KASINING ESSAYS by Arnaldo de Tondo

  Essay 46. IN DEFENSE OF APPROPRIATION (The Art of Levi Yu) In the same manner that Cubism and other modernist styles liberated painters from their compulsion to copy natural appearances, so did Post Modernism free the succeeding generation of painters from their obsession to be original. That's because in this Post Modernist era, appropriation, or the copying of the artworks of other painters is no longer looked askance at by everyone. Post Modernism dates from when Pop Art - which was a reaction against  Abstract Expressionism's negation of recognizable image - arose. Pop Art and all the other styles that came after it were subsumed by art historians under the eclectic embrace of Post Modernism. But even before the arrival of Pop Art, appropriation was already resorted to by Marcel Duchamp who came out with his mustachioed image of Mona Lisa, and Salvador Dali who painted a facsimile of Vermeer's "The Lace Maker". A 1979 painting with a longish title by Art and...

Essay 45. BROTHERS IN ART By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol  Collaboration among artists is nothing new. That is a must when the art being created is a large-scale work, like a humongous mural for example. Monumental sculptures also require a number of people to complete it. But not all collective efforts in art making are genuine collaboration. Many are just master-apprentice relationships, where the whole credit for the finished work goes to the master, while the apprentices or assistants remain unknown. Painter Philipp Badon and sculptor Daniel Carpio are now collaborating on a sculpture project. Even though Badon is obviously the master here because of his decades-long experience in art making and notable standing in the Philippine art scene, Carpio is truly his collaborator despite his young age as he is given equal prominence. And rightly so, because the art they are making are woodcarvings, sculptures. Badon contributed the concepts and designs, and did the finishing touches. Paint...

  Essay 44. The Pop-Surrealist Sensei By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol ROGER "RISHAB" TIBON is an ardent lover of nature. That sentiment shows in his art. But not for him is the conventional depictions of nature in the manner of the Amorsolo school. Tibon employs a contemporary pop-surrealist approach in his paintings which is mildly disturbing if one isn't aware of its allegorical purpose. His usage of fantastic imagery is merely his way of bringing his advocacy in step with the times. One Tibon painting that's disturbingly mysterious is his portrait of a man with a face dotted by poker card patterns like hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs. In lieu of hair, this man flaunts a luxuriant growth of sea fan corals atop his head. Completing the composition are images of a seahorse, lantern fish, seaweeds, and sea anemones. I could have easily identified this man as Tibon's interpretation of a contemporary Neptune or sea god, but the image of a rooster - even if not so cons...

  Essay 43. A WOMAN OF VISION By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol IPEK DENIZLI derives her iconography from various wellsprings of inspiration - mostly from styles that emerged during the postmodernist period. Gestural abstraction and Graffiti art are the styles Ipek's paintings have marked kinship with. While she admires Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo who are both figurative painters, Ipek chose to create works entirely distinct from theirs. I mentioned the word 'postmodernist'. What exactly is Postmodernism? Postmodernism is an eclectic movement that embraces not only painting, but also literature, film, photography, and performance, video, conceptual, and installation art. Also categorized as postmodernist are the successive art styles that sprouted after the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Pop Art, which was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism's negation of recognizable image is postmodern. And so are Neo-expressionism, Graffiti, and feminist art. Unlike other scho...

  Essay 42. THE GOLD STANDARD IN ART By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol Gold occupies the highest niche among metals Even though I was told many years ago that it was dislodged by platinum from the highest pedestal, gold remains to be the standard of excellence in everything. A distinct characteristic of paintings during the Byzantine and Renaissance periods was the frequent use by artists of gold leaf in their artworks. That practice was carried over into the twentieth century by the Austrian master Gustav Klimt. Among Filipino painters, Raul Isidro and MYK VELASCO are the only ones I know who use gold leaf as pigment. There may be others but I don't know of them at this point (Gold leaf, by the way, is made of real or imitation gold and is available today in flakes, thin sheets, and in liquid form, the first two of which are glued on to the painting surface and the last applied by brush.) Michael N. Velasco was born on June 17, 1980 in Quezon City. Velasco's father is a business...

  Essay 41. MASTER ALLEGORIST OF OUR TIME By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol Wanderlust consumes ZHANG KEXIN. While most artists would feel contented to stay put on the spot where their studios are, Kexin always seeks new places, new faces, and new experiences. Kexin was born in Harbin, China in 1957. He completed his art education in 1982 at the Normal University of Harbin. From 1984 to 1989, he immersed himself in creative activities and joined several local art exhibits. After 1989 though, Kexin felt dried up, his source of creative inspiration depleted. What he longed to do to ignite his creative fire was to travel abroad, to become a nomadic artist. In 1992, Kexin and two other artists were invited by the Ministry of Culture of the Soviet Union to visit Moscow to give lectures and hold an art exhibit there. It was while they were on their way aboard the Trans-Siberian Express that news of the break-up of the Soviet Union was announced. That news stunned Kexin and his two colleagues, a...

  Essay 40. ART AS MEDITATION DEVICE By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol There are several strains of abstraction here in the Philippines. I will cite though only those I consider as the five clear-cut strains together with their most noted practitioners. First on the list are the gestural abstracts of Jose Joya; second, the geometric abstracts of Arturo Luz; third, the color field abstracts of Nestor Vinluan; fourth; the minimalist abstracts of Lao Lian Ben; and fifth, the abstracts depicting organic forms of Hernando Ocampo. RICO LASCANO's artworks are abstractions yes, but they don't seem to belong to any of the abstract styles I mentioned. His works resemble figurative Chinese watercolor paintings transformed into non-objective abstracts. Although painted in opaque acrylic with touches of graphite here and there, Lascano's paintings project instead the fluidity and charming delicacy of pure  aquarelle. Rico H. Lascano received his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts major in Visu...