Junyee, a cultural treasure
November 18, 2006 | 12:00am
I believe that sustained excellence in one’s work, to be an influence to other artists and to make a contribution to the art development of a nation, should be more important than popularity. –Junyee, 2006
Installation art in the Philippines is synonymous with one name: Junyee.
He is the pioneer and lone ranger in the field of setting up art coming out of walls, hanging from ceilings, and jutting out from outdoor spaces in the Philippines. Santi Bose (a former classmate of mine at UP) and Roberto Villanueva call him their guru. Junyee introduced a new, exciting art world to these two artists, which would eventually become their own path to recognition.
Junyee is an artist to reckon with. His tenacity is born out of a personal calling to be an artist against all odds. He supported himself through college doing odd jobs and making ends meet while running back and forth to UP Diliman. He was two years ahead of me but we saw each other on a daily basis at the Fine Arts Department locker room. He had a ready smile and always looked so neat. No one knew that he was going through so much hardship at that time.
In fact, I only found out about it now, 30 years later, after bumping into Junyee at an art event last month. He mentioned to me that he had set up an art gallery in Los Baños "to give UPLB and the community an opportunity to see and experience art exhibitions." This prompted me to offer a visit before he could even open his mouth to extend an invitation.
To kindle interest in visiting the gallery, Junyee put his prizewinning works along with new pieces in a space so simple and Spartan, it looked very elegant. The installation was so effective that no one would imagine he only had a very limited budget to work with. "The UP Chancellor’s Office, and the community have been very supportive and should be commended for understanding my mission to uplift the well-being of the students and people in general through art," says the artist.
I had known that Junyee was a prizewinning artist, but by scanning through the material near the guest book at the gallery entry, I was surprised to discover the extensive list of awards and recognition that Junyee has received through the years.
He started his installation-art activities in the late ’60s and had his first outdoor-installation one-man show in 1970 called "Balag," followed in 1976 by a massive outdoor installation at Luneta on the elevated platform between the Rizal monument and the Luneta grandstand. This was the Filipino public’s first installation experience.
"I remember watching the people walking by, who became very curious," recalls Junyee. "I mingled with them without saying I was the artist. It was a very exciting experience to see the reactions and to know that I had touched them."
His first indoor one-man show in 1980 – "Wood Things" at CCP’s Small Gallery, for which he used indigenous materials once again – was selected by the 12th Paris Biennale to represent the country after 12 years of absence in this prestigious international exhibition. This was followed by many more invitations from prestigious international art exhibitions from different countries, both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe.
Junyee’s "Acid Rain" outdoor/indoor installation at Alliance Française in 1987 was the first-ever commissioned work of installation art in the country. He also organized the first-ever outdoor installation festival at UPLB campus, sponsored by CCP and UP in 1980-81 and 1983. These events inspired Baguio artists to form the Baguio Arts Guild to also hold installation shows, likewise making the use of indigenous materials in contemporary art very popular.
Not new to awards, Junyee has been a consistent art-competition winner. He won his first award, a grand prize, in his first competition when he was Grade 3. In Grade 5, he was already doing portraiture. He never lost an art competition in high school. In college, he won twice in two tries the Shell National Student Art Competition. He joined his first professorial competition (SPS-1967) while still in college and won over his professor in sculpture.
In his first competition after college (AAP 1974), he won the overall award for all categories – sculpture, painting, print and photography – with his trend-setting massive wood sculpture "Mga Kahoy Natin," beating National Artist and mentor Napoleon Abueva, National Artist Abdul Mari Imao, Danny Dalena, and other established artists. This grand award is the first of only two overall awards ever given in a national competition.
No other artist has ever duplicated his winning streak, which spans four decades, from the ’60s to the ’90s. In the last competition he joined during our 1998 Centennial celebration, he won the first and only installation-art competition that was sponsored by CCP and the National Centennial Commission. His massive outdoor work, which covered one hectare in front of the Cultural Center, was later transferred to Expo Filipino at Clark for the Centennial opening. In the same year, he was also awarded top prizes for the Centennial competitions of the Art Association of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. His prize-winning creations using indigenous materials encouraged many other artists to use natural and local materials in art competitions.
