TAKE A LINE FOR A WALK

Filipino curator, Patrick D. Flores, talks about the history of social realism on his article entitled, "Social Realism: The Turns of a Term in the Philippines". The full text can be found at "Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry" (2013). Bits and pieces of the article are discussed in this exhibit. 

When former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, implemented Martial Law on 1972, Filipino artists came together to fight with medium they knew best: art. 

The Kaisahan or Solidarity was an organization of social realist artists formed in 1976. The group was composed of Papo de Asis, Pablo Baens Santos, Orlando Castillo, Jose Cuaresma, Neil Doloricon, Edgar Talusan Fernandez, Charles Funk, Renato Habulan, Albert Jimenez, Al Manrique, Jose Tence Ruiz, and Vin Toledo.

"Crucial to Kaisahan’s polemic is an understanding of ‘national identity’ as a necessary step to posit a differential relationship with the West, and to critique the process of westernisation, which, they argue, has obscured or suppressed the ‘true condition’ of Philippine existence and therefore the ‘reality’ of its history:"

We recognise that national identity, if it is to be more than lip service or an excuse for personal status seeking, should be firmly based on the present social realities and on a critical assessment of our historical past so that we may trace the roots of these realities... 

We shall therefore move away from the uncritical acceptance of Western moulds, from the slavish imitation of Western forms that have no connection to our national life, from the preoccupation with Western trends that do not reflect the process of our development."

"Our commitments to these objectives need not mean that we limit ourselves to a specific form or a specific style. We may take different roads in the forms that we evolve and use but we all converge on the same objectives...

To be true works of imagination, our works of art should not only reflect our perception of what is, but also our insights into what is to be. We grasp the direction in which they are changing, and imagine the shape of the future."

"Early examples of social realism invoked a revolutionary continuum sparked by a long history of colonial struggles in the Philippines...

Representations of the worker and the mass, for instance, are mingled with visualisations of abstract concepts such as imperialism and accessible symbols of struggle such as the clenched fist."

Today, social realism is still (and very much alive) in the Philippines. A new generation of artists and muralists have been born to continue the fight of the mass movement through colors, canvases, and brushes. Ang Gerilya, UGATLahi, KARATULA, Renz Lee, Archie Oclos, Karl Castro, and Kiri Dalena are only few of the current and prominent social realism artists and groups of this century.