Zeian Jacob Bayla

CAP 12

Check Your Understanding

Recall

1. The first difference between contemporary and modern art is Historical and Chronological.

2. Neoclassic Art is also described by art historians like Guillermo as “Conservative” along with

other established styled imported from America via Spanish colonization.

Application (Make a Venn Diagram)

3. What are the similarities of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Philippines?

4. What are the differences of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Philippines?

Modern arts are arts that

were created by the Artspast Contemporary art is the arts
artist but their arts remains that are created by the
area
as of today but no modern latest artist today
arts are made today.

Synthesis

5. What are the general characteristics of Contemporary Art in the Philippines?

The Philippine contemporary arts are mostly done by traditional media.

Check Your Understanding

Recall

1. Subject in the arts refers to what they are all about.

2. Initial data are texts, images, artwork and symbols that clue us in to the social and

historical contexts referred to.

Application

3. What is one essential difference of subject from theme?

Subject is difference from theme the subject is portraying what the art is all about.

4. What is one essential difference of theme from subject?

Theme is different from subject because theme is the hidden message that the artist wants to express to
the people.

Performance Task No.2

Title: Research Works

1. Assign each student contemporary Filipino artist listed below:

 Mideo Cruz

 Elmer Borlongan

 Ronald Ventura

 Mark Salvatus

 Manny Garibay

2. Each student shall research on their assigned artist. Be sure to research the artist’s biography,

journey as an artist, existing interviews, collection of work, and other significant information. Identify

the subjects and themes common to the artist’s work.

3. For online learners prepare a 10-15 minute presentation to be submitted via the LMS.
Emmanuel Garibay was born on November 17, 1962 in Kidapawan, North Cotabato by a father who
worked as a pastor in a Methodist church and a mother who worked in the city engineer’s office. His
family moved to Davao city where he spent a secure and happy childhood. In 1968, then only six,
Garibay’s mother provided the earliest significant encouragement for his artistic talent. His work even as
a young boy showed a grasp of human character, particularly of soldiers. "Young boys are always
fascinated with men in uniform," he says. "I then went to a phase of doodling robots, tanks, and make-
believe characters."

He recalls with great relish as a child growing in Davao that he was taken in by the awe of owning a
bicycle. The bicycle spelled freedom and fun that took him around the neighborhood and the lakes with
his friends. The young Garibay would always set off on his bicycle and pedalled up the drive with his
friends to explore new places and meet new people. "I love Davao," he muses, describing it as
"charming and wild in so many senses of the word.

Davao provided the ideal environment for the young Garibay’s intense aesthetic sense; it was a much
visited place by artists, including Victorio Edades (1895-1985), Ang Kiukok (1931-2005), and sculptor
Napoleon Abueva. He had begun his schooling in 1968 at the public school, where he was surrounded by
fun-loving children of the town, who exemplified camaraderie in his everyday life. He had an
inexplicable attraction to the place and was attached to the area by "an invisible umbilical cord," which
could never be cut and forgotten." He said of his childhood "every house has an old man or woman, a
drunken man, a gang of kids roaming around town, and lots of stray dogs."
In 1979, his elder siblings left for Manila to pursue their college education. Garibay, however, went to
pursue his studies in the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna. Garibay was majoring in
sociology, a course, which he jokingly says "i ticked off in my college application form." The course
introduced to him the set of perspectives on human life that allowed him to understand how personal
lives are affected by one’s place in society and that the events and experiences in one’s life are part of
group dynamics, social institutions, and cultural meanings. This appears to have made a significant
impact on him as this was later on to influence his subject matter.

While his heart was not so much in it, Garibay’s artistic studies were more consistent than the rest of his
education. When he was a college sophomore, he applied as an illustrator for the university’s
community newspaper, Perspective, where he met Edna Jaococo, a beautiful Chinese mestiza from the
nearby town, who was majoring in veterinary medicine and whom he courted for two years and
eventually married. It was in this same period when he discovered the joy of painting and soon all
interest in sociology was gone.

"In college, I spent an enormous amount of time meeting with other students from UP Diliman," he
shares. "There were times when we skipped class and proceed to Mendiola to rally. We spent our
allowances buying canvases and paints and work day in and out to use in our rallies. The students whom
I interacted with were using their art to epitomize the suffering and realism of the time. It seemed like it
was the natural thing to do; painting these pictures to insert information that was going through our
heads. I was also doing sports to balance my student life."
Elmer Misa Borlongan (born January 7, 1967) is a prominent contemporary Filipino painter best known
for his distinctive use of figurative expressionism.
He rose to prominence as a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Thirteen Artist Awards in
1994, and his works have since become one of the most widely exhibited and most sought-after at
auctions among Southeast Asian artists.
He is married to fellow artist Plet Bolipata.

When asked about his visual approach, Borlongan describes his style as figurative expressionism. Art
curator Ditas Samson expounds on this, describing a typical Borlongan canvas as "dominated by the
human figure - often disorted in shape, in unreal hues." 
Borlongan's early work is known for its usage of figures in urban settings, in stark contrast to the idyllic
rural settings of the earlier generation of Filipino artists, such as Fernando Amorsolo.
Later works by Borlongan, after his move from the streets of Manila to the provincial settings of
Zambales, increasingly featured people in rural settings as well, but imbued with the same tense energy
which characterizes his urban-setting figures - a thematic contrast which has been described as a
prominent characteristic of Borlongan's later corpus.
The artist spent his childhood in the inner cities of urban Manila and as a result his sensitivities (as
well as his choice of subjects and themes) were attuned to the day-to-day struggles of the working
class Filipino. But it was his representation of the lumpen, the homeless and most especially street
children, that brought the young Borlongan to the attention of the Philippine art world in the early
1990's. While his paintings evoked empathy, the artist is also keen to represent the humor implicit
in the simple lives of people, as well as feats of resilience and survival in the face of economic
hardship. After a stint with the artist-collective ABAY in the late 80s, he joined the young artist
group Salingpusa and later, Sanggawa. With Salingpusa and Sanggawa, Borlongan lent his
prodigious talent for figurative painting to produce large scale interactive canvases that include
works featured in survey shows in Australia, Denmark, and the US, as well as important mural
projects such as the Centennial paintings in the Malacanang Palace, the Philippines President
residence. His preference for depicting characters of a social class led him to be identified with the
Social Realist movement, although Borlongan after the late 1990s led a solitary artistic practice in
Zambales, a rural province north-west of Manila.
The artist's work is characterized by a penchant for stylized figuration and an idiosyncratic
iconography that includes bald heads, large-eyes and elongated limbs. He portrays his subjects in a
simple figure-background composition that serves a pictorial device to highlight their
idiosyncrasies or manner. Having moved from Manila to the provinces, there is a also a perceivable
shift of Borlongan's canvases from pictures of life in the city to images of people seen on roads, as
pedestrians or travelers or vendors, and of simple fisherfolk living basic existences amplified by
rituals of religion, spectacles of entertainment, strains of work and by enchantments of play.

Borlongan's work is part of major collections among them include the Fukuoka Art Museum,
Singapore Art Museum, Pinto Art Museum among many others. He is a multi-awarded artist whose
distinctions include the CCP 13 Artist Award in 1994.