MAZA, Anton Gabriel L.

2018-22248

Art Studies 202

Feb. 7, 2019

Alice Guillermo: “Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines – 1970 – 1990”

1. Summary

The book explores the history of protest and/or revolutionary art in the Philippines, focusing on the

politically-charged climate during the Marcos era up to the fall of the Marcos rule. Guillermo notes the artistic

approach(es) of visual artists under the Nagkakaisang Progresibong Artista-Arkitekto (henceforth, NPAA) and

contextualized the organization’s existence – from being part of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) to the

formation of the NPAA as the cultural unit of the KM. Notable in this book was Guillermo’s history of

protest/revolutionary art in the Philippines before the Marcos era. Staring from the late 19th century with the

Propaganda Movement and the Katipunan, then the American period which utilized mass media as an outlet for

protest/revolutionary content, and the post-war era that gave birth to social realism. Guillermo also noted the

practice of art in what is called “guerilla zones” in the countryside, which serves as the benchmark to the practice

of protest/revolutionary art in the Philippines. Interviews with former NPAA members provided additional

information about the movement and their goal in establishing national identity through exposing the social ills

that KM founder and Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chairman Jose Maria Sison identified as “[US]

imperialism, feudalism, bureaucrat-capitalism” (63).

2. Methodology

Guillermo, guided by the methodologies of semiotics and textual analysis, explained the artworks as

well as the various contexts (mainly political, economic, cultural) of the time. While the methodology is defined

in the book, she also added various aesthetic theories by leading Marxist thinkers from Karl Marx to Mao Tse-

tung. However, she emphasized on the three main proponents of Marxism that influenced Filipino

revolutionaries: Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Tse-tung. Their aesthetic theories (or the lack thereof, in
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the case of Marx) put forth another dimension of her application of semiotics which puts the artworks in its

social context.

Semiotics is the study of signs and their meaning. It is composed of three key concepts: signified,

signifier, and referent. The signifier is the immediately perceived material, while the signified refers to the

concept or value of the material, and the referent being the object or entity in the real world. Guillermo added

that her analysis of semiotics in visual art include basic (general, physical aspect of the work with their semiotic

potential which includes the elements of the artwork), iconic (qualities or features of the image), and thematic

(social grounding of the work). Complementing this approach to visual art, she also analyzed the textual material

from documents and artist manifestos.

In addition to the main methodologies of semiotics and textual analysis, Guillermo added the aesthetic

theories of Marxist thinkers. However, she emphasized that the one who made an impact on revolutionary artists

during the Marcos era was Mao Tse-tung. His “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Art and Literature” influenced the

way artists view art as “powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people, and for attacking and destroying

the enemy” (qtd. in Guillermo 41). This created a backbone of the thematic analysis used by Guillermo.

3. Commentary/critique

The book is largely an historical account of the development of social realism, through

protest/revolutionary art, in the Philippines. It details the progress of the revolutionary movement from 1964 (the

establishment of the KM) until the formation of NPAA and other cultural groups during Martial Law (1971 –

1981). The book also complemented Guillermo’s earlier essay on Mao’s revolutionary aesthetics and its

influence on the Philippine revolution. Published in 1993, “Mao Zedong’s Revolutionary Aesthetics and Its

Influence on The Philippine Struggle” gave a general outline of the application of Mao’s revolutionary aesthetics

to the national democratic revolution of which the CPP continues to lead to this day. Many of the items in the

essay also appeared in the book.

Guillermo’s use of semiotics was effective in explaining the social conditions that led to the campaign

for social realism and, eventually, the “art for the masses” approach of the NPAA. However, the problem lies in
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the scope of the book: she focused mainly on visual arts. While essays by Kris Montanez and Gelacio Guillermo

were used as a background for the literary scene during the 1970s, there was no special chapter (but a subsection

of a chapter) dedicated for them and that the other branches of art – the performing arts: music, dance, theater –

were left behind.

Her critique of protest/revolutionary art in the Philippines is also revolutionary in itself. It could be the

first time that protest/revolutionary art was studied. Thus becoming the definitive text for social realism in the

Philippines. It is also revolutionary in a sense that it documented the attempt to create a Filipino revolutionary

aesthetic based on the principles of Mao Tse-tung. For those involved in the national democratic revolution, the

book serves as a guide for the movement: by recognizing the contradictions of form and content that today’s

activists seem to separate, she reminds us to enjoy and appreciate art done by the bourgeois class yet create art

that will serve the interests of the masses. Thereby implying that art, as a weapon, should not only be consumed

but it should transform the people.

Interesting points that Guillermo raised were the negation of class reductionism that prevailed during

Stalin’s term in Russia (through the cultural minister, Andrei Zhdanov), the use of popular media to, and the use

of the traditional style of art as opposed to the modern. While Jose Maria Sison’s manifestos during the 1960s

did not include a comprehensive take on aesthetics, the NPAA took to themselves the guidelines they used for

the creation of their art. This was also documented by Guillermo when she noted that a congress was held in

1971 as an attempt to critique and criticize artworks done by members of NPAA and the Panulat para sa

Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (PAKSA) (57) and also the formation of the Kaisahan group later on that made an

artist manifesto to advance social realism in the 1980s (63 - 69).

4. Personal Insights and Conclusions

As an ally of the national democratic movement, the book contained information that may have been

hidden or forgotten by the young activists today. While there are still some artists, writers, and performers from

the Marcos era who still practice today, they have this mythological – almost deified – status that the student

activists of today tend to perceive. What is even more alarming than this is the fact that within the movement,
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debates on how art should be consumed and analyzed still arises. The Stalinization process that occurred in

Russia after the death of Lenin affected the people’s treatment of art: that the art of bourgeois societies are

decadent in nature thus, it needs to be rejected. Guillermo already quoted Mao by saying that bourgeois art

should still be appreciated (28) and negated the Zhdanov doctrine by stating that Zhdanov is “erroneous because

it assumes bourgeois society to be a homogenous whole” (33). The Zhdanov doctrine is still upheld in some of

the members of the movement.

As mentioned, the performing arts were omitted in the study. This may be because of the limitation of

the semiotic method which was only applied to visual arts or the lack of necessary tools to analyze the

performing arts. This gap in the study must be filled in order to make a comprehensive study of

protest/revolutionary art. However, the brilliance in Guillermo’s study is seen through the detailed accounts of

the artworks cited and its relation to the social context of the Philippines. She did not leave any gaps in the visual

arts.

Guillermo’s study is the definitive text for social realism in the Philippines. It is an understatement to

recognize this as an important text in the revolutionary movement when it has contributed a lot to Philippine

revolutionary aesthetics and clarified misconceptions that surrounded it. Further studies could be pursued with

the rise of the more elaborate visual arts that reflect the current situation of the Philippines.
Works cited:

Guerrero, Amado. Philippine Society and Revolution. 5th ed., Aklat ng Bayan, 2006

Guillermo, Alice G. “ Mao Zedong’s Revolutionary Aesthetics and Its Influence on The Philippine Struggle.”

Mao Zedong Thought Lives, edited by Jose Maria Sison & Stefan Engel, Center For Social Studies, 1995

Guillermo, Alice G. Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines 1970 – 1990. University of the Philippines

Press, 2001