Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions
through live entertainment.
American Colonial Period (1898-1940) to the
Postwar Republic (1946- 1969)
Major Art Movements
Treaty of Paris in 1898- Spain “surrendered” the
Philippines to the United States.
From 1899-1913- the bloody Philippine-American war
occurred.
With the coming of the Americans, Filipino playwrights
who had just undergone the Philippine Revolution of 1898
against Spain now found themselves confronted by
censorship with the issuance of the Sedition Law.
Sedition Law- banned the writing, printing, and
publication of materials advocating Philippine
independence and engaging in activities which
championed the cause.
Juan Abad’s “Tanikalang Ginto” or “Golden Chain”, 1902
Juan Matapang Cruz’s “Hindi Ako Patay” or “I Am Not
Dead”, 1903
Aurelio Tolentino’s “Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas” or
“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, 1903
-plays that doesn’t echo only the nationalist
sentiments of their playwrights but also served as
medium for political protest, openly attacking the
Americans.
Drama simbolico- these one-act plays came to
represent a deep and profound yearning for freedom.
Lino Castillejo and Jesus Araullo- authored A
Modern Filipina, the first Filipino play written in English
in 1915.
Vaudeville- which originated from France, was another
form of theater which the Americans introduced that
became popular in the Philippines during the 1920s.
Bodabil- this motley collection of slapstick, songs,
dances, acrobatics, comedy skits, chorus girls, magic acts
and stand-up comic acts.
During the Japanese occupation, players would poke
fun at the Japanese soldiers or send messages of hope
disguised as innuendos that only the local people could
understand.
Guerillas- a clever vehicle for information dissemination
Beginning of the 20th century- a new urban pattern
that responded to the secular goals of education, health
and governance was imposed.
Daniel Burnham- an architect and urban planner was
commissioned by the American government to design
Manila and Baguio.
Architect William Parsons- implemented the Burnham
Plan.
Inspired by the City Beautiful Movement introduced in
1893 at the Chicago World Fair, the new urban design
employed Neoclassic architecture for its government
edifices and integrated parks and lawns to make the city
attractive by making its buildings impressive and places
more inviting for leisure amid urban blight.
Post Office and Legislative Building (National Art
Gallery)- buildings in Manila that exemplify Neoclassic
Architecture.
Tomas Mapua, Juan Arellano, Andres Luna de San
Pedro and Antonio Toledo- were among Filipino
architects who designed buildings during the period. They
received training in the US or in Europe.
The inclination toward genre, still life and portrait
paintings persisted.
Landscape- became cherished as travel souvenirs,
especially those that captured the exotic qualities of
Philippine terrain.
1909- a year after the establishments of the University of
the Philippines, its School of Fine Arts was opened.
Fabian de la Rosa- succeeded the peninsulares Rafael
Enriquez as director.
-was known for his naturalist paintings characterized
by restraint and formality in brushwork, choice of
somber colors and subject matter, as seen in the
works Planting Rice, 1921 and El Kundiman,
1930.
Peninsulares- is a term used particularly during the
colonial period to refer Spanish-born residents of the
Philippines.
Fernando Amorsolo- a national artist who was known
for his romantic paintings that captured the warm glow of
the Philippine sunlight.
-a prolific artist who produced numerous portraits of
prominent individuals; genre scenes highlighting
the beauty of dalagang Filipina, idyllic landscapes;
and historical paintings.
-he was also a graphic artist who rendered drawings
for the textbook series The Philippine Readers as
well as illustrations for the newspaper The
Independent.
-his logo design for Ginebra San Migue, depicting the
saint trampling on a devil, won for him a grant that
enabled him to study Fine Arts in Spain.
-he was posthumously declared National Artist in
1972.
Irineo Miranda, Toribio Herrera, Cesar
Buenaventura, and Dominador Castañeda- they’re
among those influenced by the “Amorsolo School”.
Guillermo Tolentino- was Amorsolo’s counterpart in
sculpture.
-he studied Fine Arts in Rome and was influenced by
its classical tradition.
