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NORBERTO ROLDAN

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The beauty of history is that it does not reside in one place

Norberto Roldan Catalog.indd 2-3 12/20/10 9:30:27 PM


[1]The Hint of TransitionJOSELINA CRUZ

Industrial societies have made a cult of

objects. We become attached to them, name

them, care for them, mourn their loss. Walter

Benjamin said that objects look back at you –

an observation that made his friend and fellow

Marxist Bert(olt) Brecht more than uneasy.

“Mysticism,” Brecht called it[1].

P4: MEDICINE MEN (detail), 2001, installation (wooden santos on pedestals, bottles, light boxes, lighting fixture), over-all dimensions variableg



There is a skin of first reading that imposes itself upon the works of Norberto Roldan. It is that which glances and sees the outer shell of a religious and/or a political register. Indeed, the over-arching evidence that the works are decidedly religious and/or political in nature is not misconstrued, for these they definitely are. However, another inclination, as strongly marked, if not more so, is Roldan’s penchant for objects. During a visit to his studio, gathered together were things collected through time for a specific project. Norberto Roldan is, first, and foremost, a collector. A collector of objects and paraphernalia, of images and imagery, of symbols and text. What he collects oftentimes are objects that tend to identify, in a manner that typifies a social group, a foregrounding idea, or even, iconic images to reference a concern. Within his medicine cabinets, altar boxes, installations, framed constructions, and other sets of tightly knit acquired objects, there runs a strong line of social observation. Roldan deftly singles out aspects of representation through specific articles, and turns these into succinct social commentary. It has been pointed out in previous essays that these groupings are akin to private altars that run rampant within Filipino homes. However, unlike these altars, which Roldan himself notes in an essay, “… constantly changing and…therefore organic[2],” Roldan’s studied conglomerations are exact and unchangeable. They communicate a single, direct message, and are confined, physically. Objects, fragments and text are juxtaposed deliberately. Within Roldan’s schematic universe nothing is extraneous.

Roldan’s training and initial profession as a graphic designer has, most likely, instilled this meticulousness and precision. After graduating from a course in Philosophy in 1973, he then went on to study Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas. While a student at UST he began to practice as a graphic designer, a profession he would do full-time for the next 20 years. This would influence much of his work as an artist, one that can be evidenced in his methodical use of space, and placement of objects. Despite the initial impression of arbitrariness—specially within his works in boxes, which have been described to echo Joseph Cornell’s work—every element found in a Roldan piece is carefully placed, and thought through, cleanly delineated as an individual component selected to relate to all the other carefully chosen items. Such manifest characteristics are found among rigorous collectors (they need to have an order, specially an internal order, among their collected objects), and graphic designers, who need to communicate a clear message through carefully produced images. Initial works used indigenous material as backdrop to collected images and objects. Explored in early exhibitions at Hiraya Gallery in 1987, Roldan produced assemblages that would begin a sustained observation of social concerns. Works such as Beliefs and Disbeliefs (1990) and Anting-Anting (1989), both featured in the exhibition “New Art in Southeast Asia”

at the Fukuoka Art Museum, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space in 1992, are examples from this early part of his practice. Much of the early part of Roldan’s oeuvre draws mostly from his hometown, Capiz in the island of Panay, located south of the Philippines. It is often commented that this area is characterized by witchcraft and magic. But the town, which like many others in the Philippines (as with other troubled nations), finds itself fraught with complexities brought on by a colonial past and a tumultuous present. Distinct to the rest of the islands in the South of the archipelago, especially the islands of Siquijor, and Capiz, is its widespread reputation for being a coven for witches and supernatural beings, and for having a high rate of superstitious beliefs. The provinces found in the South (barring Mindanao) were the first ones to have Spanish settlers, as well as the first of the islands to take on conversion to Catholic faith. It is therefore not surprising to find the observance of religious acts copiously intertwined with folk elements, mythical creatures and the occult. Roldan’s work draws greatly from the totems used in such practices. He places these items—each one laden with meaning and power, each piece charged with enchantments as well as devotions—within the neutralizing modernist schema of the grid and repetition. The device of the grid informs most of Roldan’s work as an internal logic, both visual and theoretical.

