ManilArt10 just closed yesterday. It really was quite a glorious experience. In those four days of our current lives, there were more viewers than what you would have expected and counted in your booth as visitors in a regular gallery for almost a year, including guests in opening events and participants in artist talks.
Every so often, there would be favorites in an exhibition. But none would really notice them except when you actually stay and observe people come in and leave your booth. I am referring to this one painting which I particularly, curiously, and serendipitously positioned right smack in the center of the Artis Corpus booth C17.
John Marin’s “Fidelity,” in my judgment, is the most photographed work in the Artis Corpus booth [I am not saying “fair”] at the ManilArt10 fair. A little something about my association with the artist would reveal why this became so. I totally believe that an artist speaks through his canvasses, and charm must have been the reason (the only reason). John Marin is a nineteen year old third (or fourth) year student of Fine Arts at the Technological University of the Philippines. [Now please hesitate to ask me why an “applied science” university is offering Fine Arts. That would be another story.]
I met this absolutely charming teenager [pardon the slight pun here] sometime August of last year when I was planning for the Rosa Negra exhibition for September of last year. He came with a nice piece [which may even have been a plate of sorts in school] entitled “Singkit-Singkitan” which I immediately fell in love with. I said “Let’s put it in the show!” But then I asked “Why?” He said that the piece sort of precludes the current trend to “Asianify” Philippine Art. “Uh-huh,” I said.
I did not sell that piece during that exhibition which opened on 21 September and closed on 26 September, the day of that bastard typhoon named Ondoy. Yet, I bought it, because I really liked it. In February 2010, I included it in the art auction of the Asian Cultural Council of the Philippines. It was an instant favorite, though on silent bid, thanks to the organizers. Its starting bid of Php15,000 rose to Php37,000 in a span of one hour, as bidders silently crept near it and wrote their silent bids on a card beside the painting.
I happily informed John that his buyers fought hard for his painting. Who would resist such a cute image of a girl stretching her eyelids to the point of slightly blinding herself in the process?
Then came an exhibition which I mounted in my new venue, the Inner Room of Sining Kamalig in Gateway Mall. Here in the exhibition Hot Air Balloon, I asked the six featured artists, John Marin included, what they thought would be the statement of the show. Some remarked “Nagpapa-cute lang kami!” Although, upon stretching one’s imagination, they all wanted to say that after all “When we are all gone, nothing would remain!” Well, that is what contemporary youth is all made of. Perhaps seriously serious about existentialism or simply exhausting excess hot air in their brains.
Then came ManilArt10. John Marin brought in two works, “Fidelity” and “Talk Show on Mute” (his Metrobank entry unceremoniously discarded by the sponsors but rabidly bought three days after I opened my exhibition Ani). So, I was left with just “Fidelity” to present for John Marin in the “Philippines’ most prestigious contemporary art fair to date.”
And why did this painting become the most viewed and the most photographed in the booth. For several reasons: It is Asian (I hope.) since it features a sassy Korean girl virtually disrobed by the artist in his own state of ecstatic stupor. It is a black-and-white painting splashed with the most pleasant colors of red and gold. The invented dress partially covering the body reminds us of a highly stylized baro’t saya perhaps in the Gilda Cordero-Fernando tradition. The lacework on the baro reminds me of the see-through blouses of the turn of the 20th century fashion. The saya is just a fleeting floral pattern floating on a virtual space devoid of any possible actual material cloth. [I am beginning to love the verbal rhythm of this essay.]
By our count (my assistant Harpy Valerio’s included), some 1,000 photographs of the work were probably taken with or without its fans during the four-day fair. Lucky buyer: he now has a very popular work.
And for those who wanted to buy it but were late and hesitating, and did not have a chance to, here is another piece featured in one of the fair’s tarpaulins: John Marin’s “Blow.” You may still view it in our Gateway gallery. HaHa!
Written by Enrico J. L. Manlapaz of Artis Corpus Gallery, 2 August 2010, for ArtePinas.
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