In a parking lot, the ticking of a clock, a whisper-like whirring and the clinking of metal can be heard. Spikes adorn a bicycle chain snaked around gears. Backlit x-ray scans glow behind a luminescent crucifix, both of which lie above the form of a disembodied head.
This is not a torture device, but an example of installation art by Filipino artist Gabriel Barredo. Asphalt, as the piece is called, reveals the dark machinery of modern life in visceral, twisted detail. As one of the showstoppers at Art Fair Philippines 2013—a yearly event launched in 2013 as a platform for exhibiting the best of local artistry—it exemplified the surreal trappings that art can possess.
Art can be alien and difficult to understand. Some people might even view it to be distant and unrelatable. For example, high art—or, as it is sometimes casually called today, ahrt—has always carried connotations of being exclusive.
But is it really only for a select few? Various Filipino artists, from industry mainstays to those still under the radar, have been working to make contemporary art more accessible to the Filipino public.
At the same time, bigger factors may be affecting why art is sometimes still viewed apprehensively. Though some people might hold that what stunts the development of art is simple, those working behind the scenes reveal the true machinery of Philippine contemporary art.
Drawing the line
Art in itself is already difficult to pin down with words, so identifying what is and isn’t contemporary art poses a similar challenge. “Contemporary” may suggest a connection to present-day matters, but mixed views come in when definitions go beyond the basis of time.
Thea Garing, exhibitions coordinator of the Ateneo Art Gallery and instructor from the Interdisciplinary Studies Department, points out the key role of social media in contemporary art. “Now, even if you’re in a separate area in the globe, you can see other things going on in other countries. So the influence is more potent,” she says.
Similarly, modern-day art seems to mark the end of labeling works within movements or schools. “A lot of these factions have broken up and become merged,” says Meggy Ong, an information design supersenior and contemporary artist. “Now, [distinction] is not so divisive, not as sharp anymore.”
While it is clear that opinions differ regarding how to grasp what the entire movement is, it likewise can’t be denied that people—artists and audiences alike—still participate in it. Exhibits aren’t ever completely empty; students such as Ong even choose to intern at galleries. This interaction between who chooses to see and who gets to be seen plays a central role in the struggle of defining contemporary art.
Double exposure
In the art scene, being popular in the first place can be necessary for exposure. Already being known makes your work more marketable.
“You have to get out of your way to showcase your art, and go to the right people who have influences,” says Trisha Katipunan, a contemporary artist and senior psychology major. Making a name for yourself isn’t impossible, but the system can be cyclical and selective.
In some ways, the systems embedded into the scene work against bringing new artists into the public eye. Art fairs and group shows usually favor artists who are already residents of affiliated galleries. They aren’t free-for-all affairs, but ones that work on certain biases.
Even getting art into the public eye in is a challenge in itself. “If you don’t have money to go to [an art fair in] Greenbelt and you don’t have a hundred bucks to pay the entrance fee, you won’t be able to witness it,” observes Katipunan. Despite efforts to make art more accessible to the public, some restrictions cannot be avoided.
The art scene has its difficulties, but the audience is not spared from also having its own prejudices. It’s a common misconception that art is exclusive. One negative view of the general public is that it’s inaccessible, but those involved in it beg to differ.
“It’s more of perception, people assume it to be an ivory tower,” Ong shares. Although this thinking occurs at a societal level, it permeates into individual standards as well, which makes it potent.
“They create that [standard], like, they tell themselves, ‘Oh, I can’t afford to look at that, I won’t understand,’” says Manuel Angulo, a sophomore communication major and contemporary artist, of those who tend to have negative prejudices against art. He notes how, as he experienced when studying abroad, art galleries aren’t treated with the same kind of distance that they’re given in the Philippines. “Abroad, there are always people in galleries because it’s something that they’d want to [visit], it’s like a park,” he says in a mix of English and Filipino.
In contrast, many galleries don’t require anything of their visitors. Most small galleries don’t even charge entrance fees, Ong shares. And though they may not know it, when people prefer not to enter museums, they may be passing on a fruitful opportunity. “It’s, in a way, visual education,” she says. Being exposed to art can sharpen one’s ability to manage a visual aesthetic.
The mindset has always possessed a particular power. When misguided, both the artists and the audience are in danger of being self-defeating.
Onward march
Shifting mindsets when it comes to art will definitely take time and turbulence, but that’s not to say that there aren’t any current initiatives.
For one, there’s 98B in Escolta—created in 2012 by Mark Salvatus to address the need for alternative art spaces in the Metro. One of its strengths being its accessibility, the creative venue holds openings for independent artists to share their work beyond the conventional means, through talks, bazaars or simple gatherings.
Likewise, there are ongoing endeavors that aim to bring contemporary art straight to the general public. There’s Art in the Park, an annual project of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines; here, wide varieties of works are open to audiences against the laidback scenery of a park.
Similarly, there are those who seek to fuse art with design. Garing mentions FreeWay, a venture that turns works by national artists into fashion apparel, and Heima, a shop that designs and sells eccentric furniture, as some examples. “[These are] ways in which people realize that art is not this stuck-up thing that you find in an enclosed space. It’s something that you live with—it’s something that is living,” she explains.
There’s no doubt that current misconceptions on contemporary art need to be challenged—the status quo revolves around a lack of simple exchange between the artist and the audience, and this only adds to the distance between the two.
Katipunan believes that there is no grand secret behind understanding it. “Contemporary art does not always have to be revolutionary… People [just] forget that basic entity of making someone feel—making someone remember things that they’ve been forgetting for a long time,” she says.
Garing likewise points out how bringing art to the public may be limited to precisely where it is set up, as exhibiting in Makati as opposed to Manila could make a world of a difference.
Still, she is still hopeful for the effort. Showcasing the contemporary art, after all, is just as much a work-in-progress as the process of crafting the art itself. From here onward, the possibilities with what contemporary art can be is endless—one need only imagine.
