Issue 15 - Pdf Ctrl+P - CTRL+P: a journal of contemporary art

Victorio Edades. The Builders.
Image courtesy of the Cultural Center
of the Philippines.
Collecting History
There is no existing history of the art collection. This commemorative exhibition
seeks to reconstruct how objects made their way into the institution as an initial survey
of sightlines. We can point to specific sources:
First the building itself, which opened in 1969, that housed donations from such
artists as Hernando R. Ocampo, who offered his design for the work Genesis that was
transformed into a wondrous tapestry by Japanese weavers to serve as the iconic curtain
of the Main Theater; Arturo Luz (Black and White) and Cesar Legaspi (Triptych) likewise
donated murals, which adorn the Little Theater Lobby, alongside Eduardo Castrillo’s
metal totem Pyramid Growth. Other works, most probably commissions as well,
that were built into the structure include Vicente Manansala’s brass relief Tribute to the
Seven Arts for the Main Theater entrance and Roberto Chabet’s collage for the curtain
of the Little Theater. A panel of Carlos Francisco’s Abuses of Spanish Authorities for the
New York World’s Fair in 1964; Napoleon Abueva’s Ballet Dancer; and Arturo Luz’s
gargantuan paper clip were later additions to the public art collection of the Center. 6 By
presidential fiat in 1966, the site of the building was decreed, and thereafter the Board of
Trustees was named. The edifice, sitting on 21 hectares of reclaimed land from Manila
Bay, is by itself part of the art collection in a manner of speaking. Designed by Leandro
Locsin, it speaks of the style that was hailed then as innovative and its engineering, a
public works feat for a Third World country in Southeast Asia: cantilevered construction
in raw concrete with the use of crushed shells on site as aggregate and landscaping by
Ildefonso P. Santos.
The commitment of the architect to the visual arts was earnest as indicated in the
blueprint: a painting and sculpture hall with a section on contemporary art; a colonial
art pavilion, split into two levels in which the San Jose church baroque altar donated
by Antonio Bantug was to be ensconced; the Arturo de Santos collection of art, gold,
and ceramics; the Potenciano Badillo collection of Muslim art; and a library for art and
music. These pavilions would be surrounded by gardens, fountains, pools, and plazas so
that visitors may be “surprised at every turn as new vistas unfold.” 7
Second, the initial acquisitions, largely undertaken by Roberto Chabet, who was
appointed Curator as early as 1967, two years before the Center formally opened to the
public. He purchased for the Center important pieces like Victorio Edades’s The Builders
and Napoleon Abueva’s Allegorical Harpoon. 8 It could be that some of these early pieces
were part of Summer Exhibition 1970,
described as a “serendipitous collection
of over 100 paintings, sculptures, prints,
drawings, and ‘but-is-it-art?’ objects that
virtually span six decades of Philippine
art history.” 9 It is reported that works
like The Builders, Fernando Amorsolo’s
Burning of Manila, Ofelia Gelvezon’s
pinball series, and Brenda Fajardo’s
“classic-inspired etchings” were part
of this ensemble; and indeed they are
in the collection. To prepare Chabet for
his duties, the CCP secured for him a generous grant from the John D. Rockefeller Fund
so that he could observe museum procedures, administration, and related techniques in
the United States, from 1967 to 1969. Chabet, who was trained as an architect at the
University of Santo Tomas and was cited by Galo Ocampo 10 as Chabet Rodriguez in an
essay on Philippine art history as early as 1963, had no background as a curator or as
an art historian and came into the scene with his modest reputation as an artist whom
Arturo Luz deemed worthy to be exhibited in his eponymous gallery; he won First Prize
at the Art Association of the Philippines annual competition in 1961. The registry of the
collection lists Lee Aguinaldo’s Linear #24 (acrylic on wood) as one of the first to be
bought before CCP’s inauguration; and Leonard Aguinaldo’s E-Maginings as one of the
latest purchased in 2008.
34 Ctrl+P September 2009