Some R n R ( Yup, Ye Good Ole Rantin’ N Ravin’)

Tis probably not a swell way to start the year. Having been stoned drunk and trippy from the holidays and just from these past few days render the days into cycles of bingeing and morning after hang-overs. The heck, let’s get on with it.

1)Censorship

Bandoy’s painting in his new show being covered needlessly by newspapers (latest update:panels were rotated so the dick won't be obvious)– but it’s just a drawing of a prick, it’s not even realistically rendered. Same goes with the so-called controversy revolving around Poklong’s collaborative work with Manuel shown last December at Finale – but it’s hardly noticeable. The supposedly offensive graphic was a vignette of a porn girl fondling a dick, her mouth gaping as all porn jizjars are wont to do for the money shot. But Poklong smeared it all over with garish, muddy, gray paint.

Then there’s Jayson’s collaborative work with Manuel (again, for the same show) being furiously complained about by a Megamall passerby saying that it’s so un-PC and offensive. The painting has large text reading : Retarded People Make Good Sex Slaves. It’s a phrase he just encountered on the net like all the other geegaws he puts on his paintings. It’s very direct and confrontational. It’s a mind fuck especially for people who think that they don’t think about that kind of possibility. It’s offensive for them because they might really consider doing it. And if they did, they’re sicker than anyone on the bestiality loop.

Then there’s Bobot’s video installation at the CR in Mag:net Katips. I wouldn’t even know that there’s a video playing (he says it’s a porn clip) if he hadn’t told me. He was told to pull it out. What was left were all S&M leathery and artsy gangbanger bling blings. But it’s in a toilet, man. Sometimes you hardly see the “art” being displayed there because after you pee you just wanna get out so you won’t hold up the line or suffocate in the reeking piss. ( Although, it’s not as bad as the reekage of the pink urinals being passed off as functional public art littering the city.)

But what’s obscene anyway these days?
I’d think that Gretchen’s wanton flaunting of her trophy wife loot takes the cake, frosting, birthday candles and all. With all that money, she could have bought 20 artists their meals and paints for a good whole 5 years. Can she not resist perhaps a commissioned portrait of herself brazenly effecting Marie Antoinette extravagance? Anyone? anyone?

Then I find it disturbing, also quite laughable, the review on an exhibit advocating human rights especially where it was mentioned that the show has sent the “status quo trembling at their knees”. I wonder whom the status quo the article was referring to. If it’s the government I don’t think they are “trembling at their knees” or if they did, it’s probably not out of fear but due to the fact that they’ve developed arthritis, gout, hypertension, cancer, diabetes and other old-geezer-types of diseases for eating too much and being so lazy and having way too much chutzpah for instilling in their help and in all the people who work for them the utang na loob which pays for their daily ration of lucky me noodles.

A gallerist from outside the country thought the show was too strong. Really? How come I haven’t heard of any work being censored there nor even being pulled out nor being covered by newspapers like some victim of a mugging?


2) Representation

It most certainly feels like Top Rank vs. Oscar Dela Hoya over Manny Pacquiao, though Manny would still be paid millions for each fight, win or lose. But then again, it gets more complicated when we’re talking about artists here, like is there such a thing as exclusivity, here, like really now? It is highly unlikely for the mere fact that the number of collectors and buyers is very dismally disproportionate to the number of artists here. And these few collectors just buy from the same artists all through their clan’s generation. What do the other artists who are not being collected to do now? Opportunities to exhibit, travel, be published in catalogues and magazines are way too mightily irresistible for them. The dilemma arises when a gallery has a falling out with a prospective partner gallery, this turning them into rivals, and the supposed prospective partner gallery would try to snitch the artists from the other gallery with the aforementioned deals. What’s a poor artist to do? There is no win-win solution here unless a lawyer steps in and hands over a binding contract. But still the question hangs heavy on their heads, if this will be worth pursuing at all. Guess we’ll just have to train ourselves to box or snooker the pools for the meantime, eh?

3) Another form of representation (this is utter trash, consider this a waste of space)

Someone remarked that you’ve finally got it made when you’re starting to dress and look better. I’d love to differ. Gee whiz personal taste is so immaterial.