His earlier works used traditional cloth, peculiar to the weaving tradition of the South, as the ground on which to place his collected objects. Philippine critic Emmanuel Torres describes these works:“… tapestry-collages…his (Roldan) use of the native fabric patadyong of Negros and Panay with its warm colors and broad check patterns (the production of which, sadly, is a dying tradition), strips of bamboos and batad (native reed), and Coca-cola bottle caps (tansan), hammered flat as ornamental accents….In one instance, enriched by details such as traditional lacework, amulets, primitive bows, and the like…Other collages of textile, wood, metal and printed matter, in which images of warplanes are juxtaposed to scapulars, crucifixes and rosaries[3]…”

The abundance of material itemized by Torres resolutely hinges the work on layers of concerns that occupy Roldan. He admits to a “fascination with Christian and folk-religious rituals and objects,” allowing him to come explore another interest which is that of a “picture of the Filipino’s struggle and resistance against colonialist interventions[4].” Indeed, initial exhibitions during the 1980s until the late 1990s, point to Roldan’s occupation along these lines. From his earliest exhibitions in 1984 until his most vaunted show in 1999, “Faith in Sorcery, Sorcery in Faith,” one finds a refining of elements and ideas from mere



EX VOTO (installation view, Mo_Space 2008, left and top, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum 2003), assemblage on fabric (cut-out figures on tin sheets, self-lock plastic pockets, dried leaves, notes on paper, hand-sewn amulets), fabric: 238 x 213 cm, courtesy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and MM Yu

CHURCH OF THE REVOLUTION, (installation view, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum 2003, top and bottom, Mo_Space 2008), isntallation (light box, hand-painted banner, book, mantle, and altar lamps) banner: 259 x 152 cm, light box: 45 x 71 cm, over-all dimensions variable, courtesy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and MM Yu



to assembling boxes, framed groupings that referenced religious practices across the Philippines. From the millenarian groups in the north who reverenced national hero Jose Rizal as god incarnate turned to their metal amulets, to the bottled oils and unguents fashioned by the healers of Siquijor; to the shaped candles, herbal concoctions and scapulars among the sidewalk vendors outside the Quiapo church, to the tiny statues of saints, the Virgin Mary and Jesus, as well as luminous crucifixes and a Catholic’s treasured estampitas[15] —Roldan scoured the country for any material embodiment of belief and healing through transcendent beings. Together with these, Roldan included in his increasing compendium, printed incantations, spells, prayers and devotions, illustrations and formulae that, in some cases, were necessary to activate an object’s potency. In later installations, the artist would include pidgin or fabricated words in Latin to further signal the inculturation of the coloniser’s language as used in religion. Under Roldan’s orchestration, individual archives of his objects are put together, purposefully mingling one system with another, in this way producing a static rendition of an otherwise organic personal altar. In every work, one belief system overlaps with another in a syncretic unity, the logic of which only makes sense to the devotee or follower. This is the central tenet of Roldan’s world: the amalgamation of objects and images to produce a pastiche governed by an internal logic. These upright ‘boxes’ offer a barefaced synthesis of how belief, through various religious systems, are practiced across the country. Such hybridity allows for the criticism of the system of colonization on one level, but by the same token, admits to the flexibility of colonized peoples and their ability to fuse several, distinct, organized belief systems to create personal ones. Homi Bhabha writes in his popular essay Postmodernism/Postcolonialism that “these popular appropriations were built upon some form of intellectual affiliation and engagement.” In fact, the colonized, if we are to follow this logic, was not merely a passive receiver of the coloniser’s religion, they engaged themselves with the new system, and perhaps, with a startling ease of resilience, practiced a composite. It has been written that the site occupied by the practitioners of these belief systems can be found “somewhere between the doors of the Quiapo church and the amulet vendor’s stall[16].” Without a doubt, each of these spiritual practices reflects a decided consideration of every belief system appropriated within the newly formed condition of the syncretic believer.

A similar strategy of pastiche is present in his installations; the objects, however, have become starker, pared down to the barest elements to impart a more precise image. One still finds the cornucopia of material. Roldan now goes beyond religious iconography, but turns to harvesting from the archives of historical imagery. By early 2000, he turns to producing larger work. He seriously begins this investigation

conglomerations, to more or less, fixed universes.

Although he began working on cloth as background, these works were decidedly more concerned with political commentary and historical critique, whilst using religious objects as vehicles for this exploration. His 1987 exhibition, “Dagway sang Inaway” (Images of War), one finds works culled from the remnants of an incident that had taken place near Bacolod[5]. The remains he found, after having joined a human rights fact-finding mission[6], would become parts of this specific set of works evoking loss and violence. It would, at this point, be difficult to separate the politically concerned Roldan from the artist. In a 1989 review in a Sydney newspaper, he states plainly, making reference to his involvement with the Concerned Artists of the Philippines[7], that:

“As artists we are an active part of the community. It is very difficult to ignore what is happening around us. During the time of Marcos we were tremendously afraid, but we took the risk of exhibiting because we felt we had to be honest[8].”