-he is credited for the iconic Oblation (1935, original/
1958, bronze cast found at he UP Oblation plaza) of
the UP and the Bonifacio Monument, 1933 in
Caloocan.
-he was proclaimed National Artist in 1973.
Academic (a term referring to the kind of art that was
influenced by European academies)- tradition of painting
and sculpture in the manner of Amorsolo and Tolentino
prevailed in the art scene.
Victorio Edades- his art studies in the US, where its
modern art movement profoundly influenced him.
-his homecoming exhibition in 1928 at the Philippine
Columbian Club unveiled paintings which departed
from the conservative style of Amorsolo.
The Builders, 1928 (Victorio Edades)- showed
distorted figures of toiling workers using dull colors; a shift
in the treatment of form and subject matter.
Napoleon Abueva- a national artist. The latter
proponent of Modern Art. A student of Tolentino.
-a sculptor who has worked with a wide variety of
mediums, from hardwood to precious alabaster.
Modern Art and Its Challenge to Academic Art
Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco- is known for his
magisterial murals.
Filipino Struggles Through History 1964- a mural by
Francisco. One of the largest and most ambitious in scope,
which he did for the Manila City Hall.
Galo Ocampo- is recognized for indigenizing western
icons, as seen in his Brown Madonna 1938 which sets
the mother and child in a native, tropical environment.
Victorio Edades, Carlos Francisco and Galo Ocampo-
have been regarded as the “triumvirate” of modern art
after having worked on several murals together.
Nature’s Bounty, (ca. 1935)- a collaborative work the
survives to this day.
-which portrays a group of women harvesting fruits in
a field.
-at the center of the painting is a papaya tree and
heavenly beings hovering from above.
Art Nouveau and Art Deco- popular styles at that time
which also found expression in architecture.
Metropolitan Theater (1935)- an example of Art Deco
architecture made by Juan Arellano in Manila.
The Thirteen Moderns
 Victorio Edades
 Arsenio Capili
 Bonifacio Cristobal
 Demetrio Diego
 Carlos Francisco (NA)
 Cesar Legaspi (NA)
 Diosdado Lorenzo
 Anita Magsaysay-Ho
 Galo Ocampo
 Hernando R. Ocampo (NA)
 Jose Pardo
 Ricarte Purugganan
Japanese Occupation (1941-1945)
KALIBAPI- Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod ng Bagong
Pilipinas
-it sponsored art competitions.
1943 and 1944- Purugganan and Francisco won KALIBAPI
awards.
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere- a
propaganda movement that sought to create a Pan-Asian
identity that rejected Western Traditions.
Slogans such as “Asia for Asians” made its way to the
public through posters, ephemera, comics and Japanese
sponsored publications such as Shin-Seiki, and in
newspapers and magazines such as Liwayway and
Tribune.
Japanese Information Bureau or Hodobu- the
regulate the information campaign. It employed local
artists and cultural workers.
Felipe P. de Leon- a composer National Artist who was
said to have been “commanded at the point of the gun” to
write Awit sa Paglikha ng Bagong Pilipinas. Declared as
the anthem specifically for the period, it conveyed
allegiance to the nation reared in East Asia, where Japan
was actively asserting its political power.
Harvest Scene, 1942 and Rice Planting, 1942- these
are paintings that evoked a semblance of peace, idealized
work in the countryside, and promoted values of docile
industriousness.
Sylvia Torre- wrote a hit song Sa Kabukiran. It is
written in Tagalog in the 1940s by the acclaimed
composer Levi Celerio (National Artist for Music and
Literature, awarded 1997).
-her operatic singing along with an energetic tempo
offered an escape from the troubles of the war.
His Excellency, Jorge B. Vargas, Chairman of the
Philippine Executive Commission, 1943 and
Independence this Year, said His Excellency, Premier
Tojo, 1943- commissioned portraits of high officials were
also produced at this time.
Crispin Lopez’s- Study of an Aeta, 1943.
