Contemporary Art in the Philippines
CHAPTER 1 - Defining
Contemporary Art
What is Contemporary Art?
Contemporary Art
 refers to art being created now
 derived from Latin prefix “con” which
means “together” or “with” plus tempus,
which means “time.
A. Chronological View
 Art related to this current period in art history,
and refers to art that is new, recent, modern, or
pertains to the present moment.
 Art produced in our era or lifetime
B. Historical View
 Regards contemporary art as specific episode or
stage in the story of evolution of art, referring
to a specific location in space and time.
 Art belongs to a particular historical period
 Postmodern art
- In the standard periodization of art history across
the globe, contemporary art is place in the following
years:
A. Art produced after 1945
B. Art Produced since the 1960s
Contemporary Art in the Philippines
 Diaspora by Antipas Delotovo 2007. Oil on canvas
 Emerged in reaction to social and cultural
realities during the 1970s
 Defined by system which trained aspiring artists
under tutelage
 Art became a means to oppose the regime, and
the political art of social flourished
 Social Realism is an art movement which sought
to expose the real condition of Philippine society
and used art to transform it.
 The end of Martial Law in the wake of the EDSA
People Power Revolution in 1986 brought the
country into the contemporary period.
“… the best art is a piece that chronicles its time and
Contemporary
context. It revealsArt in theaspiration
the inner Philippines
of itsemerged
audience. due
It
to three factors:
articulates its moments.” – Santiago Bose
1. The return of democracy under the Aquino
government;
2. The improved economic and political environment
in the country, particularly in the regions; and
3. The advent of new technologies and free access
to media.
Contemporary Art as a Breaking of Norms
Contemporary Art as a Breaking of Norms
 Contemporary Art is ruled by the cult of the
new, endeavoring to create works of art that are
“radical” and “interdisciplinary.”
 To be new is to be modern; the new is
progressive.
 The world of contemporary art is plural, diverse,
and at time whimsical.
Appropriation
 is the practice of creating a new work by taking
a pre-existing image or work from another
context – art history, media, advertising – and
combining the borrowed image with new ones.
Contemporary Art as a Breaking of Norms
 Contemporary artists generate forms or anti-
forms or even non-forms that challenge
conventional ideas and norms of what art ought
to do or is capable of doing.
 Contemporary art can revisit the past and
resonate it in works that trigger questions
addressed to the present as well as the future.
Tie a String Around the World revolves around
Manuel Conde’s 1950’s film Genghis Khan, co-
written and designed by Carlos Francisco, which was
screened at the Venice Film Festival in 1952.
Contemporary Art and Local Heritage
In the of Baclayon in Bohol, an old sabungan or
What is HERITAGE?
cockpit arena is repurposed to become a community
 something that can be passed from one
theater in 2015.
generation to generation to the next, can be
conserved or inherited, and has historic or
cultural value.
A. Physical Objects and Places Heritage
B. Practice of Heritage
The carabao, which is integral in traditional Central
Luzon agriculture, becomes the focal point of art making
in Mandal Art Festival held every May since 2012 in
Pulilan, Bulacan.
Contemporary Art as a Critic of Society
 Venues for contemporary Art
are no longer confined within
the strict boundaries of the
museums and gallery spaces.
Creative exhibition spaces are
carved from existing public
places like parks, market places
or even abandoned buildings.
An eye-catching temporary patchwork architecture of used
clothing assembled by over a hundred student volunteers,
installed in the Rose Garden of Burnham Park.
 Contemporary art is also
about the creative
adaptation of non-art spaces
to create alternative and
unpredictable venues
Image 1.6. Bamboo Theater;for
displaying and performing
courtesy of Gerard Lico and
Rosarion
art. Encarnacion-Tan
An installation art by Architect Rosario Encarnacion Tan
and Fuminori Nousako, created an alternative open space
for art and performance at the front of the Vargas Musuem.
The structure consisted of a bamboo framework roofed with
colorful commercial rice sacks.
 In 2004, the artist collaborated with
the community of Brgy. San Jose,
San Vicente, Camarines Norte to
create the installation Salabay using
a bamboo, abaca, and founfd plastics.
 HUMANITIES
 Refers to the study of the human experience –
how people process and record their thoughts,
beliefs, and longings
 It includes your philosophy, history, literature,
Historical Development of Art
art, music, and language as their modes of
Prehistoric Art
expression
 Before recorded history
 Deals with the expression of the internal world  Paleolithic (Stone Age)
of a person *2.5 million–3000 BC
 Mesolithic
* 10000–4000 BC
Contemporary Art as a Critic of Society  Neolithic
 In 2004, an earthquake preparedness performance drill *4000–2000 BC
entitled Agap Iglap Lindol was conducted by Manila-based
university theater groups in a thickly populated barangay in Paleolithic (Stone Age)
2.5 million–3000 BC
Sta. Mesa, Manila through the cooperation of the barangay
 Bhimbetka Petroglyphs
leaders and the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang
 Earliest recorded art
Pangkultura sa Karatig Pook and the NCCA.  Cupules at Auditorium Cave & Daraki-Chattan
Rock Shelter
 c. 290000-700000 BC
Functions of Contemporary Art  Venus Figurines
Contemporary Art for Pleasure  Statuettes of women similar in size and shape
(obese or pregnant)
Contemporary as
Contemporary ArtProfession
for Pleasure
 Contemporary
Art can provideArt as Commentary
escape from everyday concerns and
Contemporary Art in Spirituality
satisfy the yearning for pleasurable experiences.
 Contemporary
Visual delight Art as Remembrance
in a work of art can take many forms,
Contemporary Art for Persuasion
including an appreciationImage
of beauty of decoration,
1.7. Mark or III,
Ramsel Salvatus
Art as Self-Expression
delight in an element of Salabay;
surprise.courtesy of NCCA and Mark
Ramsel Salvatus III

