But is it art?

Spoliarium by Juan Luna

We (party of three, please: Tita Didit, my wife, and myself) arrived long after the Botong Franciscos, the Amorsolos, and the Magsaysay-Hos had been consigned to their new owners; we were just in time for the last of the lot to meet their fates at the bang of the master’s gavel. A Sotheby’s auction can reveal much of the nature of wealth; the rich in the most casual of clothes, or unseen from another end of a telephone line; or the dearth of taste evident in those who’ve been deputized to act on their master’s whims. (“Did you see that woman in front of us?” my lovely wife mutters, her voice dripping with scorn. “She was wearing chandelier earrings with her business suit! What was she thinking?”)

Wonderfully eye-opening, yesterday was: I’ve a long way to go before I can look at a canvas and expound on it like I know anything, so now I have to settle for “Art, shmart, I know it when I like it.” Case in point: a Mantovani that banged the gavel for about S$10,000, and looked like a big snapshot of a schoolboy’s paper pad: nothing but a white background, and equidistant parallel fine blue lines drawn across. “Is that art?” I thought to myself. “Jesus H. Christ, I can do the same thing!” Shouldn’t art have that “Kids, don’t try this at home” feel? Isn’t the appeal of art that of knowing no ordinary schoolboy can execute it in a bored middle-of-math-class moment?

Eye opener number two: we visited a preview of the Asian Art Week exhibit slated for April; we met Marjorie Chu, a gallery curator and a chronicler of the Asian art scene. She expounded at length on her favorite Filipino artists (Arturo Luz, she says, is her mentor), and concluded thus—Filipino art doesn’t need to go overseas to win renown; the Philippine art scene is incredibly active, drawing attention from all corners of the world. The art scene in the Philippines is fifteen years ahead of the rest of Asia, she says.

Tita Didit says Ms. Chu’s estimate is about a hundred years off. Long before Amorsolo and Francisco, Luna and Hidalgo were there. Old Manila had artists, artisans, and patrons long before art was considered worthy of attention in Beijing and Singapore. Shame that today, the Manila government has Botongs stuck up in crevices somewhere, with nowhere to put them. We’re known for our art abroad, not at home where it should be closest to our hearts. Which could best be represented by a word that’s known in Malaysia, Singapore, and yes, the Philippines: “Sayang.”

If only.

Stolen from Fark.com; view its Photoshop contest here.

Art Exhibits and Awkward English

"Dinagyang Masks" by Didit Robillo Van Der Linden

"Have you seen the invitations?" my aunt whines. "Have you seen the English on them?"

I cringe. I know what's coming.

"Who wrote this stuff?"

Don't ask me, I think to myself. It's what I ask myself every day, and I'm no closer to the answer after a year in this place. For a country with a huge proportion of native English speakers in the population, you'd think they'd be spitting out poets and novelists left and right. Instead, they've got words like "dinning" (that's "dining" with the addition of an "n" out of nowhere) and press reports, business documents, and assorted textual ephemera, mangled and disjointed with nary a second thought.

In my job, I often have to pick up the pieces after such acts of terror on the English language, and I often have to contend with clients who insist that they're right, and I'm wrong. I just smile and remember the paycheck. And that my writing is not the same as saving the Universe.

I could take a stab at what keeps the local grasp on English absurdly loose--like many of the objects in their life that aren't native to the land (language, culture, Filipina maids), English is useful, but hardly precious. Use 'em, but what's the point of taking care of 'em? What's the point of falling in love with it, expressing thought with it, growing a culture out of it?

Back to the invitations. My aunt's coming to town to exhibit a few pieces of art, side by side with other Filipino artists. The website can be viewed here. If you've got an hour to kill, I suggest you drop by and support the up-and-coming Filipino artist. Buy one or two pieces if you've got a mind to. I'll be there, happy in the thought that at least for a week or so, I have a relative in town who knew me when. And who knows I don't care how bad the invitations read. Much.

I suppose I should be working right now. Instead, I'm devoting what little time I have to making a record of my continuing career decline.

It's like this: I'm working as a writer in a country that hates writers. Or at least keeps them around long enough until they're totally defeated, then spits them back to their dumpster of origin. (Mine happens to have 7,000 islands and not a sane person in sight.) Where I could be writing the "Great Asian Novel", I'm reduced to writing sad mockeries of prose for an industry that could well be gone in the next dozen years.

There are people out there who are making less than I am, and feel like they're making a real difference in people's lives.

Instead, I'm out there telling people why they should be deliriously happy that 7-Eleven's selling two bottles of pop at the deliciously low price of S$2.00! Isn't that amazing?

If I start to feel any sorrier for myself, I'll probably check into the Adrian Mole Centre for Writers With Inflated Egos.

Must repeat after me: "It's only advertising... it's only advertising... it's only advertising...."

It's only a career. It's only my sanity. It's only my life.