Van Gogh in Manila

A celebrated Dutch painter’s legacy finds new form at annual art event

At the recently concluded MOCAF (Modern and Contemporary Art Festival), there were some residues of post-impressionist icon Vincent Van Gogh. 

Generations after his death, the Dutch artist still has a chokehold on the imagination of many who traverse time and time zones. There is this romantic notion of the misunderstood artist that proves to be so resilient that it has truncated Van Gogh’s legacy. His presence in an art event that celebrates the modern and contemporary is proof of such dangerous romanticism.

Some people preach how Van Gogh had a certain naïve purity of an undiscovered genius because he had never been successful during his lifetime. A John Denver song solidified the misunderstood artist whose body was beset by illness and financial mismanagement to be sacrificed at the high altar of art. These two components overlook a crucial point: Vincent Van Gogh was thoroughly supported by his brother, Theo Van Gogh, who provided him with stipends. This contradicts the figure of the noble starving artist trope, which is dangerous because even in the Philippine art scene, dead artists make more money from their brand and legacy than living ones who struggle even to get their foot in the door.

Walking around MOCAF, I spied in such close succession the legacies of Van Gogh himself. I saw iterations of Van Gogh’s self-portraits in a couple of works by Jomar “Thadz” Delluba. This dual portrait is exhibited at Gallery Joaquin, which holds a queer interjection of the artist’s (Delluba’s) youth. 

Delluba’s art approach is to recast known or familiar portraits from the Western art historical canon by replacing their eyes with a pair of round eyes with lowered eyelids. This trope of the bored, judgmental, tired, distrusting cartoonish eyes can be found in the contemptuous Garfield by Jim Davis and in the cartoon character Stewie from Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy. Van Gogh’s intense gaze has been eradicated for cartoonish conceit.

Across Gallery Joaquin is the 22nd and 5th Gallery, which hosts Raymond Gev’s interactive Van Gogh portrait. This time, Van Gogh’s visual articulation is that of the trope that he has a mental illness. There is a crank at the lower right-hand side of the painting which makes the googly eyes move and his tongue flit in and out of the mouth. This is the most honest portrayal of what the ordinary person would think of Van Gogh, diminishing his mental illness into a cute painting.

Then, across that gallery is The Art House, which has Nena Saguil’s Untitled (1975). Though we cannot tell for sure if Van Gogh inspired Saguil, she is an aesthetic descendant with her brazen focus on bright colors and dynamic flow. In her Untitled, the fluid planes look like they are reminiscent of Van Gogh’s famous Starry Nights.

This will not be the last time we see Van Gogh and his iterations in the Philippine art fairs. Just keep an eye out.

You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social.