And in a more recent interview, he admits to having been actively “involved with the early National Democratic movement [9],” an implication that has predisposed his work towards the trajectory of social critique, albeit using highly-charged objects of belief and healing. This direct sympathy for political expression through art, for a time hemmed Roldan within the constraints of the social realism label. This development was no surprise as Roldan not only became further committed to pushing social commentary[10], but also became active as a cultural organizer that sought to move away from the hegemonic pull of Manila as art center. In 1986, Roldan, together with other artists from Bacolod, Charlie Co and Nunelucio Alvarado, found the Black Artists in Asia (BAA)[11], a politicized group that concerns itself with social, political, economic and cultural matters to be communicated through art. BAA would be the loudspeaker for cultural and artistic interest in the Visayas[12] and would become active in exhibitions across Asia until the late 1990s[13]. Such involvement and activism would color Roldan’s work until such a time wherein his interest would move more towards creating active sites for artist participation[14]. This resulted in a contemporary visual strategy that sought to grapple with issues that continue to bedevil post-colonial societies in Asia.

Following his collages on native cloth, Roldan, who by now had permanently settled in Manila, turned





of installations in the exhibition RX: Critical Remedies (2001) at the Lopez Museum, and from here on end, pursues a path towards the refinement of such. Private Altars (2002) is a continued exploration of the subject begun in Faith on the Periphery (2001). In later installations, the artist removes the somewhat tangential elements that point the viewer towards obvious readings of folk expression. He distills his installation to a row of wooden Santos[17] stripped of their clothing, each with a bottle of tawo-tawo[18] inserted in place of its heart, and each given a lightbox for a halo, from which glows out pidgin Latin text. The work is succinct, deploying a more direct reference to his developing concerns.

Roldan streamlines his work further by engaging design concepts in a more marked manner. He turns to strong images—a large theater poster, an old Caltex signage, an outsize confessional box—as devices for visual clarity. His current use of objects and images, and its rhetorical component, reflect a certain refinement. He continues to employ the grid, no longer as a visual gambit, but as an invisible, internal structure. He also begins to include text and pop references. In the exhibition “Who Owns Women’s Bodies?” held in 2000, Roldan produced a fictitious theater poster, its achingly bright colors and nod to popular culture, reminiscent of his earlier work wherein hundreds of neon-bright foil covers of Japanese bubble gum cards largely cover a grid frame[19]. The outsize theater poster, entitled Around the World (2000), depicts a blown-up black and white photo of two Filipino women posing inside a studio wearing Japanese kimonos, their hair adorned with flowers. The studio is set up with accoutrements for a tea ceremony, as the women stare stonily at the camera. The image was most likely found from piles of old photographs, and then chosen by the artist. A ready-made tableau vivant becomes Roldan’s material, and interestingly underlines a post-modern attitude as part of the postcolonial experience, for the tableau vivant itself, connotes the rendering of layers upon layers of representational meaning. The manufactured scene has in it a startling postcolonial reading, despite being created within a colonized space. With Roldan’s further manipulation to create a thoroughly different context, the image takes on a different significance. He re-constructs the photograph to become a fictional theater poster, and the text he imposes upon it calibrates its reading to another level of representation. The text implies meanings that are however only discernible to a local audience, he assigns names for each of the female figures and situates them. He produces identities that are fragile, mere constructions. With the addition of the lit light box beside it flashing out the word ‘ongoing,’ Roldan further underlines the flux of identity construction, echoing Derrida through Bhabha:

The representational desire of the tableau vivant lies in the pleasure of producing a copy that elides and eludes the original not simply by displacing it but by doubling it; an image that “catches its breath” to appear still, dead, fixed, in order to infuse the tableau with life and exceed the presence of imaging itself; a reproduction of similitude where the surface of the scenario is the signifying site of a “difference” that consists in substitution and subversion at the same time. The tableau vivant is a genre particularly suited to the epistemology of the postmodern, where the “referent is lifted but reference remains: what is left is only the writing of dreams, a fiction that is not imaginary, mimicry without imitation, without verisimilitude…[O]n that side of the lustre where the ‘medium’ is shining.” (Derrida 1981, 211)[20]

The artist, with this particular work and several of his other works thereafter, in fact creates a site where identity is translated, creating a reproduction of meaning. Roldan turns this idea through several guises in his artwork. In Mother of Perpetual Colony (2003), he uses a large digital print (2.44 x 2.44 m) delineated into panels depicting various reproductions. This work appears to have interchangeable images, with additions being made for a later edition in 2008. For Roldan the interchangeability of the images point to the contextual frame that he looks to producing within the work. The images are invariable however: a close-up image of Jesus, an enlarged picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help[21], an image of the artist as a young man during his investiture towards becoming a major seminarian, and King Philip of Spain. In the 2003 work Roldan includes the text: “Wear. Conquer” in one of the triptychs. In the later edition, he removes the texts to combine all the images. The inclusion of specifically chosen text in the artwork points to Roldan’s exploration of visual, and contextual possibilities for his practice. Roldan says, “these texts provide a sort of counterpoint and contextualizing element to the images.” But more importantly, these images are “translations” from their original, and their reproduction equates into a new meaning, which is further layered with juxtapositions of other images, essentially forming a tableau vivant. For example, with “Wear. Conquer.” he points us to look at how among colonized people, the idea of taking on a practice (in this case, religion), is akin to wearing it, much like putting on another skin, and thus, on the surface, achieves the end point of colonization: the situation of being conquered. It is this interesting dichotomy among colonized societies wherein an outer layer of seeming acceptance overlays that of a native interior. The use of text in contemporary art looks back to the 60s with work by Ian Hamilton Finlay and the concrete poets, although the creation of odd pairings between the image and the word look back to the Surrealists, and the well-known work by Rene Magritte. The words that Roldan includes with his images are lifted from history, reminders of a past littered with mistakes, and good-intentioned deeds gone afoul.

