Art review: Napoleon Abueva exhibit highlights never-before-seen work

Any frequent visitor to the University of the Philippines Diliman campus might have passed a couple of wing-shaped waiting sheds on University Avenue. These were just some of what Napoleon Abueva, National Artist for the Visual Arts and dean of the College of Fine Arts there, left his academic home.

Another work from that campus that comes to mind is the double-sided crucifix at the Church of the Holy Sacrifice. His body of work appears in the most unexpected places, however. One of these happens to be at a cemetery that can be seen along the North Luzon Expressway where his “Transfiguration” sculpture looms large.

Among the rarities included in this comprehensive exhibition, which is currently going on at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, is a cast of the said sculpture’s head. It sits alongside the sculpture that first gave him notice, “Judas’ Kiss,” a granite block which, in minimalist form, depicts a moment of betrayal. I first saw this sculpture at the Ateneo Art Gallery, one of a number of institutions that loaned their Abueva collections.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Met’s next-door neighbor, had part of their collection on display as well. It was in front of the massive “Dambana ng Pasko,” Abueva’s Christmas retablo, that BSP Governor Amado Tetangco waxed poetic about it and its qualities in his opening night address. The exhibit makes this piece one of its highlights in its scale, which is little noticed in its usual spot at the Philippine International Convention Center lobby.

But this exhibit brings in some of the work that we rarely get to see. Abueva’s atelier in Quezon City yielded a treasure-trove of work that represents his prolific and surprising output.

One of these is a corpus Christi meant for a crucifix, a massive work that would have been at home in a modern church building. There was a half-body statue of Senator Benigno Aquino and, next to it, a statue of a fellow National Artist, Fernando Poe, Jr. And then there were those whimsical carabao figures that one could see at the side gallery, some of them “wallowing” in a shallow pond.

Here and there, one could see excerpts from Abueva’s own writing, and these were enough to showcase the breadth of his eloquence. As for the man himself, now quite old, he could not say a word to the gathered audience at the exhibit’s opening late last month. I wondered what he would have been like at the height of his powers.

What astonished me about this exhibition, though, was the extent to which I had, over the last few years, become more aware of Abueva’s work as such, and still had a lot to learn about his legacy.

For instance, there was this work called Hilojan, a massive wooden sculpture meant to represent a grinder, that I frequently spotted at the CCP Main Theater building. It felt different seeing it in the cream-colored backdrop against which it was set. Some of his works do blend in nicely with the scenery—those waiting sheds again come to mind.

But having the familiar made strange is the greatest gift this exhibition has to offer for those who are willing to explore. — VC, GMA News


Abueva: The Power of Form is currently taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila until February 14, 2014. For more information about the exhibit, visit the Met’s website.