitely relate. The installation is fitting to the venue, flawlessly executed but it still needs better lighting.

Annie Cabigting’s solo exhibition at the Finale booth entitled Painting under the influence of Painting is an arresting arrangement of people seemingly caught under a spell while in conversation with a work of art. The representation of a Jackson Pollock in Cabigting’s signature photo-realistic style is admirable. I could never imagine re-painting the flicks and drips of Pollock done mostly in outbursts of painting energy. Cabigting has rendered it in almost the opposite: hazed and meticulous, revealing a figurative characteristic and a color pattern in the Pollock painting that may not be easily noticed.

My focus, though, is stolen by Finale’s two guards in blue short-sleeved barongs that seemed like the gallery owner’s bodyguards. They look intimidating at first but they smile. They gesture at me to enter and get a closer look. They seem to be missing pieces in Cabigting’s suit of paintings about people looking at painting in museums. The only thing needed to complete this is a note that says; Please do not touch the work.

Poklong Anading’s basahan (cloth wipes) installation which I saw first at Mo_Space seemed more appealing in the fair. Spiraling, towering, strewn across. Maybe it’s the congestion of the space or its freshness for in every other corner of the fair, no one else did something so simply quotidian and yet telling.  While looking at them and thinking about profound ideas that must have wired Poklong to his basahan, about his plexiglass boxes filled with these colored wipes I saw years back at Vargas Museum, I saw his gallerist, Ms. Zimmerman wipe her hands in one of them. I thought, that’s the beauty of this piece, after serving its purpose as an art object, with one single gesture it comes back to its everyday purpose. It is the only artwork in the world that can never get too dirty.

***

A recent CNN prediction says that China will be the economic superpower surpassing the US by 2050 and the Philippines will leap-frog from the 43rd to the 16th largest economy in the World. That is by far the biggest leap a country can do in terms of growth. I have often predicted that the exponential maneuvers will be likewise felt in the arts. In her controversial article published last year in Business World, Adeline Ooi has commented that she sees Philippine Art as slightly off-tracked. I did not believe all of her observations not because of her diminutive comments implied towards Filipino artists in the social-realist tradition but mainly because we differ in art historical perspective, although this one if true, can be used to our benefit. Slightly off-tracked is exciting. It can be our edge against the proliferation of other kinds of art. If there’s one thing I know about the behavior of art making and the art market, it always seeks to make something if not find something new. The grander the longer the adventure the better. If we can hold the world in suspense then we have succeeded in part to fulfill this mission. The Philippines has had a long history of interaction with both oriental and occidental art forms than any other Asian country. In every breakthrough from French Impressionism to Western Minimalism, a Filipino was there. The Beijing artists may have taken global attention with their vivacious and immense arts scene developed while looking towards developments elsewhere in the world, googling every possible artist they could in warehouse studios, but the Philippines will remain the most energetic with unending potential, galloping like a dark horse in the night. You can say I’m too optimistic. That these impressions are only brought about by our good artists remaining in the shadows or marooned in distant lands for so long, achieving only marginal recognition in a marginalized art practice since the time of Felix Hidalgo, but it is evident in Art Stage; more and more of our artists will be recognized internationally as Filipinos first and then as Asians, as we penetrate into the identity of what the world sees as Asian Art.

Rodel Tapaya and wife Marina Cruz looking at Baston ni Kabunian, Bilang pero di Mabilang painting at Singapore Art Museum

Frank Callaghan’s Moonshine Baseline series at the Silverlens booth

Nyoman Masriadi, Oknum Vs Residivis, Gajah Gallery

M.Irfan, Fighting For You, Gajah Gallery

Poklong Anading’s basahan installation

Alfredo Aquilizan’s installation work at Art Stage Singapore

Dex Fernandez and Pow Martinez at Pablo Gallery booth

Related articles

• 5 Things You Need To Know About Art Stage Singapore 2012 (popspoken.com)