Torn and frayed in Manila

Pedro Garcia

Last weekend we visited Antipolo for the Gawad Kalinga art auction at Pinto gallery. The art was a bit off my price radar, but I was tempted by a painting of a piano and pianist by Pedro Garcia; I hope it found a good home.

A couple of years ago I bought a painting of a cocktail party by Garcia (below). As you can see, he goes for warm colors, which gives his works an intimate and cozy feel—see, for example, the conspiratorial (or gossiping?) group to the right of the painting. The painting is above our collection of jazz CDs and I often stand before it, glass in hand, wishing I could glide in among the guests eavesdropping on their chit-chat.

I liked the cocktail party painting so much I also bought a smaller piece by Garcia (below)—I love its sense of abandonment.

Amedeo Modigliani

The Royal Academy in London is featuring the brilliant Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani until 15 October. Ah well ...

Here's an extract from the Telegraph preview:

He died in penury and squalor in January 1920 at the age of 35, discovered by a neighbour in the final throes of tubercular meningitis, his bed strewn with bottles of alcohol and cans of sardines, his mistress Jeanne Hébuterne nursing him. She hadn't thought to call a doctor, but her devotion to her lover was so great that, two days after his death, she threw herself backwards from a fifth-floor window. She was nine months pregnant with their second child.

Yet compare that sordid story with Jeanne Hébuterne, A Door in the Background (1919), on display in Modigliani and his Models at the Royal Academy. In this radiant portrait, Jeanne sits slightly off-centre, her head to one side, her falsely elongated, white-sleeved arms to the other. The painting is full of warmth and richness, the red of Jeanne's shawl in subtle contrast to the red of the door and the lower wall behind her. Her blue eyes stare blankly, lost in inner contemplation, like some latterday Madonna, bringing serenity and warmth to the troubles of the world.

Rembrandt’s quadricentennial

Yup, Rembrandt van Rijn is 400 this Saturday, 15 July, , and he doesn’t look half bad on it I must say. I’d like to say that Frayed and I spent our Amsterdam stopover last week gazing at his paintings at the Rijksmuseum, but I’m afraid the rival attractions of coffee shop lounging and the World Cup won out (and as our favourite was the Amnesia Café that’s about all I can tell you). Amsterdam is such a wonderful city, we had a blast as always. A couple of years ago we did actually pop in to see the Rembrandts and very nice they were too—well worth a visit. Happy birthday RVR.

Postscript If you fancy a Rembrandt on your wall, why not put in a bid here?

Andy’s back

The inimitable Andy Maluche has returned to Manila after receiving more cancer treatment in Germany. The “cancer diaries” on his blog are really hilarious (if you can imagine that) and informative. He has posted an unpublished interview with himself on the blog. Here is a sample:

3 things that scare you?
George Bush, nationalism, religion.

3 things you want to try in the next 12 months?
Sex tied up, make money, blow everybody's mind.
But maybe I'd just like to smoke a joint.

3 things you just can't do?
Lie, dance, live without beer.

3 things you want to do really badly right now?
Jump in a car, go to the beach and have this interview there, smoke a joint, make wild, crazy, erotic love.

Andy’s art is just as wacky as he is – there is plenty for sale on his blog. It's good to have him back.

The artblog of Andy Maluche, new edition

One of Manila’s true originals, Andy Maluche, has a new website displaying his photographs and art. Unfortunately Andy is also quite ill and his treatment and operation have left him completely broke. And those great photos and paintings are for sale.

Andy's recently lost a part of his anatomy, but fortunately his sense of humour was stored elsewhere. His description of a visit to a Chinese traditional doctor in Quiapo is just hilarious. Here is a taster:

"Although it felt that way, the place wasn't actually dirty. It was something else. No part of the room seemed to have ever been considered to be in company with any other part of the room and everything stood at a slightly odd angle to the other objects which didn't really help the overall composition. The space gave you the impression that whoever holds office in here doesn’t give a shit about how the place looks. Judging from all the Chinese restaurants and offices I have seen in the Philippines, this philosophy seems to be at the very heart of the Filipino-Chinese Interior design code.

The doc himself looked so average that I have a hard time to describe any remarkable features about him. Mid-fifties, grey hair, glasses etc, you get the picture.

By the time we came in an old woman was about to sit next to the doctor on a plastic chair.

"Woa problem?" he kind of shouted but not too loudly. At that point I remembered my friend telling me before that the good doc, although being here in the country for many years, doesn't speak any English nor Tagalog.

I couldn't hear what the old woman was answering but I got the response of the Doc: "How Tae?"

Tae being the Tagalog word for stool and he seemed to be inquiring how the old lady’s bowels were moving. I felt pity for the old, sick woman having to discuss her bowel movements in front of 20 people who had nothing better to do than to intensely listen to what the each patient's problem was.

Then it struck me like lightning. This meant that when my turn came, I too would have to reveal my problem to a roomful of strangers. That was my moment of Zen. Instead of panicking I started to plot how I could possible get the most fun out the situation. I was suddenly liberated. I had no more problems openly discussing my condition, even in public.