Vans are fun skater shoes, they can be paired with virtually anything and can be had dirt cheap at the ukays. You buy Camper shoes because they’re so durable, you’d tire of them for quite some time. Chucks are classics. No one can go wrong with them. Trainer rubber shoes just wouldn’t cut it even if they’re real Nikes…..Gee, I don’t know why I’m even writing about this. Is it because I’d like to think that how an individual dresses, and the kind of music one listens to can be very telling of one’s work? ….hmmm….That’s actually a very shallow and naïve way of evaluating things. But I have seen some instances and I’ve sort of formed some loose links which are verily contestable. Yeah like Bandoy’s show, Seasoning The Obese which I’ve pointed out to him if it was a play on one of Slayer’s album Season in The Abyss (which was a take-off from Rimbaud’s Season in Hell). So does a Yanni-loving Beyonce-warbler possibly know about these things? A probability, but indeed a rare one. Geez….I like Bandoy’s show – it’s all raw, funny, pretty kickin’ – it’s like good cheap booze.

Like Bandoy, J, Cos, Gary, Pow, Nilo,Tad, Lirio, and some others all just dress plainly – mostly white shirt, jeans and sneakers – the factory look which J has touted. It’s simple, no fuss, it’s like a uniform. It’s the best go-anywhere-wear.

So what do us girls wear? But the femme version of it, silly.

4) The End of An Enterprise or The Bandwagon Effect

A boat sinks when just about everybody jumps in and throws out the rower, everyone fighting for the oars, thence steering the boat in everyone’s right of way. The metaphor matches SBW. Good thing everyone got out with a lifebuoy and quite knew how to navigate the seas by then.

What happened to FP can be attributed as well to the neighborhood going to seed – more videoke bars, more motels, more bulalohan, more “gallery-cafes”, more corporate raga rock. But the toilet is still the same – always clogged. So what else is new? It’s like the 1990s all over again. The only good thing about this is that the term “alternative” is hardly being used anymore and that people are more frank about their monetary goals. At times, though this frankness overpowers the art itself, crowds are just drawn to the beer cooler and the babes. The moral is : everyone should just read more so they won’t be baited easily by spin-doctored mediocrity.

5) Geographical Dislocation

I’ve been asking friends to relay to me all their exhibit skeds for the year so that the money, time and energy spent going to their shows would be thoughtfully planned out and budgeted. Don’t you think that’s reasonable? As being from QC, as all the others like me, very much hate going to Makati or Manila on such short notice. It might be easier if one had a car, but there’s still the traffic and the gas and the long hours traveling to contend with. As a commuter, it’s more preferable just to stay put in one place then to go home afterwards. The price of beer is also a factor. One time I went way all out and got myself drunk, broke, blind, and screwy. (That was really foolish.) after going to and fro QC, Makati and back for a show, for a screening, for a performance. Next time, I’ll be more discerning and practical or better yet just do what we did when 2 openings coincided on the same day – we just stayed at home and watched DVDs.


6) Non Sequitur

Is there such a thing as a zombie of modernism if modernism died already but can’t be buried? Are they in the form of classically-framed blank black images as those seen in Maria’s show
( Some Permanent Interludes) and in Jayson’s upcoming show (Find X)?

Maria’s photos of sun-filtered foliage are actually fata morganas – the sky inversed unto their reflection on a heat-hazed puddle – castles in the air. I forgot to mention this in her write up.

Romeo’s painting really has striking roots from Jaime de Guzman or was I just thinking it?


What I’m liking now :

Animal Collective’s Leaf House video and song
Hella’s videos – the one with the down syndrome
- the one w/ 3 ladies dancing in skimpy Indian costumes which I stumbled upon on
a blog called Cheap Opulence

Animal Collective
TV on The Radio
Fantasy porn – them dressing up as Cleopatra and gladiators
Nostalgia for the dance scene of the 90s – because kids (the 20 and under) hardly know about these
Country Style restaurant
A
My new found enthusiasm to do work
My friends and people willing to do collaborations – they’re all inspiring especially donna who just won a juror's choice award at a recently concluded yokohama dance thing, whipee!!!!!


What there should be less of :

Videoke bars
Rudeness, hypocrisy, hyperparanoia
Dark secrets
Magazine writers who don’t do much research on their subjects
Empty talk
Needless drinking and spending
Whiny Pushy senior citizens
clutter
clueless secretaries/assistants
greedy wily gallerists/collectors
vermin
clingy so-called friends