Papelismo

Paper Power – But The Medium Is Not The Message

by Filipina Lippi
Manila Bulletin – Mon, Sep 24, 2012

Five Filipino artists try to resurrect the value of paper as a medium in "Papelismo", a two-week exhibit that began on Sept. 4 at the Crucible Gallery in SM EDSA in suburban Mandaluyong.

Paper has been with us since ancient times and its versatility seems to make it an ideal medium for the modern age. But Renato Habulan, curator of the show, says in the Philippines, galleries shun art works (done) on paper because of their lack of commercial viability. "Despite the long history of printmaking dating back to the early '60s, paper as a medium has to be nurtured -- like a child," he says.

Instead of carving paper into complicated and intricate designs, the participating artists in "Papelismo" reverted to what after all are paper's pragmatic uses: printmaking, water color, editorial cartoon, book design, and preliminary mural studies. The artists seem to be saying that the medium is, precisely, not the message.

"Papelismo" expands paper power not with form but with content.

The show's title, "Papelismo," is a word-play on the various conceptual ismos (like kapitalismo, komunismo) that have crept into the Filipino language. It also suggests the question: Ano ang papel mo? The artists in this show do not belong to the art-for-art's-sake clique, but are inheritors of a 40-year old social-realist theme that requires art to serve social interests.

"We agreed to come out with old works done on paper -- circa '70s to the '90s," said Habulan, referring to two decades of socio-political and historical unrest in the Philippines. Plus the show's timing, in September, is also a reflection of the social realists' remembrance of the declaration of martial law period in 1972.

Habulan's pieces in the show include studies in pencil for a mural that depicts the massacre of 16 La Sallite brothers and 25 civilians, by retreating Japanese soldiers inside the chapel of De la Salle College on Taft Avenue, in Manila on February 12, 1945. These sketches center on La Sallite brothers who are administering the last rites before they are cut down with bayonets. A recount of the gruesome scene says that a Japanese officer and 20 Japanese soldiers tried to rape the dying women before they set the chapel on fire. Only 10 survived this particular incident, according to records.

World War II's violence mirrors, "in spirit," the terrifying political upheavals in the Philippines from the '70s to the '90s, says Habulan who was commissioned in 1986, to make a mural for St. Joseph Institution, a school run by the De La Salle Christian Brothers in Singapore.

On the other hand, Fred Liongoren injected editorial images in his two watercolor paintings, where one work shows President Benigno Aquino, a speech bubble above his head, saying, "Ano ba ang dapat... (what should be done)?" Facing him is a large portrait of Jose Rizal, the country's national hero. In the same painting is an iconic portrait of Senator Benigno Aquino, the president's father, whose assassination at Manila's international airport in August 1983 sparked a military mutiny that ousted a dictator in 1986.

Liongoren's other piece entitled, "Montero (expensive car) ni Juan," depicts an overloaded motorcycle with extended backseat or side-saddle, locally known as habal-habal or Skylab, -- common conveyance for poor people in the provinces.

These two new paintings symbolize how serious the renowned abstract painter is at adopting the comic strip and the editorial cartoon as relevant forms of expression - for the masa.

A third artist, Benjamin Torrado Cabrera, says "I am part of this show because I use paper as a printmaker, and I don't ask for a high price for my works. I believe that printmaking democratizes art". Cabrera is one of the country's sensitive and expressive print-makers.

"My prints have angst, but they don't seethe with anger," says the artist who distinguishes his style from other social realists. "My philosophy is introspective, hindi ako galit sa mundo. The natural fusion of representational and abstract images in my works comes from my innate sense of the real and the metaphysical."

Forty editorial cartoons drawn by Jose Pinggot Zulueta provide majority of the show's angry images, a collection of his almost daily output for the tabloid newspaper Abante from 1986 to 1991. Zulueta started sketching them from the time Nationalist Artist Virgilio Almario was the paper's editor. He continued doing editorial cartoon from 1988 to 1991 after the paper was sold to Malaya and came under the editorship of Noel Abano. Zulueta claims kinship with the late Nonoy Marcelo with whom he worked as illustrator-cartoonist of the Manila Chronicle.