P12: PRIVATE ALTARS, 2002, installation (collage panel backdrops, assorted objects, light boxes, altar linens, lace curtains), 228 x 589 x 25 cm, courtesy Fukuoka Asian Art Museum



AROUND THE WORLD, 2000, installation (dye sublimation print on satin fabric, light box, alms box), over-all dimensions variable

MOTHER OF PERPETUAL COLONY (detail), 2003, wall installation with 8 fabric banners, digital print on nylon fabric, one banner: 244 x 244 cm

CONFESSIONAL BOX (installation shot and details), 2005, installation (finished lumber, metal brackets and bolts, light boxes), 244 x 366 cm (flatform dimension) x 274 cm (height)



and reach a more universal audience on concerns that may line up with his. The large, Caltex sign, an easily recognizable pop image due its ubiquitous presence along highways and roads, rises to the occasion as the exhibition’s central piece that draws together all the other elements. These world events and crises, the wars and the weapons, are all powered by petrol. Simply put, the one who controls the source, controls the events around the world. Hardt and Negri, when talking about alternatives to Empire write: “First, each struggle, though firmly rooted in social conditions, leaps immediately to the global level and attacks the imperial constitution in its generality. Second, all struggles destroy the traditional distinction between economic and political struggles. The struggles are at once economic, political and cultural—hence they are biopolitical struggles, struggles over the form of life. They are constituent struggles, creating new public spaces and new forms of community[25].”

This is what Roldan strives to achieve, inserting pop iconography within an exhibition steeped in critique both economic and political, which as Hardt and Negri write, are no longer distinct. The critique cuts across “the form of life.” His mystical altars, amulets, bottles of oil, his found photographs, lifted texts, as well as his manipulation of images across media, are all pop objects removed from their context to achieve a level of critique (or struggle), to allow these to play part in the conversation that makes thinkers out of viewers. To activate and, in more hopeful tones, perhaps alleviate, conditions and marks left upon us by an imperialist legacy. In one of his grandest gestures Norberto Roldan places an oversize confessional box within a gallery. The exhibition “Objects and Apparitions” (2008) brings together a number of his past projects, all within one gallery. In the middle one finds an empty confessional box. It is circled by Roldan’s bare altars, his blown up religious images, a blanket of scapulars. Again and again, the artist returns to this site. A site that is at the same time empty and full. This box is a space where secrets are whispered, where sin is forgiven, souls are bared, where, supposedly, Catholics come out cleansed. Here, because of the ritual of emptying, it becomes so charged as to become full—a kind of vortex, a black hole from which nothing escapes and everything disappears. Within this box we are refused our distinctions, collapsing in it all, and any struggles upon its emptiness.

“What if the modern form of power these critics (and we ourselves) have taken such pains to describe and contest no longer hold sway in our society? What if these theorists are so intent on combating the remnants of a past form of domination that they fail to recognize the new form that is looming over them

