Samantala sa may Calatagan

(Meanwhile, Somewhere in Calatagan) / 1988 / Acrylic on carved plywood and modeled figures, dye and glass enamel, cropped engraving, lacquer varnish / 66.04 x 91.44 x 15.24 cm / Artist: Roberto Feleo / Museo Wilfredo Lam, Havana, Cuba

The use of objects and materials traditionally not employed in artistic composition has led to artworks evidently more expressive of the Filipino experience. Local materials suitably evoke local Filipino experience. Originating with Dada and revived by pop art, multimedia is the ideal vehicle of Feleo’s subjects, which are based on Filipino folklore.

The title Samantala sa May Calatagan itself points to a komiks device to introduce to the reader another aspect or segment of a narrative. The artwork shows a modeled Darna, comics heroine, disputing with Indiana Jones, Hollywood swashbuckling amateur archaeologist and adventurous character, over a likha, a pre-Hispanic grave carving. Calatagan is a pre-Hispanic Philippine excavation site that Feleo uses as backdrop for an encounter between the two modern pop characters.

The use of box frames revert to the art of the American avant-garde Joseph Cornell. Feleo’s boxes, however, are influenced by slot machines as well as colonial altar boxes or frames. The rich texture of his boxes and their overstuffed appearance echo the horror vacui (fear of empty spaces) sensibility of colonial folk design. Darna’s fictive exposé of Indiana Jones as a cultural looter expresses Feleo’s favorite theme of the clash between tradition and the materialism of modern life.