"I turned to photography when I got tired criticizing government officials and powerful people," says the artist who abandoned his pen for the camera when he worked as a photojournalist, initially, for Daily Globe, and later, for the lifestyle section of the Manila Bulletin.

"Papelismo" also includes seven illustrations for children's books done by multi-awarded Arnaldo "Arnel" Mirasol, the artist behind the colorful images of "Tamales Day" (by Didith Tan); "Long Ago and Faraway: (Grimms' fairy tales retold)" by Fran Ng; and "First Man Around the Globe," an ode to a Filipino slave believed to have circumnavigated the world ahead of Ferdinand Magellan.

His illustrations for "The Origin of the Frog" (by Liwayway Arceo) bagged the runner-up prize at Japan's Noma Concourse in 2000; his drawings for "Brothers Wu and the Good Luck Eel"(by Fran Ng) was on the honorable mention list of the International Foreign Books for Young people in Basel Switzerland in 2000

Future Plans

"Papelismo"'s participants see divergent paths ahead of them. With the exception of abstract painter Liongoren who has the heart of a social realist, the rest seem happy to say good bye to social realism.
"Ang daming dapat punahin. When we did that in the past, we just said 'ehem.' It's now time to say, 'aha,"' says Liongoren. His frustration about inequalities and greed have been pushing him to create a "dagger-like art" - one that is easily understood by the masa -- to intensify anger and indignation against the lack of delicadeza among powerful politicos who hold on to power while remaining inept at solving the country's problems.

"After Pablo Picasso painted "Guernica" (the bombing of the Basque village by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War in 1937), he says, a painting can no longer be tolerated as merely showing the penthouse of the rich," says Liongoren, adding, "I still value (stirring up) indignation against the prevailing status quo in the Philippines."

When he was barely out of college in the '60s, Liongoren was already being cited by critics as one of the most promising abstract painters of his generation. His serene landscapes in watercolor (circa '80) have reaped praises for their sheer poetry.

Habulan, a powerful social realist from the '70s to 2000, has recently been engaged in portraying images of folk religion. He believes in the authenticity of pre-Hispanic religious sentiment that animates some of the current cultic folk practices. For Habulan, the idea of "transcendence" supersedes violence and anger (or revolution).

Zulueta, on the other hand, has decided to move on as an abstract painter. "I don't think I can go back to editorial cartoons. For me, abstract art is pure emotion," said the former peripatetic editorial cartoonist. Zulueta's three art shows in the past, coincided with major stages in his life. In 1985, he painted, in representational style, marine life for a show entitled "Tilamsik"; In 2002, he printed enhanced photo images on watercolor paper, for a show entitled "Asinta: Images and Imageries"; In 2005, his travails as a migrant in New Zealand (together with his wife Vanessa and daughter Paula in 2002) translated into surreal images of a man with clipped wings -- part of his exhibit entitled "Aotearoa Series" in New York's Philippine Consular office in 2005.

Meanwhile, Torrado Cabrera says his plan is to create huge canvases before he retires from his teaching job at St.Scholastica's College. "I believe that social problems are due to man's weakness and bottomless desire; that man's real enemy is himself (not the oppressors and cruel rulers); that social transformation should begin with oneself (not with society)," he explains. His future work - he has been trying to print images in plexiglass -- will attempt to reflect this philosophy.

The illustrator Mirasol says he wants to embark on making modern images: "distorted, experimental, pop, and surreal". He can no longer go back to images of social realism because "(this idea) is no longer a relevant topic since very few are oppressed and frustrated (about life in the Philippines)".

Papelismo

Benjie Torrado Cabrera, Renato Habulan, Fred Liongoren, Arnel Mirasol and Pinggot Zulueta join forces, so to speak, in a show to assert the significance of paper in art making. 

