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ALL ANGLES

rasterize, rock, Rothko, rhyme, Rohmer

Venus de Milo, public domain photo
Been checking out the website of Hong Kong Museum of Art lately, and a sculpture exhibit is ongoing. Pieces from France's Louvre Museum were replicated and transported for this season's "Touching Art" thematic exhibition. And the title says it all. These valuable sculptures (their originals, at least) such as Michelangelo's The Rebel Slave (1513) and the famous Venus de Milo (2nd c.BC) will not just be there for visual show, but to be literally felt, touched.

What is most notable about the Hong Kong Museum of Art, for me, is that it always presents interactive art as this. I remember visiting it last year to witness the "Charming Experience" exhibition. Even my younger sisters who don't know much about art were able to appreciate it.

My sister Kim Diola enjoying an installation.
Curator Grace Cheng successfully executed to create an experience of art "with different senses" instead of isolating art forms into visual, auditory and written. The exhibition provides answers to some curious questions: How can we see and feel sound?

"Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No.5 in C Minor, First Movement" (2009) by Otto, Li Tin Lun. Mixed media and video installation.
This sculpture by Otto visualizes Beethoven's piece that demonstrates the rise and fall of notes and rhythm. It makes possible for the hearing and visually impaired to experience the virtuoso composer's work in their own way, though not the way Beethoven intended it to be.

I hope next time they can do a sculpture for film, which is primarily a visual and auditory combined form. It can give an altogether new meaning to 3D cinema.  #

Mimimayhem by the fountain outside the museum, with McDonald's bag in hand.
Crime across the Philippines’ 7,000 islands reportedly plummets to zero every time champion boxer Manny Pacquiao fights in the ring. It’s as if every single soul in the country is glued to their screens to see him win yet another title.

Although a single criminal offense (a jewelry store heist) broke this trend last November 13 while Pacquiao was beating up Mexico’s Antonio Margarito in Texas for the WBC World Super Welterweight title, it’s still astonishing how some boxing match can even triumph over hunger and poverty that fuel crime.

The fact that he does a better job than police forces in controlling crime is just one piece of proof. Pacquiao, who’s now among history’s greatest boxers, enjoys not only considerable celebrity in his homeland, but also bridges economic classes, religious denominations, cultural gaps and age groups.

Read full story on theNextGreatGeneration.com »
The house I grew up in lies right at the border of Angono, Rizal and Antipolo City, the first is famous for its artistic locals and another for its pilgrimage sites and native food. I never realized that just a few meters away was a colorful art district where every block has a worthy gallery and chance exhibits. It took me 15 years before I discovered it, and that's when I'm already living in Quezon City. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

First stop: The Blanco Family Museum. I swear they'll get you wishing you had some of their genes.

The Blanco Family Museum in Angono, Rizal looks unassuming from outside.
Inside, it's a maze of passages lined with works of prodigious skills.
It's amazing that when the Blanco kids were only 6, they could draw better than you do now. I mean, I'm not the stick figures level type at least, but the Blancos' work made me feel like mine's enough to be on tissue paper.
"Yakan of Basilan" (1990) by Peter Paul Blanco when he was 10 years old.
"Panag-arawan" by Jan Blanco, when he was only 13 years old.
Peter Paul, Michael, Jan, Glenn, Noel, Gay and Joy's earlier creations seem to be on modernist canvas, although of course they weren't aware of it then. Their later works are realist. They even go as far as photorealism, like their works depicting China.


Okay, so this one's not quite photorealist yet, but we're getting there.

The guide said Jose "Pitok" Blanco, would require his children to complete a thesis, or a mural-sized work like this one.
We met Michael Blanco, one of the children of the late great Jose "Pitok" Blanco. He welcomed us into their museum, which they also turned into a school. He talked about his parents, and how they were fond of each other even in old age, and that they couldn't eat without the other.

The elderly Blancos retired in Batangas till the end of their lives. The children now have their own professions, but also return to painting from time to time. Michael paints and teaches art full time, while refurbishing and expanding the museum. "Nakita n'yo na ba yung mga paintings ng tatay? Ang lalaki, 'di ba? (Have you seen father's paintings? They're all huge!)," Michael asked, enthusiastically. It's amusing to hear him talk about his dad, even after he passed away, like an keen fan would.

Detail of one of Pitok Blanco's paintings. Recurring themes of his work are rural life and religion. And how the heck did he make that hay? Hey!

"Fiesta sa Angono" by Pitok Blanco is an enormous realist work. Characters in the scene are real town folks at that time. Many faces are also of his wife and children, especially the youngest son, Peter Paul, who appears more than 4 times in the painting.
Jose Blanco, who worked in an advertising agency for a time just like other great Filipino artists, wanted his children to have the discipline he acquired in the corporate-creative world. He discouraged waiting for artistic moods or inspiration before they can create something of value. Michael said his father, while kind, is stern in training them. Whenever Michael and his siblings looked at mediocre artistic works to imitate, their dad would ask them to check at Rembrandt and the old masters instead.

"He wanted us to learn from the best," Michael recalled. And among the best are what they became. #
Smash it! Grab it! Leap higher!

I'm not sure whether kids today still play the games we used to enjoy. Being a '90s baby who has grown up with digital technology and cable TV, I'm still fortunate to have had street life (or school corridor life) back in early elementary. Though I haven't had the chance to climb trees and pick fruits, my playmates and I still surely smelled of sun after afternoons spent playing outside.

Seems like city kids today, outside varsity affairs and PE classes in their respective schools, rarely explore Filipino-Asian kiddie games that require as much energy and skill as Western parlor games and Plants versus Zombies. Also, they can be missing out on more than a few aspects of our culture that teach various virtues, and it's some sizeable lost.

Good thing my friends and I just had the opportunity to rediscover our natural Pinoy party instincts that have been tucked away for some years now. Do you still remember them? I sure can help you with that.

Chinese garter game

To help your team win a Chinese garter round, you have to leap as high as you can. This should help train you for the pole vault event at the Olympics.


You'd need a considerable amount of willpower, an I-don't-care-what-I-look-like attitude, and luck to uncover the mysterious coin underneath that mound of flour or gawgaw.


Make sure that after participating in a longest line game, you could still find those valuable items you parted with. But don't worry, used socks rarely get lost. Surely this is an exercise of giving up personal things for the common good. (No allusion to communism here).


Channel your inner Hercules sinews and Superman x-ray vision to smash that palayok! Keeping in mind that there are mouths waiting for candy teaches selflessness and generosity.



It doesn't matter if you get trampled on, elbowed or kicked in the process. Pabitin definitely gives a lesson in fortitude, precision and determination.


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About Me

ART AS A PEDESTRIAN

Hi, I'm Camille, and I'm a real journalist from Manila. Without claiming expertise on the subjects, I try to write about my artistic and cultural encounters on this 17-year-old spot.

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Whut!

We will have but one option: We will have to adapt. The future will present itself with a ruthlessness yet unknown.
~Michelangelo Antonioni, filmmaker

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...
~first lines of Charles Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities

Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world.
~Matthew Arnold, cultural critic

The only way to really change society is through culture ... it's not through force, it's not through armies, it's not through politics (but) through freedom.
~Dony McManus, artist

You are a fine person, Mr. Baggins ... but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!
~Gandalf in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

"I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
~Groucho Marx, actor

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.
~Logan P. Smith, essayist

God is in the details.
~Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect

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