Junyee also received the CCP 13 Artists Award when it was still prestigious. It was with great awe that I continued reading his list of distinguished work, which probably not even his closest friends would know about: Manila "Patnubay ng Sining at Karilangan" award, the first and only Artist-in-Residence award for UPLB by the UP Board of Regents, Most Outstanding Citizen of Los Baños – the first one in more than 300 years. The first most outstanding Citizen of Agusan de Norte. He also established the first art gallery in the UP system and was appointed curator from 1985-87 and again this year, and also a curator for Alliance Française.
He also conceptualized and served as delegate in the first and only ASEAN Conference for Indigenous Materials, and established in Cuba the 3rd World Movement for Indigenous Art. Over 25 art critics have reviewed him both here and abroad and his work has been published in numerous art articles in magazines and books, including the Philippine Encyclopedia for Art.
Art critic Paul Blanco Zafaralla wrote a compelling article entitled "Junyee on Cultural History." With permission I wish to share what he wrote, which expresses my thoughts and more about Junyee:
"Rich indeed is Philippine cultural history from the Asian period to the present, manifested by our ancient ‘abakada’ to our minimalist thinking processes, and wont in part to make the useless useful.
"This is the position taken by Junyee in his one-man show at the Sining Makiling, UP Los Baños, in Laguna.
"In his 21 pieces, Junyee underscores himself not only as a sculptor, but also as a painter and printmaker. As a sculptor, he counted among those in the forefront to dismantle the centuries-old canons of art with his wise use of indigenous materials in unique compositions. He has since branched out to functional sculpture, one of which is his centerpiece in the UPLB show.
"Narra and molave, both hardwoods, are set on red bricks and the color diffusion portents a precarious motion that becomes the work’s magnet. In this piece, Junyee blurred the demarcation line between sculpture as purely an aesthetic object, and sculpture as both an aesthetic object to behold and a material object to sit on. The person who sits on it becomes a party to the precarious motion.
"His boxed-in sculptures show clown-like human figures, with pliant bodies as they defy the law of gravity. These constitute a ‘ribbing’ on some people’s posturing and funny thoughts manifested by a common denominator; funny body language.
"The minimalist paintings, represented by ‘Kasulatan,’ reveal the other dimensions of Junyee’s persona: the mind of a cultural historian, the eye of a painter, and the visceral control of a sculptor and printmaker that he is.
"The ancient abakada, regardless of whose versions they are now, underscores our ancient cultural history recorded through written codes and expressed in various tongue inflections. These may have been lost through the centuries, as we as a people have become the poorest of the poor losers. The schools as social institutions may have reproductions in the archives – if they have archives at all – but they are never out for circulation, much less accessed through today’s Internet. As a result, though it’s no fault of theirs, Filipino youths are abysmally ignorant about this rich aspect of Philippine cultural history.
"Using paint and dye on wood, Junyee either mixed or juxtaposed his off-white paint and dye, and applied them so thinly without losing their sheen and luminescence in parts, enriched on the surface by the veins of the wood panels. With this pictorial prowess, the abakada, either massed at center or distributed at the fringes, become the foci nevertheless.
"The minimalist works, sans the abakada, are an allusion to our socio-cultural-political contacts with China and Japan. They hint at our national psyche of breaking free from rigidities of any kind. A shape, for instance, intimates an opening, a breaking away from the present environment to something beyond with limitless possibilities. Such works posit a new world, indeed, where identity loss awaits that must be conquered.
"The Filipino, Junyee argues, is informed of the genesis of the world. His work ‘Bago ang Dilim’ and ‘Bago ang Liwanag’ are testaments to this fact. Both works swirl in a circular orbit in a 92 x 92 cm. dye and paint on board and soot on board, respectively. The color specks in ‘Bago ang Dilim’ must be viewed either clockwise or counterclockwise for the circle and square within to accentuate the synergy of opposites.
"In ‘Bago ang Liwanag,’ the soot is smudged out at the inner and outer edges to make the circle virtually churn, as the inner white mass forms the frontal image of a man wearing a white, chest-length beard. This is an insightful interpretation of God’s centrality before He created light.
Soot, generally dismissed as a useless substance, has become useful in Junyee’s works. Visually, the chiaroscuro effect is engaging. The uncanny use of ‘useless’ soot parallels his ‘intransigence’ in the using indigenous materials he gathers on the slopes of Mount Makiling."
In our conversation, Junyee and I shared the pain of seeing young artists lured by the marketing frenzy that defines the "success" they know today. But that topic is a long one and the day was over. It was just such a breath of fresh air to bump into someone who, against the odds, managed success without compromising integrity or without being lured by popular culture as a shortcut to fame. Junyee keeps his nurtured soul and retreats to his cozy home, surrounded by the sweet smell of nature in the beautiful town of Los Baños.