Another work that uses both text and found image is one that shows the harrowing act of garroting. In White Love, Love White[22] (2003) an image is again lifted from the annals of history to show a man about to be garroted during the American period in the Philippines. On either side of this image the words ‘white’ and ‘love’ glow in red klieg lights against a black backdrop. The photograph is reconfigured to assume the size of an advertising billboard, and in one corner is the advertised product: Liwayway Gawgaw[23]. Liwayway Gawgaw, marketed during the 1940s, is gawgaw (laundry starch) powder used to whiten and stiffen clothes. The iconic design for this product, once found in many Filipino households, shows the breaking of dawn with the sun rising from between two mountains, its rays reflected upon a still sea, with coconut trees swaying gently on the foreground. This idyllic calmness is juxtaposed with the impending violence about to take place in the photograph. For Roldan, the sum of this equation is that of the continuing, but distressing relationship of his country with that of a colonizer, in this case, the US. Looking to critique the concept of “benevolent assimilation[24]” the artist explicitly addresses the success of this design, despite the suffering it had cost. The juxtaposition of the three elements create a continuing conversation regarding the desire to be assimilated within the embrace of the colonizing white man, whilst still weighed down by atrocities that took place during that period. The Philippine-American war, which lasted for three years (1899 to 1902), was characterized by the assertion of power through inhumane ways. It is said that three-fourths of the American military were sent to the Philippines to quell what ‘official’ history books described as an ‘insurgency.’ Roldan continued to develop this concern with a solo exhibition in 2007. ‘Oil’, a solo exhibition had three major components: two diptychs and a found object that take over the room. Across these major pieces are his lightboxes arranged in a cruciform. The overarching thematic to ‘Oil’ is the critique of American expansionism and its continued trade in weapons. Roldan makes no apologies by incorporating text which are far from subtle. He gathers together not only images from the past, in this case pictures lifted from the Gulf War of the 1990s, and juxtaposes text from Mark Twain’s 1916 The War Prayer, a piece dripping with vitriol, and in the other diptych, an excerpt from Haile Selassie’s UN address in 1963 which spoke about worldwide weapons disarmament. While this exhibition may be looked on as a departure from his widely recognized use of found, folk objects, the exhibition is still marked by the artist’s inclination for collecting: images, text, found objects. But it is Roldan’s ability for juxtaposition which allows him to create a site within, and amongst his works that extend critique from a locally historically relevant image (Twain was one part of an anti-imperialist group and was against the war that was being raged in the Philippines and in his text a criticizes US military actions) to a more global concern. This juxtapositional facility opens his art to go beyond local meditations

WHITE LOVE, LOVE WHITE (installation shot, Cultural Center of the Philippines), 2003, installation (digital print on nylon fabric, flouresecnt bulbs), banner: 274 x 488 cm, over-all dimensions variable

WHITE LOVE, LOVE WHITE (installation shot, Dahlem Museum, Berlin), 2003, installation (digital print on nylon fabric, flouresecnt bulbs), banner: 274 x 488 cm, over-all dimensions variable



MEDICINE MEN (installation shot, Mo_Space), 2001, installation (wooden santos on pedestals, bottles, light boxes, lighting fixture), over-all dimensions varaible

OBJECTS AND APPARITIONS (installation shot, Alliance Française de Manille), 2005, installation (two altars, film projection: Hiroshima mon amour by Alain Resnais), over-all dimensions variable



While Roldan writes that “…I am not a social realist and have never been part of the social realist movement…” (in War, Politics and Religion, Contemporary Asian Art Forum: Links>Platforms>Networks>, Asia Art Archive publication, Hong Kong, 2004) he was nevertheless strongly politicized and it was impossible not to attach such concerns with his work. The label social realist in the Philippines was usually attached to artists whose works showed leanings toward critique of the government and social disparities.[11]The Black Artists in Asia (BAA) makes reference to Negros, the province from which the artists were originally from. [12]Visayas is one of the Philippine archipelago’s three island groups, composed of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao[13]please see Emmanuel Torres, From Bacolod with Rage, Fire and Brimstone, The Philippine Star, Arts and Culture Section, 29 March 1999[14]Roldan would open Green Papaya Art Projects. While it initially started as a selling gallery, it later morphed into a “project-based space aimed at exploring other approaches to the production dissemination and appreciation of art in the various disciplines.” in Santo: Arts of People III / Holy Sculptures from the Philippines, (Fukuoka: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum), 2003, p 40[15]A small holy picture with prayers on the reverse side, usually given on special anniversaries or occasions among Catholics[16]Cruz, Joselina, Incision, RX: Critical Remedies catalogue, Manila: Lopez Memorial Museum, 2001, p 4[17]Santos are religious statuary, in any material, to depict images of Catholic saints, which are then used as reminders towards specific practices and beliefs in the practice of Catholicism. Saints, as represented through Santos are technically, according to the tenets of Catholicism, to be venerated (dulia) only, while adoration (latria) is given to God alone.[18]Tawo-tawo are bottles that have inserted inside them a tableau of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion[19]Searching for a Hero, diptych, 1999[20]Bhabha, Homi K., Postmodernism/Postcolonialism, Critical Terms for Art History, Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, eds, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press) 1996, p310[21]Our Mother of Perpetual Help shows a Byzantine icon representation of the Virgin Mary coming from the 15th century. It is venerated within the Catholic Church. This is one of the more widespread devotions amongst Filipino Catholics, as spread by the Redemptorist Fathers, a congregation of missionaries.[22]According to the artist, this title was borrowed from Vicente Rafael’s book, White Love and Other Events in Philippine History.[23]Liwayway translates to Tagalog for ‘dawn’, while Gawgaw, to ‘starch’. Liwayway was the name of the company that sold this particular brand of laundry starch during the 1940s.[24]The term Benevolent Assimilation refers to a proclamation issued on December 21, 1898 by U.S. President William McKinley to the Philippines, after Spain sold the Philippines to the United States. For the full proclamation refer to: prhttp://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/benevolent.htmlThe proclamation, in brief, regarded the Philippines as having been ceded to the US, despite Filipinos having defeated Spain to proclaim itself an independent Republic. By February 1899, the Philippine-American War began. This is one of the more bitter periods in Philippine history wherein 600,000 Filipinos were killed. http://opmanong.ssc.hawaii.edu/filipino/philam.html[25]Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio, Empire, (Massachusetts, London: Harvard University Press), 2001. p 56[26]ibid,p 138

