Muralists with a Conscience

by Carmen Nge
Pictures by Ju Lynn Ong

“Artists have a social responsibility. I come from a poor family so I attribute most things to social problems and cultural dilemmas. Something has to be done. We belong to a generation that has inherited the problems of the generations before us so I am always thinking in terms of problem solving. But there’s still a long way to go.”

These are not words we often hear from our Malaysian artists, who typically shy away from defining a clear role for themselves and their contemporaries. This is perhaps why the current Malaysian art scene is characterized by a tepid engagement with its socio-political context. Artists who do not see a role for themselves often languish in the throes of their own affectation and internal angst.

This is not the case for Filipino artist Alfredo Esquillo Jr., whose quote above is as honest and as thoughtful as his work. A recipient of the Philip Morris Asian Arts Award Grand Prize in 2000, Alfredo is most famous for his richly textured social realist paintings, which touch on a wide range of issues from globalization and economic inequity to religion and politics. A recent work, Modus Operandi—inspired by a quote from a 2002 report summary entitled “Alternatives to Economic Globalization” by The International Forum on Globalization—is proof that socially conscious art is very much alive and well in the Philippines.

Alfredo, together with five Filipino artists from the artist collective Anting Anting, is in Malaysia as part of a residency exchange programme with a local artist collective, Matahati—a group comprising 5 artists—that has been active in the Kuala Lumpur art scene for more than a decade. The residency is funded by Arts Network Asia, a regional grant-giving body that emphasizes collaboration among arts practitioners in Asia.

The exchange residency, the brainchild of Matahati, is unique in that both artist collectives will spend 3 weeks to a month in each other’s home country, during which time they will collaborate in creating art work(s). In short, it is a two-way, dual-venue residency exchange rather than the typical one-location residency.

What this exchange engenders is a kind of collaborative process that equalizes the power relations between the two hosts. If in Kuala Lumpur Anting Anting has to conform to the cultural norms of their hosts, then in Manila Matahati will do the same. The fruit of their collaboration for the Malaysian leg of their residency exchange is a public mural, currently on display in front of the National Art Gallery.

When this writer spoke to Anting Anting, they had just completed about 8 hours of mural painting the day before and were embarking on the labours of day two. They were on a tight schedule—a 33 metre by 6 metre mural by 11 artists in 4 days.

Lawrence Borsoto, a member of Anting Anting, admitted that 4 days is too short. “We are just worried if we can finish the mural on time.”

Wilfredo Alicdan, a founding member of Anting Anting, acknowledges that it is more of a challenge working with Matahati members, who do not have any experience working on murals. “We don’t really feel the collaborative process because we are each doing our own section of the mural. Perhaps later we will come together, towards the end,” Wilfredo adds, hopefully.

There is no denying the project is ambitious. Not only is the mural extremely large but the artists come from very different backgrounds, each used to very different styles and aesthetic visions. Matahati as a group has been around half a decade longer than Anting Anting—which was conceived in 1997 and based in the province of Cavite, about 30km outside of metro Manila—but its members tend to create individual works and the extent of their collaboration is in the form of group exhibitions.

As an arts collective, Anting Anting is not bound by a singular aesthetic form; some of its members, like Joseph Lofranco and Jose Austria, are abstract artists whilst others, like Emmanuel Garibay, Alfredo Esquillo Jr., Wilfredo Alicdan and Lawrence Borsoto are more closely rooted to the figurative tradition. Nonetheless, they are united by a coherent sense of purpose. All the artists are deeply engaged with their locality, with the problems and lived reality of their common context.

Jose Austria, commenting on Anting Anting’s artwork, explains, “We share a lot of subjects in common, from social life and social commentary to human behaviour.” Joseph Lofranco concurs: “We share issues as a group. Every time we do a mural, we like to showcase those issues.”