Installation art in the Philippines is synonymous with one name: Junyee.
He is the pioneer and lone ranger in the field of setting up art coming out of walls, hanging from ceilings, and jutting out from outdoor spaces in the Philippines. Santi Bose (a former classmate of mine at UP) and Roberto Villanueva call him their guru. Junyee introduced a new, exciting art world to these two artists, which would eventually become their own path to recognition.
Junyee is an artist to reckon with. His tenacity is born out of a personal calling to be an artist against all odds. He supported himself through college doing odd jobs and making ends meet while running back and forth to UP Diliman. He was two years ahead of me but we saw each other on a daily basis at the Fine Arts Department locker room. He had a ready smile and always looked so neat. No one knew that he was going through so much hardship at that time.
In fact, I only found out about it now, 30 years later, after bumping into Junyee at an art event last month. He mentioned to me that he had set up an art gallery in Los Baños "to give UPLB and the community an opportunity to see and experience art exhibitions." This prompted me to offer a visit before he could even open his mouth to extend an invitation.
To kindle interest in visiting the gallery, Junyee put his prizewinning works along with new pieces in a space so simple and Spartan, it looked very elegant. The installation was so effective that no one would imagine he only had a very limited budget to work with. "The UP Chancellor’s Office, and the community have been very supportive and should be commended for understanding my mission to uplift the well-being of the students and people in general through art," says the artist.
I had known that Junyee was a prizewinning artist, but by scanning through the material near the guest book at the gallery entry, I was surprised to discover the extensive list of awards and recognition that Junyee has received through the years.
He started his installation-art activities in the late ’60s and had his first outdoor-installation one-man show in 1970 called "Balag," followed in 1976 by a massive outdoor installation at Luneta on the elevated platform between the Rizal monument and the Luneta grandstand. This was the Filipino public’s first installation experience.
"I remember watching the people walking by, who became very curious," recalls Junyee. "I mingled with them without saying I was the artist. It was a very exciting experience to see the reactions and to know that I had touched them."
His first indoor one-man show in 1980 – "Wood Things" at CCP’s Small Gallery, for which he used indigenous materials once again – was selected by the 12th Paris Biennale to represent the country after 12 years of absence in this prestigious international exhibition. This was followed by many more invitations from prestigious international art exhibitions from different countries, both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe.
Junyee’s "Acid Rain" outdoor/indoor installation at Alliance Française in 1987 was the first-ever commissioned work of installation art in the country. He also organized the first-ever outdoor installation festival at UPLB campus, sponsored by CCP and UP in 1980-81 and 1983. These events inspired Baguio artists to form the Baguio Arts Guild to also hold installation shows, likewise making the use of indigenous materials in contemporary art very popular.
Not new to awards, Junyee has been a consistent art-competition winner. He won his first award, a grand prize, in his first competition when he was Grade 3. In Grade 5, he was already doing portraiture. He never lost an art competition in high school. In college, he won twice in two tries the Shell National Student Art Competition. He joined his first professorial competition (SPS-1967) while still in college and won over his professor in sculpture.
In his first competition after college (AAP 1974), he won the overall award for all categories – sculpture, painting, print and photography – with his trend-setting massive wood sculpture "Mga Kahoy Natin," beating National Artist and mentor Napoleon Abueva, National Artist Abdul Mari Imao, Danny Dalena, and other established artists. This grand award is the first of only two overall awards ever given in a national competition.
No other artist has ever duplicated his winning streak, which spans four decades, from the ’60s to the ’90s. In the last competition he joined during our 1998 Centennial celebration, he won the first and only installation-art competition that was sponsored by CCP and the National Centennial Commission. His massive outdoor work, which covered one hectare in front of the Cultural Center, was later transferred to Expo Filipino at Clark for the Centennial opening. In the same year, he was also awarded top prizes for the Centennial competitions of the Art Association of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. His prize-winning creations using indigenous materials encouraged many other artists to use natural and local materials in art competitions.
Junyee also received the CCP 13 Artists Award when it was still prestigious. It was with great awe that I continued reading his list of distinguished work, which probably not even his closest friends would know about: Manila "Patnubay ng Sining at Karilangan" award, the first and only Artist-in-Residence award for UPLB by the UP Board of Regents, Most Outstanding Citizen of Los Baños – the first one in more than 300 years. The first most outstanding Citizen of Agusan de Norte. He also established the first art gallery in the UP system and was appointed curator from 1985-87 and again this year, and also a curator for Alliance Française.
