COMMITTED ARTS.

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

LAST Saturday, I attended a forum where two great Filipino artists spoke about their respective arts and a known book author and critic gave a sterling reaction. ‎Jose Santos Ardivilla, a political cartoonist, explained the potency of satire to shake society from its stupor. For his part, Toym Imao, who did public monuments, spoke on how pop art could do its share to change society. Artists could be agents of change, they said.

The two artists had a joint exhibit of their art works, dubbed as “Robots & Beastmodes: Philippine Politics in Contemporary Art,” at the UP Main Library.

The two artists spoke about politics in contemporary arts. They talked about the necessity of commitment to their respective fields. We live under uncertain times, requiring artists to express themselves and use their arts to speak to and for our people. They agreed that arts could be used to express dissent In our society.

Ardivilla expressed his preference to be the “court jester” of this generation because the latter possesses the freedom to say what he says in front of the powers-that-be. The court jester could express his beliefs without offending; he could even ask them to behave the way it would please him. Hence, the court jester could use his art, particularly satire, to express dissent.

For his part, Imao said varying art forms, including pop art, could be apt vehicles to express dissent. Artists should not despair if changes are difficult to come amid the messages they express in their arts. The truth is that artists could use their arts to imprison the plunderers, murderers, corrupt officials, among others in their arts. They are to stay imprisoned for many generations to come.

Katrina Stuart Santiago reacted by saying that the current situation mandates every artist to do his share in society and express himself through his art so that enlightenment could be achieved. Otherwise, the people who sow darkness in our midst would dominate through their narratives. In brief, we should not give them the chance to do their narratives. It should be our narratives that should dominate. She also exhorted the crowd to go out to the streets again to prevent tyranny from overpowering us.

I could not help but react too. I stood up and this is my expanded reaction. I am not that good in speaking publicly because I am more of a writer, or one who is comfortable banging my keyboard than holding a microphone.

I am an old man, a 64-year old who saw political cartooning in different phases of our history. When I had my political awakening as a teenager, I saw Esmeraldo Izon of the Philippines Free Press dominating the scene with his satirical cartoons of our politicians and those who represented the political elite in the premarital law era. Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on Sept. 21, 1972; it led to the Marcos dictatorship.

Mr. Izon, a close associate of Teodoro Locsin Sr. (the better Locsin in many ways), did his art with ferocity and vigor. His lines were simple, but his messages were clear and powerful; his political cartoons on the pages of the Phil Free Press were masterpieces of clarity. I vividly remember how Mr. Izon had caricatured the politicians of those days into crocodiles in business suits awash with cash and pieces of jewelry pillaged from our people.

It is not easy to do editorial cartooning, particularly those belonging to the political genre. The mark of a great political cartoonist is when he puts in all his messages powerfully on a single frame.

The advent of martial law was another era, where journalists, writers, artists, among others, were cowed by imprisonment and ergo had to put their message quietly in a different way. Journalists practiced their craft by conveying what we called in-between line messages. Even editorial cartoonist did their craft this way.

The late Willy Aguino, who did political cartooning for the crony newspaper Times Journal, now defunct, and later Tempo, did the quiet, subtle ways of expressing dissent through in-between-lines type of journalism. Subtlety was his weapon of mass education.

Willy Aguino’s lines were intricate; all those exaggerations in a typical editorial cartoon were present, but not without those subtle anti-establishment attacks. I saw how Willy, a college contemporary of mine, assailed Marcos and his minions right in their own backyard. Willy killed them by his subtleties. This was a different form of creativity used to convey political messages.

The 1986 EDSA People Revolution led to the ouster of Marcos, the toppling of his dictatorship, and massive changes in the power structure and democratic institutions. The restored democracy has ushered democratic space, leading to the proliferation of many publications, something that was suppressed during the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship.

We saw the emergence of several political cartoonists, who flourished in an environment that promotes freedom of expression. Jong Ardivilla, Net Billones, Norman Isaac, Neil Doloricon, among others have risen to the occasion.

On public art, I admitted I was not that good. As a kid I was deeply awed by the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan City in an era when traffic was less wicked. When I was a young man, I was enamored with the Oblation in UP. The martial law days saw me marveling at the public arts of the late Eduardo Castrillo too.

But the last two years saw the rise of a situation that complicates what we have before in three eras - premartial law, martial law, and post martial law. Where before it was simpler; the choice has always been good and evil, or an environment of democratic space that guarantees freedom of expression, among other things vis-à-vis a regime of authoritarianism, now we see the rise of post fact era, where alternative facts and alternative truths dominate. It is a situation contrived in an environment of deception and lies.

While it is admittedly my fortune as a 64-yo old man to see the rise and fall of political cartooning in three or four various stages, I also lament that we have been starting to lose what we have gained after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. Censorship has taken a return for several publications. Even artists and writers are somehow adversely affected by those post-truths. We are falling victims of the rising complicated situation.

I fully agree with the two artists that contemporary arts should not lose its relevance to convey to the people to present the current situation and that artists should use the power within their means to educate our people. Those plunderers, murderers, and corrupt people should be imprisoned by their arts. It’s because I am deeply convinced that artists are the unofficial legislators of the world.

While they may not hold the power of a political office, artists have the power of their art to punish those people ,whose continued presence has been a punishment to our people.

I fully agree with Ms. Santiago’s statement that if ever we have to go back to the streets to regain our people to keep our lost freedom, then we have to do it. My only lament is that as an old man, instead of taking my grandkids in my arms and enjoy whatever democracy can give us, I have to go back to the streets to do what is supposed to do and continue the struggle so that the next generations would not suffer from our own indifference and negligence.

NOTES FROM THE NET; Toym Imao is one of the Philippines’ leading public art artist and is a fellow of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship Award. He has been commissioned to do public monuments in many cities locally, and abroad. Some of his most notable works are the Tandang Sora National Shrine in Quezon City, the Andres Bonifacio National Shrine in Maragondon, Cavite, and the Dr. Jose Rizal statue in Carson City, California. Parallel to this is his largely self-funded installations which have featured prominently at the University of the Philippines over the past five years, and have made their appearances at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, the Ayala Museum, the Lopez Museum, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and other venues. Nationalism, criticality, and memorialization are key features of his pop culture laden, maximalist works.