Revolution in the art of Parts Bagani

The name Parts Bagani is a nom de guerre for an artist who has been illustrating for publications of the Communist Party of the Philippines, one of which is Ulos, the underground publication for the artistic output of the revolutionary movement.

“Parts” is short for “People’s Artist,” which is the name of the collective to which the artist belongs, and “Bagani” means warrior in Bagobo.

His  paintings were exhibited at the University of the Philippines Faculty Center on October 4 and 5, and were re-exhibited last November 26 to 29.  What was left unsold may be on show again early next year.

The UP exhibit created much excitement among those who went to see it (especially the activist crowd, specifically of the Nat-Dem variety). It was an event to see revolutionary art prominently displayed at Gallery 2 of the UP Faculty Center. It was said to have been art produced by an NPA cadre, who went incognito to his own exhibit. Boni Ilagan of the First Quarter Storm Movement said they tried to look for a venue for the exhibit for more than a year and only UP was open to it.

Indeed, with the proliferation of galleries and artists in every Manila street corner, trying to serve market and Mammon (e.g. the great Ben Cab eternally repeating himself), it is wonderful to see the works of an artist on display shouting out his commitment and rejection of the present overpowering dominance of capital. If artist Charlie Co’s latest works (“Portraits of China Men”), currently on exhibit in Galleria Duemila, are being sold for P500,000 each, then art of the social realism kind (or maybe the social criticism kind) as a trophy of the extremely rich only highlights the importance of socialist art to our country today. 

Teo Marasigan wrote in Pinoy Weekly that Bagani’s paintings are not of the sloganeering kind, but instead they show Bagani’s optimistic and humane portrayal of armed revolutionaries.   But, in fact, one of the paintings — “United Front” — is out-and-out sloganeering, literally, as it is a portrayal of a united front rally with all the placards bearing the usual screaming slogans one would see in the most militant of rallies, and above the crowd of activists, floating in the sky, are the heads of Marx, Lenin and Mao.

The usual clenched fists and the raising of guns are standard fare in the smaller paintings of Parts Bagani. This is not to discredit agitprop art, for it has a place in a country mired in poverty, as all sorts of revolutions threaten to erupt or are erupting at this very moment, but I point this out to situate Parts Bagani’s work in the tradition of Mao Tse Tung’s Yenan Forum influence on Philippine revolutionary art, which first bore fruit in the portrayal of red fighters in the early 1970s, especially as begun and supported by the Nagkakaisang Progresibong Artista at Arkitekto.   

If one looks at the drawings of Parts Bagani used in the book Muog, published by UP in 1998, one soon notices that not much has changed in his art in a decade. The mountains and forests are still portrayed in their lushness and colorful splendor, as they embrace and cradle the New People’s Army, shown by Bagani going about their various chores — cooking, training, and of course, marching. They are waiting and expanding, reaffirming the need to have the countryside as the base of the protracted people’s war. The forest and mountains are almost always bigger than human beings and war machines in Bagani’s paintings, revealing a sense of proportion where nature looms bigger than any platoon or helicopter.

The most interesting painting of Bagani, however, is entitled “Evacuation.” It is a picture just after a fight or an ambush. The digital prints we bought, or the pictures appearing on various blogs, do not do justice to the work. It is his most complex painting. The sky itself, in its various shades of bloody red, responds to light in different ways, depending on the time of day and where the painting is located. During the Faculty Center exhibit at the UP, the texture of the painting would constantly change, depending on where the sun hit the floor at any given time of the day. The sky — its texture and shades of red in the painting — is a story in itself.

The artist is said to have been encouraged early in his revolutionary art career by UP Prof. Monico Atienza, and as a form of thanks to the ailing Atienza, who was then in a coma (he passed away last December 5), the artist donated all the proceeds from his exhibit for the medical bills and burial expenses of Atienza. The organizers, in exchange for this support, set aside some of the money for art materials to enable Bagani to do more paintings. 