Contemporary Art for PLEASURE

 Cave Paintings
 Chauvet Cave, France (c. 30,000 BC)
 Aesthetic refers to an awareness of beauty or to
 Lascaux Cave, France (c. 15,000 BC)
that quality in a work of art or other manmade or  Altamira Cave, Spain (c. 13,000 BC)
natural from which evokes a sense of elevated
awareness in the viewer.
Mesolithic 10000-4000 BC
 Pottery & Sculpture
 Naqada II Boats on Pottery (35000-32000 BC)
Contemporary Art as PROFESSION  c. 6500-5500 BC
Contemporary Art as PROFESSION
Contemporary
 Artist earnArt as COMMENTARY
a living through their art because it
Contemporary
 Art
has economicArt as
is used tovalue SPIRITUALITY
answer andour need
gains for information.
currency in a
Contemporary
 Artists Artcreate
asaccount
REMEMBRANCE
networkmay
Provide aof
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exchange. art to
ofexpress
an eventspiritual
or a person,
Contemporary Art as SELF-EPRESSION
 Remembrance
Contemporary
 beliefs
or
Creative about
by expressing is for
Art the
as
Industriessomething
destiny
an opinion
refersofdone
PERSUASION life
to as an aid which
controlled
industries toby the
 Art fulfils an expressive function when an artist memory
 force
 Art is of
Artist
combine a higher
speak
the
used to inspur power.
a language
creation, easy
production,
political to and
change understand
or modify
conveys information about his or her personality,  Commemoration
 Art produces
Includes for
personal of important
this purpose
judgement events
onmay andwhich
people
reinforce
conditions, the
commercialization
the behavior of creative
and thinking contents
of large groups offacts,
are
feelings or worldview. (honoring
shared
or politics
intangible patriotic
belief
and an actions).
individual
cultural orIta connects
community
in persuasive
nature. people
finding
people have political and functions.
withway
its thethrough
chain ofsacred
humanity thatplaces,
rituals, stretches
and back
over millennia.
ceremonies.
 Architecture and public art forms depicts art as
remembrance
 Neolithic 4000-2000
 South Rose BC
Windows
Iron Age Art (1500–200 BC)  The Thinker and Woman Sitting Down
Notre Dame de Paris, France
 Greek Golden Age (500– 410 BC)  Cernavoda, Romania, c. 5000- 4600 BC
 Classicism, humanism
 Man became the center of things Bronze Age Art (3000–1200 BC)
 Statue of Zeus  Characterized by the production of bronze
 Olympia, Greece  Bronze: alloy of copper and tin
 430–422 BC  Gorget, gold-inlaid, Ireland, c. 700 BC
 One of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World
 40 ft (12 m) Renaissance Art (1300-1590)
 Phidias  “Rebirth”, 3 Characteristics:
 Medium: wood, ivory, & gold “Reawakening” 1. Formal arrangement &
 Athena Parthenos  Rebirth of ancient expressive gestures
 Parthenon, The Acropolis, Athens, traditions with the 2. The beginning of
Greece application of perspective–3D
 40 ft (12 m) scientific knowledge 3. Secularism, Worldliness
 Phidias (Naturalism), & Exploration
 Medium: wood, ivory, silver, & gold Pietà
 St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Medieval Art (32 AD-1400)  Michelangelo