One of the objectives of the group is to “foster and safeguard the democratic participation and representation of Philippine visual arts” and even with 12 members, they successfully manage to negotiate the delicate balance between friendship and work. The secret to their cohesiveness is their disavowal of domineering leadership.

Emmanuel Garibay, 42, one of the senior founding member of the collective, elaborates on Anting Anting’s work process: “We stress on the process of consultation. There is not just one individual leading the group but the entire group goes through the exchange of ideas and consultation. It is unavoidable that one or two people may dominate during discussions before the project but during the actual work that’s when the silent guys put in their share.”

Even though Anting Anting members also work on their individual art pieces, they are well known for their murals. They are particularly invested in creating art within Cavite and have created murals commissioned by their local town mayor as well a local university, De La Salle University.

Joseph Lofranco, who was born in Cavite, speaks highly of their mayor, who is extremely supportive of their work. For him and for Anting Anting, public art is paramount: “We envision art in Cavite, working with the local government, especially the Mayor of Dasmarinas. It’s mostly a working class community with people being very mobile, commuting to Manila for work. We are pushing to bring art to and to create art in Cavite.”

Anting Anting’s commitment to their local art scene is laudable because it resists the usual impulse of artists to create work primarily for personal and commercial gain. Jose, 25, the youngest member in the group, is clear about the economics of creativity: “I don’t think about money because doing art is not about making money. It’s a passion, it’s my life. As artists we are different from other people, we visualize things that others never see. We should develop our skills completely before we think about money. That should come later.”

Emmanuel, or Manny as he is affectionately called, finds it surprising that so many young artists today are so concerned about their careers and future. “It’s a global phenomena,” he believes. “I come from the tail-end of the hippie movement, a movement that had a disregard for material things and the establishment. It’s a culture that is still imbibed in me. I am more intent on the search for meaning than the search for status and comfort.”

Anting Anting’s murals are testimony to the interplay between aesthetic commitment, community service and financial survival. The group may have had their murals commissioned but they have also spontaneously created on-site murals for political rallies and demonstrations. Manny calls them “protest murals” and they are largely “guerrilla operations” made on the fly, in feverish excitement and in aid of political causes.

Alfredo fondly remembers a mobile mural from the year 2001, which they created during a rally calling for the ousting of then President Estrada. “Public art should contribute to building awareness to solve current crises and problems rooted in an ignorance of history. We should contribute something even in the smallest possible way,” he adds.

Murals excite Manny: “It challenges you to not just display your craft but to come up with images that interact and hopefully stimulate people into some kind of critical engagement—facing and confronting their own situation. I haven’t been around here long enough to grasp the Malaysian condition and situation but we start from where we come from; the issues we raise are just as valid in the Philippines as here: the environment, politics, religion, ethnicity, particular issues pertaining to greed and big business and the victimization of the poor. But these issues may be of a lesser magnitude here.”

For Jose “the situation in Malaysia is much more ordered” when compared to his home country. “It’s a harder life in the Philippines. So, the more angst comes to you, the more artwork you can produce.” Lawrence observes that Malaysian artists in general do not really engage with political issues. Wilfredo thinks that Malaysian artists “play it safe” unlike Filipino artists, who are more likely to be cynical and critical of the establishment and the authorities.

The impulse to ‘play it safe’ is plainly evident from public statements made by Bayu Utomo Radjikin of the Matahati group. “Artists should practice self-censorship,” he proclaimed very calmly during a public art talk-sharing session with Anting Anting held at the National Art Gallery earlier this month.

But how does one instill the compulsion to self-censor among a group of Filipino artists who do not work within such a constricting creative paradigm? Who has the power to enforce the cultural upper hand in this collaborative process? Perhaps most important of all, do the tides of influence move only one way or will the “anarchic tendency” (as Manny puts it) among the Filipino artists somehow infuse and inflect the form and content of the mural in the end?

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To find out, you can visit the National Art Gallery, where the Anting Anting-Matahati mural is on display on the exterior of the building until May 2005.