remembrance of things awry

For all the beauty and elegance I desire in my life, I have never been a cultural brahmin and I’ve never pretended to be one.  In fact, I can be quite the crude philistine.  So when faced with the unfamiliar, I tend to take on the catatonic countenance of Tom Hanks’ “Forrest Gump” character and remind myself:  “Stupid is as stupid does.”

So I ended up that early Thursday evening at a good friend’s new art gallery in Makati.  She is Manila’s top art dealer and her gallery is the place to acquire the best Filipino Art, bar none.  Everybody who was Anybody even a Nobody was there, including I who wasn’t anybody in particular…

It was an opening exhibition of the newest, brightest, and best Filipino artists of the new generation.  Contemporary Filipino Art hung all over the place, indeed, some even lay down on the floor.

There were hanging gymnasts with hooks on their chests; a brooding tree; a lady who looked like she survived the Holocaust or was just being pushed to the gas chamber; one of an Italian nobleman [ a Venetian Doge? ] with his face obscured by a big rose; a little girl playing on a rug; a small black door which led to nowhere; a girl vomiting into a toilet bowl [ or appreciating the toilet bowl, dunno ] with neon lights around; one was of roses, roses, and roses; there was a big canvas with childlike scribbles; there were small black and white works, one of them showed an extremely filthy, tiled shower enclosure.

Awed by the huge sizes of the artworks hung on the big white walls, I looked at them from the bottom, from the left, from the right, and finally from the top when I went upstairs to the mezzanine with five chicken lollipops in hand.  Back in the ground floor with only the bones of the five chicken lollipops in my hand, I was tempted to create my own bit of “installation art.”   I also wanted to lie down flat on the cement floor to further appreciate the works but was afraid to squash a mountainous installation of painted paper plates and another of white garden stones and blue “forget-me-not” flowers.

And so I looked at all the new art.  And I tried so hard to understand all the new art.  Then I realized that I probably lack intelligence of some sort because I couldn’t recognize the art in the new art.  Realizing the hopelessness of my artistic dullness, I walked over to the buffet and took a heaping, almost obscene, serving of the gleaming golden “lechon” from “Belen’s,” which for some reason was the favorite “lechon” source of “le tout Forbes Park”… yes, it was delicious and I chompedchompedchomped…

After chomping down the small plateful of “lechon” doused with a liter of liver sauce, I sidled up to a good collector friend.  He was pleased as a plum because he had already managed to take his pick of the artworks the previous evening.

“Buti ka pa, naiintindihan mo ang mga ito…”  [ “Lucky you, you understand all of these…” ]  I told him with a burp.

“Maganda!!!”  [ “Nice!!!” ]  he replied with a big grin.

“Nagagandahan ka ba sa mga ito?”  [ “Do you find all of these beautiful?” ]  I asked.

“Maganda…”  [ “Nice…” ]  he replied with a naughty grin.

“Tataas kaya ang halaga ng mga ito?”  [  “Will these appreciate in value?” ]  I asked.

“Maganda…???”  [ “Nice…???” ]  he replied as he began to snicker.

“Saan mo naman ilalagay ang mga ito?”  [ “Where will you put all of these?” ]  I asked.

“Sa magandang… bodega!!!  Heeheehee!!!”  [ “In a nice… storeroom!!!  Heeheehee!!!” ]  his pretty wife replied, breaking into a giggle.

LAUGHOUTLOUD!!!   😛   😛   😛

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Someday, I know I will regret my lack of art investment foresight [ let’s not even talk of art appreciation 😛 ] because, like it or not, the works of these contemporary artists will be worth a mint!!!  I regret that I did not purchase the works of BenCab and Lao Lian Ben in the late 1980s before a dear uberrich friend collected them and drove prices up the roof.  I do rue my lack of persistence twenty five years ago [ 1983 ] when I did not really force my parents to buy the works of Ang Kiukok [ Vicente Manansala’s protege ] and other contemporaries. Had I been an adult in the 1950s, I would have pestered my parents and Lola Charing to buy the works of Vicente Manansala.  I wish that I was already of age when a young Fernando Cueto Amorsolo was offering to paint large history scenes and full portraits of my Lolo Augusto and Lola Charing in the early 1930s.  I wish I had already been alive from the 1870s-90s when Juan Luna y Novicio and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo y Padilla used to visit their friend Macario Arnedo y Sioco [ my paternal great-grandfather ] in Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga; I would have insisted that they paint me as a Chinese merchant, a Chinese hopia baker, a Pekingese, whathaveyou.  Finally, I wish I had already been alive when Simon Flores y de la Rosa painted Cirilo Quiason and Ceferina Henson and their two elder sons Aureo and Jose [ my maternal Quiason great great grandparents in San Fernando ] in 1875 and Olegario Rodriguez [ my paternal Rodriguez great great great grandfather in Bacolor ] in 1856 and his children afterwards; I would have asked him to paint me in various guises as well!!!   😀

On second thought, I will start acquiring contemporary art even if I don’t understand a whit of it.  Just to make sure!!!   😛