4 Types:  Realistic depiction of  1498–1500
1. Early Christian Art objects  Medium: Marble
2. Byzantine Art  Holiness, Godliness, Birth of Venus
3. Romanesque Art Sacredness  Florence, Italy
4. Gothic Art  Religious subjects  Sandro Botticelli
 1483–1485
 Artists mostly belong
 Medium: tempera on panel
to the religious
orders
 Sculptures were Baroque Art (1600-1750)
considered as forms “Rough pearl”
of idolatry
5 Characteristics:
1. Dramatic color
2. Dramatic lighting
3. Ecstasies & conversions
4. Martyrdom & death
5. Extravagance, Ostentation, Grandeur
The Third of May 1808
 Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
 Francisco Goya
 1814
 Medium: oil on canvas
Early Christian Art Spoliarium
 Good Shepherd  National Museum of The Philippines, Manila
 Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome  Juan Luna
 c. 275 AD  c. 1884
 Early Christian Mural Painting  Medium: oil on poplar
Byzantine Art
 Mosaic of Empress Zoe
 Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey Neoclassicism (1600–1750)
 11th century  Nostalgic of the formal pattern and discipline
Romanesque Art emphasized in Classical Art
 Stained Glass Emperor Charlemagne I  Rococo–prominent decorative style used
 Strasbourg Cathedral, Alsace, France
Gothic Art 4 Characteristics:
 1. Pursuit of perfection 2. Rejection of certainty
2.Pursuit of order 3. Rejection of the idea of “deity”
3. Appeal to the sophisticated taste 4. Abstraction, Scientism, & Expressionism
4. Elegance, Orderliness, & Formality Picture with a black arch
Venus Induces Helen to Fall in Love with Paris  Paris, France
 Angelica Kauffman  Wassily Kandinsky
 1790  1912
 Medium: oil on canvas  Medium: oil on canvas
Pallas Athene Fountain Senecio (Head of a Man)
 Parliamentary Building, Vienna, Austria  Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland
 Carl Kundmann  Paul Klee
 1893–1902  1922
 Medium: marble  Medium: oil on gauze

Romanticism (1775–1890) Postmodernism (1970–Present)

A reaction against the Neoclassicism movement  Contemporary art
 Reactionary art against modernism
5 Characteristics:
1. Emotion over reason Characteristics:
2. Legitimization of individual imagination 1. Intellectual
3. Freedom from classical notion 2. Cultural
4. Rebellion against aristocratic norms & scientific 3. Rejects modernist faith in progress
rationalization 4. Denies the existence of a comprehensible, objective
5. Sentimentalism, Individualism, & Rebellion reality—all perception and every sphere of human
Liberty Leading the People consciousness and existence are subject to the laws of
 Louvre, Lens, Pasde-Calais, France relativity
 Eugène Delacroix 5. Plurality (diversity)
 1830 Great Castigation Series (Coca-Cola)
 Medium: oil on canvas  Wang Guangyi
The Lady Shalott  1991-1994
 Tate Britain, London  Medium: oil on canvas
 John William Waterhouse Whimsical Entropy: Postmodern Elegy
 1888  Francis Berry
 Medium: oil on canvas  2006
 Medium: watercolor

Modernism (1900–Present)
2 Influences:
1. Rapid industrialization & development of cities
2.World Wars

Characteristics:
1. Rejection of the ideologies of realism