Bombing of the Intendencia, 1942 and Ruins of the
Manila Cathedral, 1945 (Amorsolo)- they draw
attention to the elegant handling of value in the billows of
smoke or the pile of ruins rather than the urgency of the
disaster itself.
Atrocities in Paco (Diosdado Lorenzo) and Doomed
Family (Dominador Castañeda)- works that depicted
the horrors of war were painted after 1945.
Neo-Realsim, Abstraction and Other Modern Art
Styles
Alice Guillermo- recounts how artists and writers
reflected about national identity as Filipinos were rising
from the ashes of war.
Manansala, Legaspi and HR Ocampo- were among the
NA associated with Neo-Realism.
The Beggars (Manansala, 1952)- consists of the image
of two women with emaciated bodies, their forlorn faces
set against a dark background capturing the dreariness of
poverty.
Manansala’s paintings- are characterized by
transparent cubism, a style marked by the soft
fragmentation of figures using transparent planes instead
of hard-edged ones, as exemplified in the painting Tuba
Drinkers, 1945, Legaspi’s Gadgets II, 1949 depicts
half-naked men almost engulfed in the presence of
machines.
Their elongated limbs and exaggerated muscles indicate
the hardship of their labor; their expressionless faces and
repetitive actions rob them of their humanity as they
function like machines.
Most of Legaspi’s figures in this period are distorted by
his elongating or making rotund forms in a well-ordered
composition, as seen in the painting Bar Girls, 1947.
HR Ocampo’s The Contrast, 1940- is a distinct
figurative work which exposes dire human conditions
amid the backdrop of modernity.
-he is more recognized however, for his paintings that
combine geometric and biomorphic shapes with vibrant
colors.
-his painting Genesis, 1968- which puts together warm-
colored shapes, became the basis of the stunning tapestry
hanging at the Main Theater or Bulwagang Nicanor
Abelardo of the CCP.
Ramon Estella, Victor Oteyza and Romeo Tabuena-
other artists identified with Neo-Realism.
Art Association of the Philippines (AAP)- were
established in 1948 under the leadership of arstist Purita
Kalaw-Ledesma.
-part of its initiative is to sponsor contests to encourage
art production.
Martino Abellana (Cebu-based) for his work Job Was
Also Man and Fernando Zobel’s iconic painting
Carroza. They were awarded by the AAP in 1953.
Printmaking workshop of Manuel Rodriguez, Sr. was
opened.
Philippine Art Gallery (PAG)- which provided a venue
and laid out early programs for modern art, was put up in
1951 through the efforts of the artist-writer Lydia
Arguilla, and others.
Mabini Painters- if they feel that the judges’ decisions
were biased, they continued to practice in the
conservative tradition walked out as a form of protest and
exhibited their works on the streets. They were eventually
more popularly associated with their studios lining in the
street of Mabini, Manila.
1950s- also saw the construction of modern architectural
structures, particularly churches that modified churches
that modified or veered away from traditional cruciform
designs.
Church of Holy Sacrifice, 1955 and the Church of the
Risen Lord- which both employed concrete as primary
material and experimented with rounded or parabolic
forms.
Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker (Victorias, Negros)-
a remarkable example built by the Czech-American
architect Antonin Raymond. It features a striking mural of
Christ by the Filipino-American artist Alfonso Ossorio.
Church- is a curious combination of modern architecture
with a minimalist character and modern painting
expressive of folk sensibilities.
Abstraction- another strand of Modern Art that emerged
during the period.
-it generally consists of simplified forms, which
avoided mimetic (exact copy) representation.
-sometimes referred to as non-representational or
non-objective art as it emphasized the relationships
of line, color, and space or the flatness of the canvas
rather than an illusion of three-dimensionality.
Solid geometric shapes and color fields are seen in
the works of Constancio Bernardo and particular
phases of Lee Aguinaldo’s practice.
NA Jose Joya- the abstract expressionist style that plays
up the aspect of spontaneity in the process of making is
exemplified. With his thick and often vigorously
application of paint.