in the present? What if the dominating powers that are the intended object of critique have mutated in such a way as to depotentialize any such postmodernist challenge? ...what if a new paradigm of power, a postmodern sovereignty, has come to replace the modern paradigm and rule through differential hierarchies of the hybrid and fragmentary subjectivities that these theorists celebrate[26]?”

As Roldan continues his projects, he will surely recognize the direction his work is taking, has taken, and will need to take. By discerning these new paradigms of power, his work will demand that he engages it through the kind of art he engenders, allowing for it to create further furrows on contemporary critical ground.

[1]Buck-Morss,Susan, Researching Walter Benjamin’s Passagen-Werk, Deep Storage: Collecting, Storing and Archiving in Art (Munich, New York: Prestel), 1998. p222[2]Roldan, Norberto, Notes on the Installation in Santo: Arts of People III / Holy Sculptures from the Philippines, (Fukuoka: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum), 2003, p 39.[3]Torres, Emmanuel, The Magic Medicine Cabinets of Norberto Roldan, The Philippine Star, 10 May 1999, p L-4[4]Roldan, Notes on the Installation, p39[5]Bacolod is a city located in the province of Negros Occidental, South of the Philippine archipelago[6]In Faith Healing, Who Owns Women’s Bodies? catalogue, 2001, Patrick Flores writes: “…Roldan at once bears witness and acts on an incident taking place in a town south of Bacolod which was ravaged by relentless military counter-insurgency offensives: houses were razed to the ground and 3000 persons were left homeless. He went on a human rights fact-finding mission, walking around with non-governmental groups to scour the scorched earth for leavings of loss, the remains of the day.” p 115[7]The Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP) is an organization of writers, artists and cultural workers committed to the principles of freedom, justice and democracy. It was founded in 1983 to unite Filipino artists against the dictatorial regime of then President Ferdinand Marcos who imposed repressive laws that curtailed freedom of expression and enforced orders that victimized citizens with arrest and detention even without charges.After February 1986, many of its members opted to work away from people’s and mass organizations. CAP’s activities waned until the group became virtually dormant.On June 17, 2000, several CAP members, recognizing that conditions make it imperative for artists and cultural workers to renew their involvement in the people’s movement for justice, nationalism and democracy, met in Quezon City to initiate the revival of the organization.Since then there has been no let-up in the CAP’s activities to promote arts and culture which are relevant to our people and their conditions, in order to countervail the onslaught of globalization and remnants of feudalism. We have likewise been in the forefront in the continuing fight for freedom of expression. Most of all, we are working with different sectors of society in the struggle for the people’s political and economic liberation. From the Concerned Artists of the Philippines blog, http://caphil.blogspot.com/2007/11/concerned-artists-of-philippines.html[8]Lumby, Catherine, A Compelling Fruit Borne of a Bitter War, The Eastern Herald (Sydney), Arts Section, 21 February 1989, n.p.[9]“…I considered myself actively involved with the early Nationalist movement, having been a cultural activist/organizer in Negros Occidental during the 80s…” in Jerome Gomez, Bright Lights, Big City, Metro Society, May 2009, p 160 NB: Roldan corrects this as being the Nationalist Democratic movement

THE WAR SPEECH (WITH APOLOGIES TO HAILE SELASSIE), 2006, oil and acrylic on canvas, diptych 122 x 488 cm composite THE WAR PRAYER (WITH APOLOGIES TO MARK TWAIN), 2006, oil and acrylic on canvas, diptych 122 x 488 cm composite



The beauty of history is that it does not reside in one placeNORBERTO ROLDAN

What do we make of unfamiliar objects and images we accidentally stumble upon? What memories do they bring? What impressions do they make? What time in history does an object or image transport us to? Or do they necessarily suggest a specific period, time or moment? Or would we rather locate them in our own time, provide our own context or construct our own narrative?

I came across photos of Adolf Hitler’s apartment in the “New Chancellery” in Berlin that reflects the Fuhrer’s baroque and unexpectedly sentimental taste. One could imagine that a Gianni Versace or a Tom Ford could have occupied this apartment, so immaculately beautiful and peaceful as it was. Hugo Jaeger, one of Hitler’s personal photographers who had unprecedented access to the Fuhrer’s private moments, took the photos. These images, showing objects, a vase and his military officer’s cap neatly arranged on top of a bureau, suggest a world totally committed to peace and tranquility. But the same images likewise belie his infamous statement that “(the) very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”

My works are referenced on the notion that objects and images have an inherent life of their own and are not predisposed to merely become waste in the dustbin of history. As the images of Hitler’s apartment would attest, they can convey a different reality and can set a time frame particular to a person’s fancy. Found objects and found images acquire validity precisely by being found, re-constructed, re-framed and assimilated into a context relevant to the present. Aware of their contemporary intrinsic value and historical materiality, isn’t it coherent and consistent that these objects and images indicate that perhaps history does not reside in the past alone?

