Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Agreat mentor who honed the creative talents of Augusto Albor and Lao Lianben, Concepcion hailed from Tondo, Manila, and earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of the Philippines in 1953. While in college, Concepcion had already started a professional art career, being an illustrator for comic magazines like Action, Halakhak, Pilipino, and Bulaklak. Concepcion would expand his creative horizons and pursue higher art studies after graduating from UP. He traveled to Rome, where he enrolled at the Regge Accademia di Belle Arti and became a scholar under the auspices of the Italian government. Concepcion would graduate in 1964, earning his Master of Fine Arts. Prior to Concepcion’s arrival in Italy, the dominant art style was the Arte Informale, which paralleled that of Abstract Expressionism in the United States. Arte Informale, a term coined in 1950 by the French art critic Michel Tapié, is characterized by intimations into the inherent expressiveness of gestural abstraction rather than the rigidity of traditional abstraction. The movement explored the endless possibilities of abstraction by weaving spontaneity and often using non-traditional mediums and materials. This resulted in avant-garde works that are semiotic in form, thus engendering a profound dialogue between material and subject. From the Arte Informale rose the Arte Povera movement (Italian for “poor art”), which had its prime years from 1967 to 1972. The Arte Povera traces its roots to Alberto Burri, Piero Manzoni, and Lucio Fontana, who all reacted against consumerism in a post-war world. Arte Povera is characterized by the use of everyday and/or naturally occurring materials, such as rags, soil, twigs, and leaves. While Arte Informale attacked traditional abstraction, Arte Povera significantly took it a step further, not only using unorthodox materials but more so protesting the commercialization of and consumerism in art (epitomized by the commercialized contemporary galleries) amid a major socio-political and socio-economic upheaval in Italy, which coincided with the global radicalization of the late 60s and 70s. During this time, Italy suffered from economic instability brought by the dominant political party of that time, the conservative Christian Democrats. In the decades prior, Italy had undergone an “economic miracle” after the devastation brought about by World War II. But that “economic miracle,” borne from post-war capitalist exploitation and further richening of industrial tycoons, resulted in inhumane working conditions for the laborers. The protests first happened in the universities, with students protesting job insecurities and instability for fresh graduates, and then spilled over to the factories and industrial centers. Italy was in a scramble as it experienced high inflation rates. Yet, capitalists provided low wages while laborers worked for longer hours. These protests gave birth to the “Hot Autumn” of 1969-70. It was in this militant milieu that Arte Povera was born. Its foremost artists included Michelangelo Pistoletto, who made the quintessential work of art of Arte Povera, the Venus of the Rags (1967), Jannis Kounnelis, Mario Merz, and Piero Gilardi. Florencio B. Concepcion, who had been residing in Italy, became exposed to the radicalism of this era and made pieces imbued with the political spirit of the Arte Povera. Although we can see the traditional oil on canvas in this untitled 1968 work, Concepcion applies what is likely parchment paper or wax paper, which are commonly used in baking, cooking, and food storage, and places it on various parts of the canvas, resulting in wrinkled portions of the composition. By producing a work that conforms both to Concepcion’s socio-political sensibilities and artistic expressiveness, the artist professes that art can be accessible to all and can be made by all, and is not confined within the walls of commercialized galleries. In a world that has become increasingly commercialized and consumerist due to capitalist avarice, Arte Povera reinvigorated and gave a new life and message to art— the “aesthetics of the ordinary.” After all, art is part and parcel of our shared humanity; it is both a catalyst and a means of objection and protest against a world order that is ever-changing (for the worse). (Adrian Maranan)