Habulan, who curates the show laments the seeming disinterest by art collectors in works on paper, because perhaps of the perceived perishability of such works. The works to be exhibited easily belies the fallacy of that perception, most of which though done in the 80’s and 90’s, are still in mint condition. 

Cabrera, Liongoren, Mirasol and Zulueta will show their output in the so-called popular mediums of fine prints, comics and book illustration, and editorial cartooning. Paintings on paper, which are one of a kind, are deliberately downplayed to highlight the role played by the popular mediums not only in providing entertainment, but also in advocating causes; roles where they are very effective because of their wider reach and easier accessibility by the bigger public. 

Habulan, meanwhile, will put on view for the first time the pencil studies for his big paintings. Pencil studies, though not really done in multiples, reinforce further the five artists’ point of view about the significance of paper in art making; because they are proof that paintings, except those composed digitally or painted alla prima, are first conceived and endowed primal forms in a matrix made of paper. 

Benjie Torrado Cabrera finished Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas. He currently teaches in St. Scholastica’s College, and is an active member of the Printmakers Association of the Philippines. He had extensively exhibited his fine prints of cosmic and quasi-surreal imagery. He also had a solo show once of engravings done, not on paper, but on large flexiglass cubes - a pioneering work for which he deserves commendation and critical acclaim. 

Renato Habulan , a Fine Arts graduate from the University of the East (UE), has also taught in St. Scholastica’s. He is into painting full time nowadays, and is just back from Singapore where he exhibited his latest works. Habulan was noticed and given rave reviews by art critics in the 1980s when he mounted solo shows at the Hiraya Gallery and Gallery Genesis, two of the more prestigious galleries operating at that time. He is one of the stalwart pillars of the Social Realist Movement in the Philippines. Although he became well-known for his iconic images of farmers and workers, Habulan had lately varied his theme to delve into the manifestations of the Filipinos’ religious psyche. 

Fred Liongoren, who came from the University of the Philippines, attained prominence early, in the late 1960s, for his distinct brand of abstraction, which won for him the Grand Prize in the 1971 AAP Competition on the theme of 400 Years of Christianity in the Philippines. He was the subject of articles in the Asia Magazine and other publications where he was consistently dubbed as an artist to watch. Liongoren has not stopped at just doing abstract works though; he is an expert in the realist technique and also tries his hand at comics illustration. At present, he is a passionate advocate of “re-greening” or reforestation. Liongoren is a vibrant raconteur who can always delight his listeners with anecdotes laced with self-deprecating humor. 

Arnel Mirasol took up fine arts in UST and UE. His paintings in the 1980s, while belonging to the Social Realist School, was tempered somewhat with color and surrealist humor. He had worked as an editorial cartoonist for a time. From the late 1990s onward, he focused his efforts in picture book illustration. In 2007, he showed a resurgent interest in serious painting, when he exhibited with his fairy tale illustrations his acrylics and oils. 

Pinggot Zulueta is a lifestyle photographer of a daily newspaper. A UST alumnus, he started his professional art career as an editorial cartoonist for widely circulated publications . His cartoons - which will compare favorably with the works of the luminaries of Philippine editorial cartooning - are true political cartoons, because they are in most ways satirical and adversarial, and not mere paeans to the powers-that-be. Zulueta also a painter and had shown similarly powerful works in solo exhibitions here, Australia, and the United States.

Contact Details:
For inquiries, please call Chari Elinzano at (63 2) 635- 6061.

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Paper Power

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman

March 2, 2015

Paper may be lightweight but its power isn’t. What’s written or drawn or drafted on it is indelible, memorable. Great histories are documented on paper. Poets write their feelings on paper. Journalists jot down their facts on paper. We read books and news on print. We doodle on paper. The bestselling ideas, the most revolutionary ideals find expression on book paper. But some artists have problems with it. Isn’t it ironic?

