Orlina & the order of excellence

How fortunate we are to now have three havens of excellent art that have been established by generous individuals — two of whom are premier artists: National Artist Ben Cabrera who created a must destination in Baguio City with his Bencab Museum, and internationally renowned sculptor Ramon Orlina with his recently opened Museo Orlina in Tagaytay City. The third gentleman is art patron and collector Dr. Joven Cuanang, whose Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo City is another must-visit place.

Locations with altitude are what these centers of positive attitude appear to have in common — appropriately as well, since these art museums may be said to symbolize the apex of our artists’ creative efforts.

These three remarkable repositories as not so out-of-the-way destinations also prove, once again, that if you build it they will come, partake of an order of excellence such as what this league of extraordinary gentlemen has set in place

On the 9th of April, a Wednesday, artists and guests trooped to Tagaytay for the formal opening of Museo Orlina, a five-level building topped by a rooftop café and a sculpture garden on a ridge site that enjoys a panoramic view of Taal Lake and Volcano.

The opening exhibit featured “Maestro: Works by the Masters” — National Artist Arturo Luz, National Artist Jerry Elizalde Navarro, Romulo Olazo and Juvenal Sanso — at Reflections Gallery on the 2nd Floor. The show goes on until May 31.

From SLEX, find your best exit to the Sta. Rosa Road (I take Eton or Greenfields) and make your way to Tagaytay. Upon taking that right turn at the end of Sta. Rosa Road, heading towards the Tagaytay Rotunda, look out for a small road across that you turn left into. It’s before a Colette sign. That narrow road descends quite sharply and leads you to Museo Orlina. There’s a parking lot right across it.

Ramon invited us for the soft launch last November, when the place first opened for a blessing and ribbon-cutting led by National Artist for Sculpture Napoleon “Billy” Abueva. Serving as emcee, our most formidable art critic, Cid Reyes, introduced the man and the lady of the hour.

Mon couldn’t help but choke halfway through his recounting of how Museo Orlina happened, and while giving profuse thanks to his daughters and his wife Lay Ann, who also had trouble speaking without shedding a tear.

It was like a traditional housewarming, too, with guests following the officiating priest through the crowded halls from floor to floor to take in all of the galleries. A serpentine line formed on the ground floor level to take guests past a buffet table, snaking around one of Orlina’s major works: a more than man-high fountain of glass and metal that recycled gurgling water.

Mon took us aside for some spare minutes to narrate how that fountain had been a commissioned work for a special wedding anniversary, when it was red wine that coursed through the metal tubes. But that he couldn’t replicate that, as it might be seen as too ostentatious for the soft launch, he said chuckling.

He also recalled how the initial site he had purchased on that ridge was but a quarter of what it is now, with a simple townhouse for family use on weekends. But its twin unit became available, and eventually he also acquired the adjacent lot which has been turned into an amphitheater and sculture garden. 

He also built higher up, so that now, Museo Orlina has a basement gallery that starts to slope down to the amphitheater garden, a ground floor that’s level with the main entrance from the rather steep street, two more floors of galleries that house the collection of his works, and a fifth level that’s the roofdeck turned into a café, where it’s breeziest and affords the grandest views.

The amphitheater was designed by Mon’s friend Paulo Alcazaren. At the formal opening last month, a stage had already been built at the corner end of the lot, where theater pieces are staged by another longtime friend, the formidable dramatist, actor and director Nestor Torre.     

During the soft launch, I was lucky to get a seat on the second-level balcony table occupied by Nestor and his mother. And at the formal launch, again fortune smiled so that my date and I also sat with the Torres, this time on the open-air deck, and this time also with a mutt that Nestor had brought and was feeding from his own plate. 

The multi-level galleries are served by a small lift for those who’d rather eschew the stairs with the Mondrian-inspired handrails. While the galleries aren’t that large, judicious use of space belie any constriction, helped along by glass walls and large windows that open up to the lake view.

It’s on part of the Lower Level Gallery where the paintings and sculpture by the masters are currently exhibited. On the other levels, it amazes when one realizes the scope of work and evolution Orlina has coursed through in four decades — since his first commission in 1976 from architect Lor Calma for the lobby of Silahis International Hotel: “Major Arcana XIX,” a three-ton glass and steel sculpture that is now at the National Museum.

On exhibit, for instance, are lovely neckpieces using glass and metal, as well as his totally metal sculpture as maquettes for two recent major works — one that celebrates his alma mater University of Sto. Tomas’ quadricentennial, another that won an international competition in celebration of a world basketball tournament, if I recall right.

Then too, apart from his standard green glass pieces were a couple of standouts: “Swirls in Orange Amber” and “Swirls in Pink Crystal.” Cid Reyes wrote for “Sculpting Lights” 2011: “Their sculptural format is minimalist, reductive, formalist without subtracting from the lyricism of their crisp, abstract forms which are marvels of disciplined precision. The light that shines through them have an almost endearing lambent glow.”

And from being purely abstract, Orlina’s glass sculpture has since included distinctive representational pieces. My favorite employs outright illusion. At first glance, what seems to be yet another block of dark green abstraction eventually allows, upon closer scrutiny, a peek into a marvelous figure trapped inside.

This is “‘Multivision Nude” from the 1993 show “A Touch of Glass” held at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong. The notes for the remarkable piece have it: “He carved into the backs of the glass a floating figure of a nude woman that is multiplied several times with more forms inside. One may peek through the concave circle in the corner that reduces the figure. These are all optical illusions only possible because of the reflective and refractive quality of glass.”

What a master. And what range of concerns, both ludic and serious, occupies this amiable gentleman of the ever-restless spirit of work and play. Of late Orlina has also produced signature cars as works of art, such as the Mondrian Volvo and the BenCab Beatle that were parked right beside the museum during the soft launch. Once, he also treated a friend and me to a ride in a Volkwagen Beatle he had “stretched” and turned posh inside.

Previous to Museo Orlina, he had also spruced up his family’s turn-of-the-century ancestral home in Taal, Batangas, and turned it into a jewel of conservation as Casa Gahol, a heritage structure. Beside it is a repository of vintage cars. And of course Mon has been in the news as a heritage hero for his advocacy for the preservation of the Taal Basiica.

We enjoyed that day into evening at Museo Orlina, where many old friends also showed up, among them Deanna Ongpin, artists Mav Rufino and Ben Cruz, actor Leo Martinez, as well as special guest DOT Sec. Mon Jimenez and former Ms. Universe Margie Moran, patron of Ballet Philippines — which staged a classic pas de deux and a modern piece onstage as twilight descended and the gardens were illumined.

Further illumination was provided by fireworks as the sculpture pieces splayed about the garden were unveiled, showing works by Arturo Luz, Lor Calma, BenCab, Ann Pamintuan, Olivia Heusaff and Ramon Orlina himself, among others.

Such sparks for Philippine art. Hurrah for Museo Orlina of the Order of Excellence.