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These days I get many queries about what happened to the public sculpture “Tugpo,” which the Arts Council of Cebu Foundation commissioned me to do for the lagoon area of the Ayala Center Cebu countless years ago. It seems to have disappeared. All I can say is: I try never ever to think about it. It is an honest answer. It is not one of denial. Rather it is a declaration that the feeling of personal anguish and turmoil an artist might feel for the fate of his work can only be a very personal matter. Against an invading army, one might arm himself with tanks and artillery or do research on the nuclear bomb, but against ignorance, there can be no sufficient defense.
Nothing lasts forever, neither bronze nor steel. The ancient civilizations must have produced numerous metal monuments. But invariably, these were beaten into swords when war came. Thus, perhaps, it only serves me and my people right if indeed my small monument has been beaten up and sold for scrap. Shame on all of us for our vanity!
I say that without bitterness. I have always been a bit of an existentialist. We existentialists do things because they are good or enjoyable to do, though we know all these are inevitably pointless. I like fringe art. I have never been at ease with mainstream values and taste. I do not condemn it. I can toy with it if I must. But I can take only so much of it before I start feeling bad. I have done numerous installations and performance art. I predict they will be remembered as my best works. They are ephemeral and are thus meant to last no longer than the fleeting moment. Because of this they are impervious not only to the onslaught of time but especially so of ignorance as well.
Quite a number of my students (I only presume) have taken to this sort of art, I think for good reason and certainly through no fault of mine. Some of them do guerilla murals on the city’s ugly walls. You might have seen some of them. I was walking the other day down the sidewalk near my place of work when I was confronted by a sign on an electric post right next to advertisements for moving trucks and plumbing services. It was a portrait in black against a field of blue with words that said simply: “Sakura, sakura, sakura, sakura, sakura.” Walking under the hot midday sun, I could not help but be hit by the absurd poetry of it. But I am, of course, biased. By now, I have become a bit familiar with Sakura. “He loves Bart,” as another sign on a telephone terminal box said. I know Sakura competes with Flaime. They quarrel with each other through spray-can messages on city walls.
The imagery is very simple. There is Andres Bonifacio wearing a polka dot bandanna to hide his face. Another is a green face with a sharp, snake-like tongue sticking out of it. Then there is the inverted McDonald’s logo, the “W.” The images are repeated. They pop out in the most unexpected places, just like advertising. They are icons whose meanings are still being born. It is for the artist eventually to decide what meanings the icons will have. In that lies the pureness of the art.
I envy them.
I envy their innocence. I envy how they contain in practice the whole point of postmodern theory. The way art now becomes simply information coming at us through a particular recognizable medium which the artist must conquer; in this case, the streets. I envy how they contain the fundamental essence of the theory of public art without falling victim to its established constraints, its tyrannical nature. The mainstream public artist is always at the mercy of his/her sponsor whether person or institution. He/she must expect to be victimized by it from time to time. Not so, the guerilla public artist.
I should count myself lucky to have foreseen this many years ago. In Sagay, Negros Occidental, and at the University of the Philippines Cebu campus, I planted alpilers or safety pins onto the trunks of trees. I hope they will stay as long as they can but I cannot weep every time one falls. They are like the things Bart, Sakura, Flaime and countless anonymous others do on walls. They are essentially graffiti but you can also call them art because they are, whether we like them or not.