Art galleries, it turns out, shun paper artwork because of its lack of commercial value. Plus, according to them, they don’t last well. Or they do? The works of romantic painters Francisco Jose de Goya and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, to name a few, have lasted a lifetime.

 “Despite the long history of printmaking dating back to the early ‘60s, paper as a medium has to be nurtured—like a child,” says artist Renato Habulan. Also the curator, he is one of the members, in the recently concluded paper art exhibit of 12 Pinoy artists called “Papelmismo.”

The exhibit is the sequel of their successful joint in 2012 exhibit dubbed “Papelismo,” back when they were only five artists. The first exhibit is a word play of papel and –ismo (kapitalismo, komunismo, sosyalismo). It centered on the political and social turmoil in the country during the ‘70s and ‘80s, the heyday of the artists’ careers.

Papelmismo, on the other hand, highlights the word “mismo” (exactly). This time, the 12 artists Benjie Torrado-Cabrera, Alfredo Liongoren, Arnel Mirasol, Thomas Daquioag, Neil Doloriicon, Alfredo Esquillo, Egai Talusan Fernandez, Emmanuel Garibay, Pablo Baen Santos, Allison Wong David, and Manila Bulletin Lifestyle’s very own Pinggot Zulueta, manipulated the papers and turned them into works of fancy. There’s a 3D paper cutout. There’s a termite-eaten paper magically turned seemingly into a painting, but not really. There’s a papier-mâché sculpture. And some folded paper bills, too.

Besides utilizing paper, the group proved that paper power could expand, not only in content, but also in form.

“This time, the medium is the message. There are no painted artworks but only imageries made from paper. The paper is the emotion of the artists,” says Renato.

The artists also remained true on their first theme, which is social realism. Among the artworks were Thomas Daquioag’s Binasurang Papel, inspired from Nora Aunor’s iconic line “my brother is not a pig” and his commentary on Nora’s “binasurang papel” when the government snubbed her major contributions in the film industry when she didn’t make the cut as a National Artist.

Pinggot Zulueta’s Ang Papel Ko, meanwhile, is a 3D collage of his editorial cartoons and some books and magazines he ripped to come up with a playful intersection of texts and images that convey social observations. “I want to be experimental. I don’t like it too profound to the point that nobody understands it. What you see is what you get,” he says.

But why focus on paper? The artists are all connected with paper—as a painter, as a journalist, as a printmaker, as an editorial cartoonist, and as a book illustrator, among others. Beyond this, however, Renato says the group wants to upgrade the seemingly “second-class rate” of paper as a medium of art. The group, which Renato jovially calls “oldies,” also wants to prove that they are not to be relegated in the periphery. According to him, art galleries nowadays snub old artists and favor the younger, more contemporary ones. They want to prove, that like paper, they are here to stay. The movement continues. This year, the group, which continues to grow, is plotting their third exhibit and calling it, “Ang Papel Mo,” a question of one’s role in life and society.

Papel Mismo

‘Papelismo’ Artists Show Why Their Medium Is Premium

By Alyosha J. Robillos 
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Monday, September 17th, 2012

 BENJIE Torrado Cabrera. 

There is potential vigor and unheralded energy in the weightlessness and unassuming quality of paper as an art medium. And this is what five veteran artists seek to prove in “Papelismo: Artworks in Paper” in Crucible Gallery at SM Megamall.

“Its concept is anchored on the fact that paper is the popular medium,” said curator Renato Habulan. “It reaches a lot of people. Paper is democratic; it is relatable.”

The collaboration of printmaker Benjie Torrado Cabrera, book illustrator Arnel Mirasol, photojournalist Pinggot Zulueta, and painters Fred Liongoren and Habulan is their response to how their beloved medium is demeaned among the art mediums.

In the Philippines, art on paper has become second-class because the material is considered highly perishable, lessening its overall appeal to art enthusiasts and collectors. In effect, it is difficult to market.

“CHALLENGE” II, by Cabrera

But “Papelismo” disproves the alleged fragility of the medium as most of the artworks on display were made in the ’80s and ’90s, but show no signs of aging.