Fernando Zobel’s- paintings using used syringes to apply
paint. This allowed him to produce works that balanced
produced works that balanced the element of chance and
restraint.
Arturo Luz’s- works is the use of stark linear elements as
seen in Street Musicians, 1952 which pared down the
figures into lines and basic shapes.
Nena Saguil- is known for her canvases filled with circles
and cell-like form. Earlier in her career, she did figurative
works with rotund features, such as in the painting
Cargadores, 1951.
70s to Contemporary
Under the helm of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
beginning in 1965, many cultural projects ensued amid
the backdrop of poverty and volatile social conditions.
Martial Law- was declared on September 21, 1972.
New Society or Bagong Lipunan- envisioned by
Marcos.
-it worked toward the rebirth of a long lost civilization
and aspiration to modernization and development
on the other.
-this vision was propagated and implemented through
an art and culture program that combined the fine
arts, architecture, interior design, tourism,
convention city buildings (hotels, theaters,
coliseums), engineering, urban planning, health,
among many others.
Bagong Pagsilang- Levi Celerio and Felipe Padilla de
Leon’s composition for the New Society.
As index of progress, refinement, radical experiment,
national identity and love for our country, art was
circulated through an intricate network of institutions that
braided the threads of the pre-modern and vernacular, the
modern and international.
National pride- was instilled by invoking the pre-modern
through murals, folk festivals and museums devoted to
collecting and displaying ethnographic artifacts and
natural specimens among these key sites was the National
Museum, which was revitalized through Constitutional
amendments.
Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)- the premier
bureaucratic entity through which art acquisition,
exhibition making, workshops, grants and awards were
implemented.
-it was created on June25, 1966 through Executive Order
30 and inaugurated in 1969 the year Marcos was elected
to his second term as Philippine President.
Leandro Locsin- chief architect of Imelda Marcos,
designed the modernist cantilevered building described as
a cross between the vernacular bahay kubo and art brut
minimalist structures. It stands like a shrine to High Art on
land reclaimed from historic Manila Bay.
Marcos Monument- this structure presides over and
stands guard at the entrance of the CCP complex, which
consists of satellite structures with varying functions: The
Folk Arts Theater which became the venue of the first
Miss Universe Pageant in the Philippines in 1974; the
state-of-the-art Philippine International Convention
Center (PICC) which housed the 1976 IMF-World Bank
Conference; the Tahanang Filipino or Coconut place
which was built in anticipation of a papal visit; and the
Manila Film Center which was built to host the Manila
International Film Festival to ambitiously rival Cannes.
National Arts Center in Mt. Makiling- designed by
National Artist Architect Leandro Locsin appropriated the
style of vernacular houses like the Ifugao fale; while the
Coconut Palace, designed by Architect Francisco Mañosa,
utilized indigenous building materials and fashioned the
roof to look like a salakot, a pointed hat sued by farmers
in the field.
CCP- supported artists by providing venues and grants
and served as a validating entity that institutionalized
major awards like the National Artist Award.
NA Jose Maceda- was staged through the CCP, involving
hundreds of transistor radios and radio stations
nationwide in order to create “sound atmospheres” from
the strategic overlapping of indigenous and found sounds.
It opened and managed a museum which the artist-
professor Roberto Chabet was tasked to be the first
director of. Chabet’s works at that time were avowedly
conceptual, emphasizing the idea behind his art rather
than technique and form. He called himself a Flux artist,
he did collages, drawings, sculptures and installations
using found objects.
Objects, held at CCP in 1973, Chabet tore up a copy of a
coffee-table book on Philippine contemporary art and
placed it in a trash bin.
Tearing into Pieces- was seen as a scandalous critique
of the conventions of the art world; in her book The
Struggle for Philippine Art, artist, collector, critic and
founder of the Art Association of the Philippines Purita
Kalaw-Ledesma described the work as “anti-museum art”.
Chabet taught at the UP College of Fine Arts (1971 to
2002), where he mentored a new generation of innovative
Filipino artists who have become established multimedia
artists.