November 2010, Singapore

NORBERTO ROLDAN The beauty of history is that it does not reside in one placePresented by TAKSU Art Stage Singapore 2011, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore



FUGITIVES FROM YEARS OF CAPTIVITY 1 / 2 / 3 / 4, 2010 (series of 12), assemblage with found objects on salvaged wood from a demolished old house, 47 x 47 cm



P28: INVISIBILITUS EST 1, 2010, assemblage with old Roman chusable, metal amulets, assorted bottles, 183 x 122 cm

THE BEAUTY OF HISTORY 1, 2010, assemblage with found objects, old Roman chasuble, assorted bottles, diptych 122 x 122 cm composite













IN SEARCH FOR LOST TIME 1 / 2 / 3 / 4, 2010 (series of 24), assemblage with found objects, collages, medicine and perfurme bottles, 47 x 47 cm

P34-35: THE BEAUTY OF HISTORY IS THAT IT DOES NOT RESIDE IN ONE PLACE, 2010, assemblage with old mirrors, fabric, and old metal jewelry boxes, diptych 183 x 244 cm composite

P36-37: MY BROTHER AND THE ORDER OF THE MOONSHADOWS, 2010, assemblage with old Roman chusable, fabric, old painting, wooden altar, assorted bottles, diptych 183 x 244 cm composite






P48: INVISIBILITUS EST 2, 2010, assemblage with old Roman chusable, metal amulets, assorted bottles, 183 x 122 cm

THE BEAUTY OF HISTORY 2, 2010, assemblage with found objects, metal amulets, assorted bottles, diptych 122 x 122 cm composite



IN SEARCH FOR LOST TIME 9 / 10 / 11 / 12, 2010 (series of 24), assemblage with found objects, collages, medicine and perfurme bottles, 47 x 47 cmg












P50-51: QUELQUES FLEUR 2, 2010, assemblage with collage, old sepia photographs, assorted bottles and found objects, diptych 183 x 244 cm composite



NORBERTO ROLDAN (b.1953)

Roldan works and lives in Manila. He is currently artistic director of Green Papaya Art Projects, a multidiscplinary platform founded in 2000, while practicing as a multi-media artist and curator. He has been at the forefront of cultural work in the Philippines having founded the seminal artists group Black Artists in Asia in 1986, and initiated the longest-running VIVA EXCON Biennale in the Visayas region in 1990. Roldan approaches the problematics of curating and cultural management as integral to his contemporary art practice. He took his BFA in Visual Communications at the University of Santo Tomas and is yet to complete his MA in Art Studies at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. Roldan has represented the Philippines in various international exhibitions in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the USA. He has also been representing the country in international symposia and workshops on independent curatorial practice, alternative/independent art spaces and international art exchanges, residencies and artists mobility.

Awards and Distinctions 1996 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, Finalist, Manila, Philippines / 1997 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, Finalist, Manila, Philippines / 1998 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, Jurors’ Choice, Manila, Philippines / 1998 Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition, Jurors’ Choice, Manila, Philippines / 1998 Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards, Philippine Representative, Hanoi, Vietnam / 1999 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, Finalist, Manila, Philippines

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2011 The Beauty of history is that it does not reside in one place, Taksu at Art Stage Singapore / 2010 Not Past Nor Future, Neither Dead Nor Alive, Slab, Manila / 2009 Give me tears give me love let me rest Lord above, Pablo Fort, Manila / Sacred is the New Profane, Taksu, Singapore / Everything is Sacred, Taksu, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia / 2008 Objects & Apparitions, M_O Space, Manila / 2006 Oil, Magnet Gallery, Katipunan, Manila / 2005 Esperanza y Caridad, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila / 2004 Confessional Box, Alliance Française de Manille, Manila 2003 Mother of Perpetual Colony, CDU Gallery, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT Australia / 2001 Faith on the Periphery, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila / 1999 Faith in Sorcery, Sorcery in Faith, Hiraya Gallery, Manila1994 Orasyon, Hiraya Gallery, Manila / 1989 Images of the Continuing Struggle, Artspace, Sydney, NSW Australia1987 Images of War, Hiraya Gallery, Manila