“Exhibits must have impact on the viewing public, not only by showing your craft or skill, but by providing a platform for your advocacies as well,” Habulan said. “This is all about popularizing the popular medium.”

Keeping mind fertile

Zulueta fortifies the thesis  with a vast collection of editorial cartoons he did from 1988 to 1991, way before he shifted to photography. For the first time, the photojournalist is exhibiting his works as an editorial cartoonist during the presidency of Corazon Aquino.

PINGGOT Zulueta

His cartoons often feature a frail Juan de la Cruz, personifiying the country and providing comic relief amid national turmoils.

“The events during that time kept my mind fertile,” said Zulueta. “Masarap gumuhit noong panahong iyon. I want to impart to the new generation things that happened then.”

Zulueta is proud he’s both a visual artist and a professional photographer. “My medium is the newspaper, in drawing or photography.”

Abstractionist and social realist Liongoren also believes in the far-reaching ability of paper. For him, paper is the perfect venue to “double-speak” and make the artist’s speech comprehensible to the masses.

Liongoren says paper does not only represent the multitudes but also embodies their reawakening from social stupor.

FRED Liongoren

His “Ano ang Dapat?” shows a conversation between President Noynoy Aquino and national hero José Rizal. The latter inquires about the notion of “Ang tuwid na daan” and asks Rizal, “Ano po ba ang dapat?” The artist based this on a quote from a confrontation between Ibarra and Elias in Rizal’s “El Filibusterismo.”

The work imbibes the sketch-like flair of black-and-white comics, softened by a bright orange background that fades to a lighter, fleshy hue at the bottom of the page.

Like Liongoren, Mirasol has also turned to books: He’s a picture-book illustrator. Displayed is a line of children’s books he has illustrated, such as “First around the Globe: The Story of Enrique,” “Tamales Day,” “The Origin of the Frog,” and “Once Upon a Time.”

Also shown is a provocative acrylic-on-paper piece, “Nueva Gomorrah,” a product of his socialist-surrealist phase.
Allowing more room

ARNEL Mirasol

Cabrera also stressed paper’s strength through his eclectic prints, mostly ink-on-paper pieces showing ethereal characters and images relating to the cosmos.
While printmaking might not reach the same level of mass production as newspapers, books or comics, it allows more room for creative multiplication—something that some art-industry members frown upon because reproducibility seemingly makes art less prestigious.
But Cabrera’s intricately detailed, quasi-surreal artworks show no signs of them being less artful just because the pieces are not singular. In fact, print has made Cabrera’s craft more accessible to an ever-growing audience, one that is eager to learn and is not afraid to mature beyond rigid norms.

While flaunting paper as the less intimidating of art media in terms of consumerism, it also shows the role of paper in the artist’s creative process.

Habulan lets the public in to old miniature studies of a mural he was commissioned to work on for Singapore’s St. Joseph Institution in 1986 (now the Singapore Art Museum). The mural portrayed the massacre of the Christian Brothers of De La Salle College by Japanese soldiers in 1945.

Through this archival approach, Habulan was able to share paper’s vital role in the aesthetic evolution of his final work.

Renato Habulan

“I wanted to showcase the studies and the evolution of the images that played around in my head that time,” Habulan said.

If the mint condition of the works displayed aren’t enough to disprove the so-called weakness of paper, a quick comparison of how other countries are able to keep centuries-old paper artifacts and make them last should settle the matter.

Long-overdue enlightenment on the care of this medium and newfound respect for art on paper might be the key to starting one’s art collection in a relatively cheaper way without sacrificing the art.

While the exhibit effortlessly proved its thesis, Habulan added another reason why art on paper should not be belittled. He explained collectors and institutions from other countries were acquiring artworks on paper. “In 10 years’ time,” he said, “significant artwork in the Philippines will be in other countries if this goes on.”
Call Crucible Gallery at  tel. 6356061.