He also conceptualized and served as delegate in the first and only ASEAN Conference for Indigenous Materials, and established in Cuba the 3rd World Movement for Indigenous Art. Over 25 art critics have reviewed him both here and abroad and his work has been published in numerous art articles in magazines and books, including the Philippine Encyclopedia for Art.
Art critic Paul Blanco Zafaralla wrote a compelling article entitled "Junyee on Cultural History." With permission I wish to share what he wrote, which expresses my thoughts and more about Junyee:
"Rich indeed is Philippine cultural history from the Asian period to the present, manifested by our ancient ‘abakada’ to our minimalist thinking processes, and wont in part to make the useless useful.
"This is the position taken by Junyee in his one-man show at the Sining Makiling, UP Los Baños, in Laguna.
"In his 21 pieces, Junyee underscores himself not only as a sculptor, but also as a painter and printmaker. As a sculptor, he counted among those in the forefront to dismantle the centuries-old canons of art with his wise use of indigenous materials in unique compositions. He has since branched out to functional sculpture, one of which is his centerpiece in the UPLB show.
"Narra and molave, both hardwoods, are set on red bricks and the color diffusion portents a precarious motion that becomes the work’s magnet. In this piece, Junyee blurred the demarcation line between sculpture as purely an aesthetic object, and sculpture as both an aesthetic object to behold and a material object to sit on. The person who sits on it becomes a party to the precarious motion.
"His boxed-in sculptures show clown-like human figures, with pliant bodies as they defy the law of gravity. These constitute a ‘ribbing’ on some people’s posturing and funny thoughts manifested by a common denominator; funny body language.
"The minimalist paintings, represented by ‘Kasulatan,’ reveal the other dimensions of Junyee’s persona: the mind of a cultural historian, the eye of a painter, and the visceral control of a sculptor and printmaker that he is.
"The ancient abakada, regardless of whose versions they are now, underscores our ancient cultural history recorded through written codes and expressed in various tongue inflections. These may have been lost through the centuries, as we as a people have become the poorest of the poor losers. The schools as social institutions may have reproductions in the archives – if they have archives at all – but they are never out for circulation, much less accessed through today’s Internet. As a result, though it’s no fault of theirs, Filipino youths are abysmally ignorant about this rich aspect of Philippine cultural history.
"Using paint and dye on wood, Junyee either mixed or juxtaposed his off-white paint and dye, and applied them so thinly without losing their sheen and luminescence in parts, enriched on the surface by the veins of the wood panels. With this pictorial prowess, the abakada, either massed at center or distributed at the fringes, become the foci nevertheless.
"The minimalist works, sans the abakada, are an allusion to our socio-cultural-political contacts with China and Japan. They hint at our national psyche of breaking free from rigidities of any kind. A shape, for instance, intimates an opening, a breaking away from the present environment to something beyond with limitless possibilities. Such works posit a new world, indeed, where identity loss awaits that must be conquered.
"The Filipino, Junyee argues, is informed of the genesis of the world. His work ‘Bago ang Dilim’ and ‘Bago ang Liwanag’ are testaments to this fact. Both works swirl in a circular orbit in a 92 x 92 cm. dye and paint on board and soot on board, respectively. The color specks in ‘Bago ang Dilim’ must be viewed either clockwise or counterclockwise for the circle and square within to accentuate the synergy of opposites.
"In ‘Bago ang Liwanag,’ the soot is smudged out at the inner and outer edges to make the circle virtually churn, as the inner white mass forms the frontal image of a man wearing a white, chest-length beard. This is an insightful interpretation of God’s centrality before He created light.
Soot, generally dismissed as a useless substance, has become useful in Junyee’s works. Visually, the chiaroscuro effect is engaging. The uncanny use of ‘useless’ soot parallels his ‘intransigence’ in the using indigenous materials he gathers on the slopes of Mount Makiling."
In our conversation, Junyee and I shared the pain of seeing young artists lured by the marketing frenzy that defines the "success" they know today. But that topic is a long one and the day was over. It was just such a breath of fresh air to bump into someone who, against the odds, managed success without compromising integrity or without being lured by popular culture as a shortcut to fame. Junyee keeps his nurtured soul and retreats to his cozy home, surrounded by the sweet smell of nature in the beautiful town of Los Baños.
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