Artsy fartsy

BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon

I don’t consider myself an artist even if I have been singing in nightspots mostly in Baguio since the early 80s when I was in college up to this time. Among us Baguio musicians those years, the people we referred to as “artists” were those who made paintings, molded ceramics, walked barefoot along Session Road or those who brought something to bang on in folkhouses so they could go up the stage, make yabang and accompany the music with their mediocre beat to the consternation of the madlang pipol. Musicians are a tolerant lot, so we just let the bangers be, until a fed-up customer would throw a beer at them or shout obscenities to end their gig.

I recall this because of the controversy of who a “national artist” should be. Can somebody who casts artistas with talents for screaming in a movie or an artsy fartsy be a national artist? How about those who splash a crazy mix of things on canvass and call it abstract, something ordinary mortals like us can’t comprehend? Can Carlo J. Caparas be considered a national artist for making komiks magazines and gory massacre films?
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Caparas, along with National Commission on Culture and Arts executive director Cecile Guidote Alvarez were named “national artists” by Malacanang in what generated a controversy in the art world reaching all the way to the Supreme Court. The SC stopped Tuesday the conferment of National Artist Awards on seven individuals including Caparas and Guidote.

Caparas, critics said, did not deserve such title as his works were not beneficial to Philippine society. To his credit, housewives those years would gather in sari-sari stores where these were sold and talked about corny komiks stories and gossip about everyday affairs. In a sense, we could say, Caparas fostered community relations and enhanced libido with graphic images every now and then in his magazines.

And those massacre films, we can only guess. But these cheap “visual arts” could have contributed to crime as copycats mimicked these. If you remember those “chop-chop” murder incidents in Manila those years when victims were cut to pieces, then you may have an idea what a murderous artist is made of, courtesy of a movie’s influence. Sting may have put it succinctly when he sang, “Murder by numbers, one, two, three, it’s as easy as saying your ABC.”
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Malacanang can call the works of Caparas “educational” but then, maybe he was included in the list just to spite the snobs and elite in the art world identified with the opposition. It is to the credit of people beside the big house along the Pasig River for succeeding in rocking the art world by “giving” Guidote and Caparas such “lofty” titles. Caparas even had to gall to say to critics: “Inggit lang kayo.” Now the elite in the art world had reason to meet in coffee shops and discuss the “intrusion” in their elitista world of a masa artist in the person of Caparas.

In the case of Alvarez, what work of art did she do? Forgive my ignorance but I had a taste of her high-handedness when Yours Truly, as regional chairman of the Publishers Association of the Philippines, introduced her as one of guest speakers during a PAPI convention at Teachers Camp in Baguio December last year.

Maybe, due to hangover, I mistakenly referred to her as “chairperson” of the NCCA. Alvarez, along with other VIPs like Baguio Mayor Peter Rey Bautista and PAPI chair Juan Dayang were seated at the stage and I could hear Alvarez loudly hiss, “Ano ba yan, hindi alam ang sinasabi.” I glanced back and saw she was visibly angry. I apologized, but she was still fuming mad.
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Earlier, Alvarez was speaker for a nationwide group of college student writers invited by the PAPI to the event. Some students later told me they felt bad for berating them in a loud voice purportedly for not doing something for the good of society. A piece of advise to Alvarez, maybe, she could get off from her ivory tower and learn how to amiably mingle with ordinary folks like us so her high nose would go down a little bit.

Anyway, Alvarez said she welcomed the temporary restraining order issued by the SC regarding her “award.” She was quoted as saying: “I am delighted it’s in the Supreme Court. That’s what we have been saying only the court is the final arbiter. They are demanding that their point of view should prevail. If that is so they will first have to make sure that the existing executive order that calls them advisory in capacity be amended. Or they will create a law that will totally delete it out of the honors code and define how it’s going to be.”
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Recently, National Artists for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera and Virgilio Almario, filed a 38-page petition at the Supreme Court “for prohibition, certiorari and injunction with prayer for restraining order to prevent the palace from conferring the title to respondents which included Caparas and Alvarez.

Alvarez was referring to Executive Order 435 giving the NCCA and CCP an advisory role to the president in relation to selection of national artists. Other countries such as the United States also have the National Medal of Arts, created by Congress in 1984. It is given by the President of the United States to individuals or groups who are in his judgment,” deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support, and availability of the arts in the United States,”

In the case of Caparas and Alvarez, maybe it is a case of the integrity of the person giving the honors and delicadeza of the receiver whose qualifications are being questioned. If the two understood the implications earlier and acted on these, submitted themselves to the peer group in the art world and kept silent if they were not nominated, maybe, the tempest in the teapot wouldn’t have boiled to an explosion.

Genuine artists are a different lot. They could subject themselves to all sorts of pain, hardship or poverty by following the road less trodden just to perfect their art. That is why they are zealous of their works and status as artists and wouldn’t like it tainted by people, they think, who have not proven themselves enough.

But at the rate magic tricks are being performed every now and then on the big house beside the Pasig River, we may still find Dr. Hayden Kho inserted as “national artist for “visual” or “performing arts.” (For the benefit of our internet readers, the good doctor showed how loving he was to women by filming his sexual escapades with them). It wouldn’t be a surprise anymore for constituents of this Banana Republic.