Vanguard Curation

Visual Arts Exhibit 5th Backdoor Ventures Arts & Music Festival

Let's cut through the bull and get one thing off our chests: the arts is an economically invested enterprise. While you have so many people claiming that they love the arts, so few could say that they collect art out of sheer pure love. When you hear the word “collector” the imagery that goes through one's mind is not mainly a person passionately in love with art objects, but rather a person placed at an economically-advantaged position over you and me, one that could name a price and take home a culturally-priced frame at the pounding of a gavel. The irony here is that art objects are not mere investments, like land or bonds. Paintings, sculpture, photographs- these are not objects devoid of cultural and historic value. As previous arguments about art ought to have taught us, the arts have a huge impact on our culture and notions of identity. Juan Luna's Spoliarium is not just an award-winning painting; it is, among other things, a representation of the Filipino nation under colonial rule. It is a vision crafted by a struggling artist trying to tough it out in the Motherland España with maybe, just maybe, the purpose of wanting to prove that this Indio could compete against his Spanish brothers. Fast track to the 21st century, Juan Luna's Parisian Life got auctioned off to the tune of $870,000, leaving others aghast, “Such an amount for the price of heritage?” And yet others still muttering, “I'd rather be culture-less than be in debt.” If the art world were purely a marketplace, non-collectors like us or artists who have yet to make it big ought to have no stake in the market. Looksee, the sign says, “Do not touch.”

Fortunately, within the art scene are people who refuse the marketplace tag, choosing to focus on the arts' other virtues instead- aesthetics, beauty, hope, experimentation. However, how does one exactly do that in a field populated by commercial galleries waiting to sign on the hottest young thing?

Key to curator-artist Uly Veloso's vision is to go against this kind of logic, “What the media is fueling, the trend now, is that you buy the art not for what you see but for who it's from. If this trend goes on and on, the real artists will die because nobody will buy their work. And the appreciation of art by the new generation will be warped because they'll think that if something is expensive, it's naturally beautiful.” For the Visual Arts Exhibit of the recently concluded Fifth Arts and Music Festival, one of Veloso's main objectives is to bring back pure appreciation for the visual arts by stripping it of its economic baggage. A tall order, but perhaps an attempt that appropriately took place at one of the trade halls of SM Megamall, curiously also the first major shopping center to house art galleries and bring them to popular consciousness (however, one should not be led to think that this made galleries a popular destination among your mall-going market). Veloso would rather see their venue as strategic, “Why do we have a festival inside a mall? That's the biggest contradiction, especially an art exhibition. First of all, there's a commercial entity and enterprise attached to the survival of art. Since we don't have funding, we have to create our own economic strategy in order to finance all the cost.” Minimal ticket sales, booths that ranged from around Php5,000 to Php20,000 for three days, depending on the product one is carrying, along with a lineup of performers, art workshops, and an exhibit have characteristically made the Fifth Arts and Music Festival a different kind of art fair and attracted families, students, artists and non-artists alike.

Committing the Don'ts of Curating

Rebellion is inevitable if one were to go against set rules. For the Visual Arts Exhibit, Veloso laid out paintings and sculptures on the floor, hung them unevenly on the walls, filled empty spaces with unframed copy paper sketches, did away with pedestals for sculptures, and constructed an “art bonfire” of sorts, putting paintings on top of each other simply because they “ran out of space. Wala na kaming wall.” The resulting effect is an assault on one's vision, with stimulus coming in from every angle. “Giyera to di ba? It's war. If you wanna stand out, you have to put your work in that piece of corner and let it stand out by itself,” says Veloso.

Uly also referenced the common practices that privilege an artist's work, “In the galleries, they title your works, put you on a pedestal, and enclose you in glass. If you can see, parang tiangge ang aming setup, and this is intentional. Here, we put as many paintings as we can on a wall; as much as it would permit. There are also paintings on the floor. Some parents would come here and react, 'O, ba’t mo ginanyan yung painting ng anak ko? It should be hung on the wall. I want my daughter's painting on the wall.' I'd tell them, 'Yes, it's correct to hang a painting on the wall, but it's not wrong to look at the painting from the ceiling.' Some art pieces here, I placed it on the floor so people could see that floor pieces are also exciting.”

The manner of curation and the shocking effect it has on the audience also points one to the non-neutrality of the way art works are viewed inside galleries and museums where a confluence of framing conventions work together, i.e. the luxury of the white wall, expensive framing, meticulous lighting techniques, careful labeling, etc. to make art pieces appear as products of extraordinary genius. As Veloso puts it, “That's marketing- putting the artist on a pedestal and giving his work economic value and stature. I don't blame galleries for doing that. Works needed to be presented that way in order for them to acquire a level of status.”

Unless the artists themselves attach labels to the works, one will find them missing in the exhibit. It was another thing that the curator had forgone, “Some here are with labels because they choose to put labels. Personally, I don't put labels because I believe a real work of art doesn't need a label or a title to be able to communicate.”

