Poleteismo is art, not Art

This is the last of my series of columns on the controversy that surrounded Mideo Cruz’s “Poleteismo.”

There is no question in my mind that the work, as a creative work, is protected by the freedom of expression provision of the Constitution. It was wrong of the CCP to defy the Constitution by stopping its display.

There is no question in my mind that the CCP should not have exhibited it in the first place. There are literally hundreds of creative pieces that CCP could have exhibited; to choose this particular one betrayed a lack of discretion and foresight on the part of the CCP board.

There is no question in my mind that, if we use the generic definition of art, it is art. It was exhibited in an art gallery (two, in fact, if we count the earlier version in the Vargas Museum) and art critics say that it is art.

There is no question in my mind that, if we use the evaluative definition of art, it is not art. This is the statement that I want to elaborate on today.

Let me use Venn diagrams. There is a huge set of things that may be labelled expressions. This set contains the set of creative expressions we are talking about. But it also contains other sets, such as the sets of graffiti, libelous statements in a newspaper, slander, and the common example of someone shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater. These other sets are not creative expressions; they are merely expressions. They are not the kind of creative expressions protected by the Constitution.

Inside the set of creative expressions protected by the Constitution is the set of things exhibited in an art gallery. Everything in an art gallery is art in the generic sense of the word. But not everything in an art gallery is art in the evaluative sense of the word.

Take the Louvre. Not everything there is art. Many pieces are merely old. Some of the portraits are there because the persons being portrayed happen to be of some importance in history, but the portraits themselves do not satisfy any of the formal criteria for real art.

Take something closer to home. Take a walk on the fourth floor (called the Art Walk) of SM Megamall and look at the things being sold in the art galleries there. There are some really good artistic works there, but there are clearly a lot more that should never have been imposed on the public.

There are many objective criteria for saying that something is art. If there were none, the judges at the annual Shell National Students Art Competition, not to mention the annual Palanca Awards, would never agree on winners, but they often do — unanimously. The saying that art or taste is purely subjective is simply not true.

One of these objective criteria is the ability of art to ennoble. I do not mean that one should suddenly kneel down and pray upon seeing a work of art that deals with religion. No tourist has suddenly become born again by staring at the Sistine Chapel ceiling (I could be wrong).

What I mean is that, after stimulating or provoking or even incensing us, a work of art should make us better persons. Clearly, “Poleteismo” did not do that. In fact, it did the opposite. It made us worse persons.

The proof stares us in the face. Suddenly, some Catholics became terrorists, threatening the CCP board members with bodily harm, trying to commit arson, behaving like devils rather than saints, forgetting all about the command of Jesus to “Put your sword away!” (John 18:11). Goodness, even bishops forgot to set the example of being like Jesus, who preached love and not hatred!

If Mideo Cruz intended to make better Catholics of Catholics — to make them distinguish between illusion and reality, between the image of Jesus and the real Jesus, between a mere drawing of His face and His real face, between worshipping Jesus and not the puny human representations of Him — then he failed miserably.

Instead of ennobling some Catholics, “Poleteismo” made them commit one of the deadly sins — anger. It made them receive Holy Communion with hatred in their hearts — the sin of sacrilege. It made them judge and therefore made them liable to be judged. It made them throw the first stone even if — let us not be hypocritical — no human beings except Jesus and His mother Mary were born without sin.

There is provoking and there is provoking. The kind of provoking that Mideo Cruz did was not justified by the creative piece that he did. Critics always say that an artist should “earn” the effect of his or her work. That means that there should be a deliberate, successful effort by the artist to achieve whatever it is she or he wants to achieve. No art piece can be conceived simply on the spur of the moment. Every art piece that aspires to be art is always the product of long, careful, profound hard work.

Therefore, based on the reception of the work, “Poleteismo” flunked the test of good art. It may be art, but it is bad art. It may be art, but it is not Art.