Literature: Essays by Corazon S. Alvina, Lisa Guerrero Nakpil et al. The Art & Times of the New Millennium, 2000-2020. Published by Januarius Holdings Inc. Page 62, with full-color illustration on page 63.

ABOUT THE WORK

Mark Justiniani is one of the foremost artists who emerged in the 1990s, under the shadow of martial law and the nascent presidency of Corazon Aquino. By this time, social realism was no longer a fringe movement but a dominant one, and young artists sought to find their bearings in its almost inescapable legacy and perennial tensions. Some of them founded art groups to consolidate their forces and, together, think through the roles and responsibilities of art. Justiniani, along with the other firebrands of the UP College of Fine Arts, established Salingpusa, which would eventually set the direction of Philippine art in the 1990s. While some of Justiniani’s contemporaries were still enamored with the direct and discursive forms of protest art, the artist took a different route, introducing elements of fantasy in his works. These have been classified under his Magic Realism series, inspired by the novels of Latin American writers, particularly Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In his paintings, Justiniani combines ordinary events with supernatural ones in order to prompt a new way of thinking about reality. His works, because of this approach, have achieved a humorous and lyrical quality. One can see the connection and development of these magic realist paintings to the series of works that would solidify Justiniani’s name in the art world: the installations that— through the trick of assembling mirror, light, and objects— offer the illusion of unfathomable depth. Aptly called Infinity series, these assemblages alter and warp the viewer’s sense of space, giving them the impression that they are tunneling through a tear in the fabric of reality itself. The most notable expression of this series is Arkipelago, which was showcased at the Venice Biennale, the world’s foremost art festival, in 2019 as the representative of the Philippines in its own pavilion. This work by Justiniani captures how the artist plays with the viewer’s expectation of a painted scene. The subject matter is mundane enough: a representation of Manila’s legendary snail-paced traffic. The point of view suggests that the scenario is beheld on the road, within the confines of a theoretical car. The roofs of other vehicles jut into view. Cutting across the painting are the enormous horizontal and vertical lines of an impossibly tall footbridge. On a lit lamp post squats a boy in a red shirt, framed by the clouds of an enormous sky, surveying the scene below. The viewer, who mentally sifts through his memory for a counterpart and finds nothing, is not ready for the appearance of the figure. The casualness and the dexterity of his pose, as though he has been doing this all his life, makes the painting all the more unnerving. His freedom, compared to that of those bound to their vehicles in an unmoving traffic, appears absolute and ideal—an admonishment of modernity. By introducing a jolt of cognitive dissonance, Justiniani transforms a banal scene into a contemplation of the nature of modernday comforts and luxuries.