A Platform for Every Artist

The more than 50 artist-exhibitors were a mixed group, reflecting Veloso's conscious choice not to discriminate among artists and not even to promulgate a certain taste or a certain medium, “Everyone is invited to exhibit as long as they let me take a look at the works and they talk to me about their ideas. Here, we put up graffiti, sculpture, realistic paintings, abstract paintings, mixed media; everything that constitutes the process of art making done by an artist, whether they have big names or not.”

Participants of the exhibit comprised of students from the Miriam High School Art Club where Veloso used to teach, students and alumni of the Fine Arts department of the following universities: University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, and FEATI University, as well as professional artists and professional dabblers in art. The list includes musician Dong Abay, his wife Ninj Abay and their son Awit Abay, whose concerns and personalities were reflected in the works they chose to submit- one of Dong Abay's works was an installation of an old closet which he used as a medium for a collage featuring music-related ads, banners, articles, Ninj's piece was a more structured two-dimensional collage work superimposed with a nude drawing, Awit, now 5 years old, submitted doodles made when he was just 3 years old. Connie Caxantino, a 6-year-old protege, showed his works on watercolor, with Uly especially proud because the parents of the child chose to encourage his inclination rather than discourage him as some parents are wont to do because of the perceived futility in pursuing a career in art.

Brothers Conrad and Victor Rillo's Convict blurs the line between equipment and sculpture. Crafting spherical speakers out of fiberglass, Conrad Rillo, also a practicing engineer, took on the challenge of breaking through the mold of traditional boxy speakers without sacrificing their acoustic capabilities. The result was a series of dynamically-shaped speakers which could be hung a number of ways.

Digital artist Pauline Balba makes a statement with portraits done on MS Paint, sticking with the old school program in spite of the proliferation of the more specialized Adobe franchise. Minda Ponce, documentary photographer for sports and film, exhibited photographs taken on the sly; ones that she says have a “more artsy approach.” On the aspect of displaying her images, Veloso advised the photographer not to have her photos framed under glass because it will be too expensive. The alternative that they came up with was to print the photos on textile and stretch it like canvas, framing it without glass matting. This made the process less costly and more appropriate for the venue which will not have the stringent security measures afforded by museums and galleries. That's another thing non-traditional museum-goers or even frequent museum-visitors will love: touch any of the art pieces on display and you will not be reprimanded.

Innovating Techniques in Curating and in Art Practice

Another curating don't which Veloso subscribed to: the lack of ego (or a very minimal one) on the curator's part. As mentioned earlier, Veloso gathered the artists and allowed them to actively make suggestions regarding the method of display for their works, “When I took over, I asked the artists who were present how they wanted the pieces to be hung and I let them. I don't have to interfere. Because yung aesthetics and that sense of curatorship of how to install the art pieces is already broken by the main concept of putting all art together in one venue.”

One sterling result of this attitude was the presence of curatorial experimentation in the exhibit. A favorite among the audience was the “art bonfire” in the FEATI wall. For this, Veloso collaborated with Neil dela Cruz and other artists from FEATI to create an altar of sorts, grouping the paintings together, piling them on top of each other. “This is a very unconventional way of hanging, of putting art. It is also the best picture-taking place.” Owing to the reaction generated from the audience, the method of displaying the paintings and using the space, has set the tone for next year's event, “Ang daming nagpapapicture dito, not just because it’s untraditional but also because it grabs your attention visually. That's why it's gonna push next year's installation of artworks even further.”

Creating a Space for Artists and Spectators

Not everyone may agree with Veloso's methods. Some may find his curatorial practice of piling paintings a conservator's nightmare or some may frown on the horror vacui present on the walls and hallway of his exhibition space, but perhaps what one should seriously consider are the issues being raised. “Everyone’s art piece here is in unison, shouting. We have around 300 artworks and we all want to show the world that we exist. You may not look at one work particularly; you may look at it as a whole. May maganda, may pangit, lahat; kumpleto di ba? Wala tayong fine-favoran. Walang porke sikat sya, dito sya o porke eto yung medium niya, dito siya. I’m not here to classify art; I’m here to show its endless possibilities to encourage the audience to think.”

In an increasingly market-dominated art scene, where money could grant one a precious commission or buy a space in the gallery, exhibitions like this offer a small clearing space for those artists, professional or amateur alike, whose output you may not see in museums and galleries. It may even spark the interest of those whose presence will otherwise remain unfelt in silent museum corridors. Every one ought to start somewhere. And we must remember efforts like this afford us, the public, an opportunity to exert our stake in our nation's culture and identity.

Photo credits

1: FEATI Wall, taken by Uly Veloso

2: Exhibit aisle with works by students from UP and UST, and the Miriam High School Art Club, taken by Uly Veloso

3: Exhibit detail

4: Exhibit detail, taken by Uly Veloso

5: Convict series by Manuel Rillo and Conrad Rillo, taken by Uly Veloso

6: Artworks by Minda Ponce (far left) and Pauline Balba (near right), taken by Uly Veloso

7: Exhibit detail

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