Jaime the superlative

(Part one)

Sure, I’m biased. I’ve known the artist for over four decades, shared good times and common friends in many places, seen one another’s kids grow, together fell under the influence of various keys to doors of perception.

But bias has nothing much to do with this appraisal: that Jaime de Guzman’s current retrospective art show in the Cultural Center of the Philippine’s main gallery and hallways, titled “Revelations,” presents a truly awesome sweep of creative power.

I can only be inclined to agree with the comments of common friends who showed up at the March 4 opening — among them so many blasts from the past in a vintage-themed ritual reunion. It was one heck of a retro all right, as well as a sosyalan throwback, 

Glad to have hugged Anne de Guzman after all these years that Mac McCarty’s been less than crazy. Oh, many others. But was I that much in a hurry to eschew long hours of crowd-sourcing, so that a distant mutual wave was all that was shared with old buddy Louie Stuart? Guess so. The ’60s-’70s vibe could’ve further weakened vintage knees.

Butch Perez had the pithiest quote re Jaime: “He was the only painter.” I didn’t think I had to clarify that further by asking if he meant only for that time when Jaime was starting out, or if it still applied today. Nor did I take that to mean only as being “painterly.” It seemed proper to accept, simply, even as a verdict sourced to nostalgia. 

Butch Dalisay, whose loving wife Beng led the group Artemis Art Restoration Services that spruced up the mural-size paintings in CCP’s collection since 1970, asked if Jaime had yet been nominated as National Artist. Hmm. Why not?  

Celine Cristobal later posted in social media: “Breathtaking retro of Jaime de Guzman. Everyone must see this exemplary exhibition of art, history and wonder.”

Again, I agree. Not just because Jaime’s a dear longtime friend, but because of the overwhelming truth of all of this commentary.

We owe it to CCP president Emily Altomonte Abrera for initiating the idea behind this retrospective, and for actually taking it upon herself to curate the exhibit that opened in time for the artist’s 73rd birthday.

Now here are some excerpts from the brochure that accompanied the show, the text of which may mostly be credited to me, under the title “Introspective Retrospective”:

A retrospective exhibit of creative works is important essentially for the spectrum and continuum it should manifest, allowing viewers to trace and track the development of an artist from the earliest stirrings to the most recent works.

Early works may thus be considered even more significant than the latest ones, as they establish the provenance of an artist, the initial fount of creativity, and not the least the temper and character of his or her beginnings. Sundry may be the decisions made as a budding artist, and from which subsequent other directions may have then evolved. 

All of these address the early choices of genre and subject, the propensity for a style or manner, affections and affectations both, plus all the other hallmarks of starting a serious career, vocation, and/or devotion as a visual artist.

For Jaime de Guzman, ground zero was the mid-to-late 1960s, when his creative energy propelled him to consume nearly all of his waking hours with artistic production.

Friends of his at that time recall seeing stacks of paintings filling up the small space he occupied on Quezon Avenue, near where a covey of other struggling young artists also resided or frequented their peers’ “pads.” These included Carlos Abrera, Frey Cabading, Virgilio “Pandy” Aviado, Mars Galang and Ben Maramag.

A high school graduate of Ateneo de San Pablo, Jaime began his university studies in 1961 at Ateneo de Manila as an economics major. After a year, he transferred to the University of Santo Tomas where he majored in painting. Two years after the program, he packed his brushes and spent nearly a year traveling and painting in Cebu, Samar, and Zamboanga. His paintings reflected the everyday scenes of his travels — the port of Cebu, house interiors of local artists, and the hills of Samar. He later returned to Manila to enroll as a fine arts student at the University of the Philippines.

In the process, he had joined bohemia, or more specifically, the generation of war babies and baby boomers that had taken up from where European existentialists and American beatniks had trailed off — to become the Flower Power people by the turn of the 1960s.

It was expressionism, a very dark one, that first appealed to Jaime as a painter.

De Guzman had his first solo exhibit at Solidaridad Galleries in Malate, Manila in 1967. That same year, he also had a one-man show in the National Museum, quite a feat for a 25-year-old who traced his origins to Liliw, Laguna.

In 1968, he had his second solo show, this time at the prestigious Luz Gallery. With the buzz about his apocalyptic art, Jaime was selected to be part of the Thirteen Artists Show at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1970, the same year that he mounted yet another solo exhibit at the CCP’s Small Gallery, and joined a group exhibit at the Frankfurt, Germany International. He had fast become a staple in Manila’s art scene, being invited to join the annual group shows at Luz Gallery in 1969 and 1970. 

A cult following developed around him and his art. The CCP officialdom’s patronage, as well as increasing international interest, reached the ears of Madame Imelda Romualdez Marcos, who reputedly urged for the purchase of his large, mural-size works, among these “Metamorphosis Series” and “Gomburza.” Till the present, these iconic works have remained in the CCP’s collection.

The National Historical Commission sent Jaime de Guzman on a study-grant to Mexico for 1970-71 to study mural painting with the great muralist David Alfaro Siquieros, one of Mexico’s distinguished triumvirate of muralist-painters, together with Diego Rivera and Clemente Orozco.

It was a landmark event in Jaime’s artistic career and personal life. There he met American ceramist Anne Polkinghorn, who was conducting anthropological research with a team from Berkeley, California.

They won one another, and Jaime brought Anne with him back home to re-establish residence in his hometown of Liliw, in rustic surroundings at the foot of sacred Mount Banahaw, where enchantments were said to be daily occurrences, and where a private mythology would naturally be developed by a sensitive artist.

Jaime de Guzman brought art and honor to Liliw, the sleepy town noted for its handcrafted slippers — for by then he had become the Manila culturati’s toast as a dynamic young artist; dashingly handsome and articulate, spouting strong opinions about creativity. The art writers of the ’70s lavished his work with praise, among them Jose Joya, Andres Cristobal Cruz, Barbara Mae Naredo, Domini Torrevillas Suarez, Beatriz Romualdez Francia, Leonidas Benesa and Ray Albano.

Wrote Albano: “His pictures depend on his phenomenological pursuit of his brushstrokes. He makes abstract dabs and dashes all over the board, sees them and conforms them to the shapes and objects stacked in his memory… Somewhere in the changing climate of Philippine art is Jaime de Guzman working against the grain of both the pundits of semi-representation and precursors of new art. His figures are un-anatomical, his work more evocative than literal. Aside from these we think De Guzman is recording some metaphysical insights by means of his personal mythology.”

Poet-doyenne Virginia R. Moreno commissioned Jaime to create the set for her theater piece Itim Asu, which was staged at the CCP, then brought over to Liliw. The townsfolk shared in the triumphant return of a native son who lured in more than the slippered set in the cause of theater and art.

Jaime executed a mural for the municipal hall lobby, with his Cubistic lines and figures of folklore and flora ranging from wall to wall, even swirling up alongside the corner stairs.

He liked to point out then that Carlos “Botong” Francisco was the only one who came close to proper mural practice. Botong’s works, however, were on mural canvas, which could be transferred from place to place, whereas in Mexico the mural paintings were “permanent fixtures, part of the wall if not the total building.”

“A mural is an experience,” Jaime stressed. “It envelops the viewers; it’s a man-made, forced environment.” The art had reached a high level of technology, he explained, “its known executors having worked on oils and other mediums specifically to withstand the elements and produce major works of art —whereas local limitations have included lack of such oils and walls to paint.”

(To be concluded)