Since the doctor didn't speak any common language with most of his patients, every time he had something to say he had to involve the whole room trying to help him to interpret. It became some sort of group therapy.

He would throw an indefinable combination of sounds at his patients, who then would just stare at him obviously having no clue what he was talking about. The doctor then would repeat the same a little louder directed towards the general "audience" hoping somebody can figure out what he is trying to say. Sometimes somebody gets it and translates it to the patient. Other times it didn't work so well and the doctor then just proceeded to write his prescription. I thought that it would make a great reality show. If your survivor group of patients can't figure out what the doc had to say, fat luck - you get sick, die and you are out of the show.'

Hong Kong tea seller

Dennis seldom looks this good or this bad, depending on your politics
Andy having a quiet intellectual conversation

What is a work of art?

John Carey, the literary editor of the Sunday Times asked that question on Sunday and his newspaper duly trumpeted his response as “a radically new definition”. Needless to say, Mr Carey’s thoughts on the matter were neither radical nor new, merely a rephrasing of the dreary relativism that has degraded British cultural life over the past 30 years.

“My answer to the question ‘what is art?’, is: a work of art is anything that anyone has ever considered a work of art.”

Thank you John! What a tremendously useful explanation that is, a work of art in itself. I consider it to be one, so I guess it is.

Actually, the article—which dashes through Kant, Warhol, and the soap opera Crossroads, among others—is worth reading. If Mr Carey has reached a nonsensical conclusion, at least he has done his homework and argued his case persuasively, which is more than one can say for most Sunday Times journalists.

Still, his definition can be attacked on many grounds, not least linguistically. “Art” is a word and, like all other words, it is a result of a societal consensus. If the rest of us sitting around in the cave decide to call the container simmering on a fire a “pot”, that is what it is. You may call it a “a work of art” if you like of course, but if you don’t to get your share of bison casserole, don’t blame me.

A good example of what happens when speakers are allowed to define their own words (which of course cease to be “words” if they mean something different to whoever uses them) came this weekend when Jack McConnell, chief minister of Scotland, described the fact that the Scottish Premier League would not be decided by a play-off between the two teams contesting the title, Rangers and Celtic, as “a tragedy”. Hmm – football is important to me too Jack, but as I trip over tragedy every day on my way work in Manila, I think you might have been guilty of a wee bit of hyperbole there.

So, OK let’s cut to the chase and allow this exhausted blogger a chance to get to the pub after a day spent tramping the highlands. “Art” is a word. A difficult word to be sure, but still a three-letter word. As such we all share a common understanding of what it means, more or less (the intersection in a venn diagram). Views will not coincide exactly – they don’t for any word; a “knife” for example will mean something slightly different to you and me, a butcher, or a murderer (assuming you are not a butcher or a murderer)—but we have a rough idea in common. This is which is where our friends the lexicographers come in. The definition below (Merriam Webster) may not be perfect, but it is a lot better than John Carey’s.

"art: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced."

Luna's "Spoliarium" -- a fail-safe approach to preventing art theft

If only galleries restricted their collections to paintings the size of the Juan Luna’s monumental “Spoliarium”, nicking paintings would be a lot harder than it was in Oslo earlier this month. Luna’s painting is nearly 8 metres wide and over 4 metres high and occupies an entire wall of one of the National Museum’s galleries.

Like Van Gogh, Juan Luna conformed almost exactly to the stereotype of the unstable artistic genius (see the short biography here). Most notoriously, in a fit of jealousy he murdered his wife and mother-in-law and wounded his brother-in-law in Paris 1892 (although he was later acquitted).

Although Luna painted many exquisite works (see below), the gruesome Spoliarium (which depicts a hall in ancient Rome where dead and dying gladiators were dragged, stripped and abandoned) remains his most famous work. In researching this post I discovered there is even an Eraserheads song called “Spoliarium”.

One reason for the painting's enduring popularity can perhaps be found in the comments of Graciano Lopez Jaena when Luna and Felix Resurrección Hidalgo won medals at the 1884 Madrid Exposition:

“… The Philippines is nothing more than a real spoliarium with all its horrors. There in all parts lie despoliation, human dignity is there ridiculed; the rights of man have been trampled upon; equality is nowhere … [Quoted in: 100 Events that Shaped the Philippines, p. 200]

Hmmm.

See "psychicpants" for more on the significance of the Spoliarium.

"Scream" robbers had no class

"Some guys in balaclavas stole my frame!"

Balaclavas? Didn't they go out with 1960s Michael Caine movies? The gang that stole another version of the "Scream" in the early 1990s showed a much greater sense of post-modern irony:

"That infamous theft involved a ladder run up against the wall of the gallery at night, a shattered window pane and a picture postcard - featuring three men laughing uproariously - left on the wall inscribed with the message "Thanks for the poor security". At the time the painting was estimated to be worth £48m."

Mario de Rivera

No real reason for including this except that it was my favourite piece from his show at Hiraya last year and it brightens the place up a bit.

Arts and letters daily

This is a fantastic page of links to articles on arts and culture.

Thanks Yogi.