Chabet-Albano- axis also went beyond the CCP white
cube as they opened up non-white cube sites for art
exhibitions and performance spaces- furnaces, offices,
warehouses, clocktowers, shop windows, kitchen, public
halls, hotels among others.
Philippine Art Supplement and the Review Cultural
Form.
Albano- he initiated projects under the rubrics he termed
as “developmental art” aimed at exposing art to a learning
public. He characterized the period 1971-1975 as the
“exposure phase” in which advanced art-experimental in
nature-were displayed in the galleries.
-ushered in the contemporary by investing the modern
with the urgency of the now.
Exhibitions- Albano wrote “should be alive, not church-
like, quite high in festive ambience”.
Wood Things 1981 (Junyee)- an example of installation
art. Made of kapok or cotton pods, installed on the walls
and floor of the CCP’s white cube spaces to make these
look like crawlers encroaching on the museum space.
Social Realism- a significant strand that emerged during
the intense political ferment of the 70s and the 80s.
-it is a form of protest art that exposed the
sociopolitical issues and struggles of the times.
-it is conscious with its regard for the oppressed and
underrepresented masses.
-it would tackle for example, the plight of the
marginalized, inequality and forms of repression.
-it also worked collectively and in collaboration, not
only in terms of producing murals and other art
forms, but also in making aesthetic decisions
grounded on a common mass-based, scientific and
nationalist framework.

The format of protest art is not just confined to painting
on canvas but also extends to other more accessible and
popular forms like posters and illustrations; or street art
as in collaborative murals in public spaces.
Kaisahan- was composed of Antipas Delovato, Neil
Doloricon, Renato Habulan, Edgar Talusan Hernandez, Al
Manrique, Jose Tence Ruiz and Pablo Baen Santos.
-its influence as a collective reached organization like
the group of UP Fine Arts Students who eventually
became known in the 80s as the Salingpusa.
Elmer Borlongan, Karen Ocampo Flores, Emmanuel
Garibay, Mark Justiniani, Lito Mondejar and Federico
Sievert- founding member.
Beyond Manila, the strain of political art could also be
observed in Bacolod, where artist groups such as
Pamilya Pintura were formed with Nunelucio
Alvarado, Charlie Co, and Noberto Roldan.
Roldan- is now based in Manila, and heads and runs the
long running Green Papaya Art Projects.
Co- runs Orange Gallery in Bacolod.
Ocampo-Flores- curates, teaches and organizes and is
known for spearheading, with other artists, the loose
collective Tutok.
Project Space Pilipinas- based in Lucban, Quezon and
founded by the artist Leslie de Chavez in 2007.
Dogfight paintings- of NA Ang Kiukok, hinting conflict
and aggression.
Onib Olmedo- his paintings which feature men with
ovoid fcaes often donning a mysterious expression
bordering on ennui.
Pieta, 1969- Eduardo Castrillo’s gigantic metal work
evoked a strong feeling of anguish and loss through the
expressive poses of Mary the mother and the oversized
body of Christ which she supports.
Ethnicity, identity and alternative historical
narratives are explored in the intermedia works of
Santiago Bose, who drew insight from his native Baguio
which was once an American colonial outpost.
Roberto Feleo’s installations re-tell creation stories
drawn from indigenous myths and combine them with
foreign interventions such as vitrines or altar niches
normally used to house saints.
Brenda Fajardo- foreground the histories of ethnic
communities through her tarot card series.
Context of Art
Context- refers to settings, conditions, circumstances and
occurrences affecting production and reception or
audience response to an artwork. It is a set of background
information that enables us to formulate meanings about
works of art and note how context affects from.
A. Artist’s Background- the artist’s age, gender,
culture, economic conditions, social environment
and disposition affect art production.
Betis, Pampanga- sculpture-making is learned through
apprenticeship with a matecanan mandukit or a master
sculptor who maintains a workshop where young people
are trained to make santos.
Tausug National Artist Abdulmari Asia Imao
(awardedin 2006)- integrated motifs from the culture of
Mindanao, like the mythical sarimanok and okir designs in
his paintings and sculptures using modernist styles of
figuration.
