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Tuesday, June 01, 2004
A world of social realism
By Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano
Remember Dekada ’70? Not the novel, nor the movie. Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano gives us a visual tour of the art of the time that chronicled the decade of struggle.
True artform as a deep expression of thoughts and feelings never imitates. However, it merely mirrors a particular mood in time and place where it flourished.
The following photos show works that are representative of a bygone era. An era covering a period of struggle that heightened to its peak during the Martial Law days. The sad plight of the common people during these times spawned a new breed of artist called the social realist. It was the time when protests weren’t conducted only in the streets but made its way also to the art galleries via the visual commentaries of the social realists. The period marked by demonstrations and widespread discontent became the subjects of their concern.
Such were the hardships undergone by the indigenous people’s communities, the conditions of political prisoners, poverty, hunger and oppression. The artworks that were made by the progenitors of social realism have become artifacts of an age we have inherited. Hopefully, as a new generation, they have taught us enough to prevent such times from occurring again. The works are generally sad, yet they offer hope of an elusive freedom. Such blue pictures are characterized by the hunger of freedom of movement and expression. Here, we find the recurring imagery of bondage, oppressive chains and razor-sharp barbed wires.
These seemingly common symbols of a society under stern dictatorship find their way into artwork as they are difficult to ignore to the social realist. It was they who once opened the people’s eyes to react, make protest and breed concern on issues the society is facing. The most graphic depictions considered subversive works that often caused the artist’s incarceration. Because they are vocal anti-establishment/government pictures, the social realists were arrested, tortured and disappeared involuntarily, the work of henchmen of authorities out to suppress and intimidate them.
Let’s look again at these unhappy times and learn from them. So that we will never allow any such semblance of hardships to happen to us again. Yes, they have opened people’s minds in the not-so-distant past. Pictures are much easier to understand in a society without a reading culture. The poor, who were affected the most because of their lack of education, found their voices among the social realists.
They were the artists who risked a lot not only their marketability, but more importantly their individual freedoms. The artists featured here are members of the Artista Ng Bayan or Abay formed on Labor Day of 1985. It was only upon the change of government, ushered in by the bloodless revolution of Edsa, that the social realists had a brief moment to breathe a sigh of relief.
Subsequently after, however, they realize that still very little has changed. Hence they remain, until today, vanguards of artistic and social freedoms.
(June 1, 2004 issue)
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