ARNDT Catalogue Manila

NORBERTO ROLDAN
“Every act an artist makes is political,” says Norberto Roldan.
In his paintings, installations, or intricate assemblages, one can
always detect the biting social criticism in his works. Be it attacks
on colonialism and rampant consumerism or oppressive systems
of power, he has made his practice an avenue not just of personal
expression but pure activism. For him, it is unconscionable that an
artist does not engage. “One cannot turn a blind eye on political
reality, no matter how apolitical your art may be.” To Roldan,
every artist is part of a community and a country, and his practice
has to find its place within these. Such political decisions extend
to activities far beyond art-making. One example is his founding
and running of Green Papaya Art Projects, one of the longestrunning
artist-run initiatives in Manila. It supports alternative and
unrepresented voices and encourages critical discourse.
His work “Quiapo: Between Salvation and Damnation” involves
a simulacrum of the famed Manila church that has been central
to the city’s cultural and political histories. More than any other
church, Quiapo has come to occupy an exceptional place within
the Filipino imagination. Here is a site where Christian, Muslim
and pagan beliefs intersect. It is where quotidian violence and
debaucheries take place so close to where religious rites are
practiced. A microcosm of Manila, the church and its grounds
mirror the city’s former glories—now drowned out by the mire of
urban blight, but also representing the colorful, divergent fabric
from which the Filipino nation is made.