While the other works are mostly representations of New People’s Army fighters in their various poses, usually romantic and optimistic in the depiction, it is “Evacuation” that is the only piece among the large (three-by-five feet) or small works that has a narrative to it. The others are representations: idyllic greenery with guerrilla fighters who usually make their appearance in silhouettes. There is no story line. Obviously the narrative of the most interesting painting is about an evacuation, but this is only part of the story.

UP Collegian writer Mixkaela Villalon said it is about how the ambushed vehicles had their engines ripped off to make use of them, thus serving the revolution, as civilians escort the cadres out of the combat zone and two military helicopters watch the onward surge of the revolution. But when I looked at the painting, nowhere could I find a hint of the engines and parts of the vehicles being salvaged for future use. In fact, since it is a guerrilla war, I cannot imagine what the cadres would do with an engine of an armored personnel carrier. Teo Marasigan, however, wrote that it is actually a painting about an ambush and how two military helicopters are unable to do anything in the midst of a revolution. My eight-year-old son, innocent of the headlines of disappearances and human rights violations, interprets the painting as people fleeing towards the helicopters where they will be rescued and find salvation. There is a Rashomon-like effect to the painting, but not to the point of inconclusiveness, for there is without a doubt war in the painting, challenging  the viewer to interrogate the various facets of the war.

During the exhibit the painting had the word “Militarization” added to its title, thus it becomes “Evacuation/Militarization.” But the painting would perhaps have had an easier time getting the attention it deserved, and it could have been sold earlier than the others, if the title had been something like “Looking for the promised land,” as the child on the shoulders of an adult at the lead of the evacuation seems to be pointing at some distant and maybe better tomorrow. Buyers apparently did not want a painting with the title “Militarization” put up in their homes. Picasso said that paintings were not meant to decorate apartments but were, in fact, meant to attack and for defense against the enemy; but even Picasso knew that people shell out large amounts precisely to decorate their living rooms. 

This is not an essay on how to sell revolutionary art. My interest is in showing the simplification of a complex work of art, by its title, is a disservice to the work itself. The shift of emphasis by a title from the act of evacuation, or militarization, to that of hope — hope that is revolutionary or Biblical or both — without discounting the tragedy of war, would have offered people another view of the painting and the war it depicts. The red skyline, interpreted by many as the red of anger or war, becomes the red of the socialist promise.  The painting may have stood a better chance at being appreciated if it were not titled at all. Parts Bagani’s “Evacuation” is the rural area, the people and the sunlight of Amorsolo — after the onslaught of global capitalism. 

What is of interest to me as a viewer of Bagani’s art is how the most unique among his works seems to be the most neglected by his audience, as proven by the price attached to it (which should indicate the value given to it by those who priced it), which was the lowest among large pieces priced from P35,000 to P50,000. The painting belonged to the last batch to be sold and only to the batch that was sold after the Faculty Center show had ended. Boxed in by its title, the painting was deemed unworthy of the maximum monetary price the organizers were willing to give it; whereas “Evacuation/Militarization” may be the painting in the Bagani exhibit that was best able to show themes of class conflict, war, the land problem, and revolutionary hope, in all their complexity, difficulty, and utopian promise, and this was done without the overt physical presence of NPA cadres, which is faithful to its guerrilla tactic of elusiveness and blending with the terrain, while the State was represented by its war machines. Bagani must explore this complexity further in his upcoming works in order to help evolve art produced by the national democratic revolution, and to help evolve the vision of the national democratic revolution that is produced by art. The National Democratic Movement has a long history of triumphs and defeats. Bagani must reflect that in the next stage of his art.

“Evacuation” is militant art that does not only preach to the choir. It is not a mere photo or poster of cadres at work, or else the work becomes just a parade of his skills. The painting brings to its viewers the subject of revolution, which those of us living in the mainstream of Philippine society have neglected for too long, ever since Ferdinand Marcos left Malacañang, and those on the margins have discussed it, largely among themselves, to the detriment of its growth and evolution.

Revolutionary art usually wants to inspire, but it must also provoke the mind to think and historicize.