S-shaped brass sculpture fronting the Vargas
Museum (1984)- which integrates motifs such as the
crescent moon, star and okir.
Talaandig artist from Bukidnon- express their affinities
with their land by using soil instead of pigments and by
painting subject matter that are grounded on their
present concerns as a people.
B. Nature- it can be seen as a source of inspiration
and a wellspring of materials for art production.
-it is also seen as a force that one has to
contend with.
Nelfa Querubin-Tompkins- has experimented with
iron-rich San Dionisio clay sourced from her native Iloilo.
Coarse clay- is prepared by mixing it with river sand and
lead glaze to create elegant black pottery.
Roy Legarde- his black and white photographs
documenting the effects of typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) one
year after it struck Visayan region in 2013, show
melancholic images suggesting absence or loss caused by
natural disaster.
C. Everyday Life
MM Yu- a photographer who has captured the details of
interesting patterns and forms often overlooked in the
city. She also photographed unexpected and unsightly
piles of garbage and somehow transformed them into
aesthetic pictures.
Group Cavity- does graffiti in the streets of Cavity. They
are group of young artists who create temporary yet
arresting images in public spaces.
D. Society, Politics and Economy and History
19th Century- a period which brought much economic
prosperity to a segment of Filipinos who later became the
elite.
The first film ever to be directed by a Filipino was
based on the play Dalagang Bukid by Hermogenes
Ilagan and Leon Ignacio. It was directed by Jose
Nepomuceno in 1919.
NA Atang de la Rama- singing while the movie ran.
Brown Brother’s Burden (ca. 1970)- painting by NA
Benedicto Cabrera approximates the look of an old
photograph which, presents an aspect of colonial history
from the gaze of the colonized.
Appropriation- the said technique of transforming
existing materials through the juxtaposition of elements
taken from one context and placing these in another to
present alternative meanings, structure and composition.
E. Mode of Reception- when, where and how art
is encountered.
Reception- is very much affected by our level pf
exposure to artforms that may be unfamiliar or have
startling or shocking images.
Teofilo Garcia- a 2012 awardee is a farmer in the town
of San Quintin, a municipality in Abra Province, better
known for tending a plot of land filled with enlarged upo
or gourd.
GAMABA or Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (one
who creates for the country) or National Living
Treasure.
National Commission for Culture and the Arts
(NCCA).
Traditional Art- is based on indigenous people’s culture
that are largely honed by oral tradition.
-it finds deep affinities with nature, place, society, ritual
and spirituality and everyday life.
The Award System
The Production Process and The Changing Environment
Factors that affect traditional artist’s production
process:
Tourism- land areas are converted into sites for tourist
consumption.
Mining and Infrastructure Projects- the construction
of dams and the establishment of oil and mining
companies evict people from their dwellings and severely
damage the environment.
Militarization- the insecurity and tensions brought about
by militarized zones arrest the people’s ability to create
art.
Christianization- the influence of Christianity and the
conversion of the natives to a foreign religion have caused
members of the community to forsake their indigenous
rituals and traditions.
Difficulties in the Selection Process
The archipelagic orientation of the Philippine
makes some locations challenging to reach by land, air or
sea. Places that pose security risks, particularly militarized
zones prevent the sustained entry of researchers and
possibly diminish reception outside of the locality. This is
partly why the awarding does not follow a regular pattern,
as the column on Year of Conferment on the table of
GAMABA awardees shows. The award-giving body,
through its cultural workers, is entrusted with an equally
significant and difficult responsibility of being critical,
transparent and judicious in the processes entailed by the
GAMABA, from the selection, awarding, and even beyond.
Effects of GAMABA in the communities
Since the artists are very much entrenched in
their localities, the award system might create a division
within the communities when one person is elevated to
the status of a national awardee. The attention and the
entry of outsiders may create a disruption that may also
change, not just the social and economic relationships,
but also the people’s attitudes, concepts, and definitions
of the art forms and the processes.