Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

Literature: Reyes, Cid. Arturo Luz. Makati City: Ayala Foundation and The Crucible for Globe Telecom, 1999. Full-color illustration and description on page 174.

ABOUT THE WORK

After defining the prolific 50s and 60s decades of Arturo Luz, figuration was suddenly abandoned by the artist in 1969. The circus performers, carnival forms, urban landscapes, and still lifes that had dominated Luz's canvases were buried in the sands of time; not even vestiges of them can be discerned. Luz says of this decision: "Through the twenty years or so that I have been painting, it has always been at the back of my mind to work in a completely non-figurative, nonobjective style." In Cid Reyes' book on the artist, Luz reveals the catalyst for his decision to abandon figuration and explore sculpture. "I suddenly realized: Why do I insist on using a subject when my work was progressively becoming more and more linear and more and more abstract?... The important elements were line, composition, relationships. The second thing that occurred to me was: Why not do sculpture?... I knew I was good with my hands. I had a feeling for form, and I decided that my sculpture was going to be abstract. It was a natural move." Like his paintings, Luz's sculptures were first constructed from numerous studies and small-scale models. His sculptures, especially his monumental ones, were free-standing forms influenced by the Zen nature of spontaneity and intuition. Indeed, Japanese aesthetics left a lasting mark on Luz's three-dimensional works, mainly seen in Homage to Fernando Zóbel and Homage to Gerardo Rueda. Cid Reyes writes: "Another Japanese-derived inspiration of Luz was origami, the art of folding to create sculptural figures... Expectedly, Luz's treatment of origami was totally abstract, never even hinting vestigially at any form of reality. Folded into flat planes in irregular but rhythmic intervals, Luz composed felicitous configurations of striking simplicity. "One piece entitled Homage to Fernando Zóbel alludes to Zóbel's penchant for working on a square canvas. As with all of Luz's sculptural works, the origami models were sent to the steel foundry execution by artisans in the prescribed material and style." Luz and Zóbel had been friends since the early 1950s, during their PAG days. Hence, the piece is that unique moment where we witness the sublime intersection of the two pioneers of non-objective art in the country as if spiritually conversing with each other. Luz also had that enduring admiration for Zóbel, deeming him "very exceptional." Meanwhile, Homage to Gerardo Rueda sees Luz evoking Rueda's monochromatic geometric forms that exhibit sublime austerity. Rueda was one of the founders of the Cuenca Group and the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, alongside Gustavo Torner and Zóbel himself. All in all, these two works show the intersection of Luz, Zóbel, and Rueda and how they all traversed the same paths as artists, each becoming a renowned stalwart of minimalist abstract art in their own right. (A.M.)