For art's sake

These are exciting times for the local art scene. The likes of young artists Andres Barrioquinto, Nona Garcia and Annie Cabigting are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in auctions in Hong Kong and Singapore. One thing for Filipinos to proud of, other than Pacman and Charice.


The other day, I was window-shopping at Finale Art Gallery for art pieces and found a piece by Paulo Vinluan that I loved. Here’s a pic from his show which has the same comical and surreal feel as the one I’m coveting. The New York-based Vinluan is also young, and he continues to excite with every solo show. His is my kind of art, along with Jason Moss’.

Vinluan’s style is rendered like comic book illustrations. It seems accessible like Marvel. But if you’d look closely, his art is social commentary. Each tableau represents masked characters with varying social pursuits (love, sex, power, acceptance). Some are sad in spite of the playful renderings.


That’s the visual arts, and one cannot take on a dismissive attitude about its being an artform. It’s how paintings take on an aesthetic stance. The artist has a standpoint, and he affords the viewer to see it his way or any other way. Can the same be said of a filmmaker?


This could be a long a dissertation on what films qualify as art, and those that are just dull recorded performances caught on film. But one thing I know for sure is that there are films that set out to be artistic but fail miserably. They’re just low-art like paintings you’d see on cow-driven carriages in the streets of Manila. And there are those which are pure entertainment. You’d like to see again because there are some meaningful subtleties you missed. They are Vinluans that would always fascinate.