Selected Group Exhibitions 2011 Complete and Unabridge Part 2, Osage, Hong Kong / 2010 No Soul for Sale, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London / Serial Killers: From Tate Modern to Taksu Singapore, Taksu, Singapore / 2008 Galleon Trade: Bay Area Now 5, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA / Beyond Frame, UTS Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia / Room 307: Inkling, Gutfeel and Hunch, National Museum/Contemporary Art Projects, Manila / 2007 Shoot Me, M_O Space, Manila / 2006 Manila Envelope, Worth Ryder Gallery/UC Berkely, California, USA / Signed and Dated, Valentine Willie Fine Arts, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia / 2005 Flippin’ Out: Maynila to Williamsburg, Goliath Visual Space, Brooklyn, NY, USA / 2004 Crossings: Philippine Modern and Contemporary Art, Ayala Museum, Makati City / Identities versus Globalisation, Chiangmai Art Museum/National Gallery-Bangkok/Dahlem Museum- Berlin 2003 / Santo: Holy Sculptures from the Philippines, Fukuoka Asian Art Musem, Fukuoka, Japan / Yankee Doodles, Main Gallery, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila / 2001 RX: Critical Remedies (two-person show with Nona Garcia), Lopez Museum, Manila / Devotion (two-person show with Allfredo Esquillo), John Batten Gallery, Hong Kong / Faith + the City: A Survey of Philippine Contemporary Art, Touring: Singapore/Jakarta/Bangkok/Manila / Who Owns Women’s Bodies, Touring: Manila-Bangkok-Myanmar-Tokyo / 1998 Philip Morris Asean Art Awards, Hanoi Opera House, Hanoi, Vietnam / 1997 Memories of Overdevelopment: Philippine Diaspora in Contemporary Art, UC Irvine, USA/Plug-in, Canada / New Generation of Asian Art, Yonago City Museum of Art, Yonago, Japan / Old Values/New Visions, John Batten Gallery, Hongkong / 1992 New Art From Southeast Asia, Fukuoka/Tokyo/Hiroshima/Osaka, Japan / 2nd Lake Naguri Open Air Art Exhibition, Naguri-mura, Japan

Selected Publications (Bibliography) Clement, Tracy, Aesthete’s Foot (Beyond Frame: Philippine Photomedia), Sydney Morning Herald, November 7, 2008 / de Veyra, Lourd, A Rusty Sign at the End of a Bloody Empire, Norberto Roldan’s Oil, Artlink, Vol 28 No 1, 2008 / Thompson, Jonathan, Norberto Roldan at MagNet Gallery, Asian Art News, Vol 17 No 2, 2007 / Fairley, Gina, Manila 2006, Art & Australia, Vol 44 No 2 / Roldan, Norberto, War, Politics and Religion, Contemporary Asian Art Forum: Links> Platform> Networks>, Asia Art Archive, 2004 / Kember, Pamela, Alfredo Esquillo and Norberto Roldan, Art AsiaPacific Quarterly Journal, Issue 36, 2002 / Chua Abdullah, Bettina, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, East (Magazine), January 2002 / Flores, Patrick, Faith Healing, Who Owns Women’s Bodies? Catalogue, Creative Collective Center/Ford Foundation, 2001 / Guillermo, Alice, Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines 1970-1990, University of the Philippines Press, 2001 / Torres, Emmanuel, Faith and the Pinoy, Faith and the City Catalogue, Valentine Willie Fine Arts, October 2000 / Torres, Emmanuel, The magic medicine cabinets of Norberto Roldan, The Philippine Star, May 10, 1999 / Toshio, Shimizu, Visions of Happiness, Ten Asian Contemporary Artists Catalogue, Japan Foundation ASEAN Culture Center, 1995 / Arata, Tani, Norberto Roldan, New Art From Southeast Asia Catalogue, Fukuoka Art Museum, 1992 / Ushiroshoji, Masahiro, The Labyrinthine Search for Self-Identity, The Art of Southeast Asia from 1980s to the 1990s, 1992

Works in the Collection of Fukuoka Asian Art Museum / Singapore Art Museum / Deutsche Bank Art Collection / Ateneo Art Gallery / Hugh Young & Dr Lina Lau / Carlos Cojuangco / Patrick Reyno / Dr Steve Wong / Valentine Willie & Karim Raslan / Mike Samson / Bryan Villanueva / Kim Atienza / Miro Quimbo / Private collections in Southeast Asia, USA and Europe

TWIN ASSISTANTS (Rami and Roni Jiloca, above) at the artist’s former studio in No. 80 Scout Lozano St., Quezon CityNORBERTO ROLDAN (below) at Green Papaya Art Projects in No. 41B Teodoro Gener St., Kamuning, Quezon City


NORBERTO ROLDAN The beauty of history is that it does not reside in one place

© 2011

PUBLISHED TO ACCOMPANY NORBERTO ROLDAN’S SOLO EXHIBITION THE BEAUTY OF HISTORY IS THAT IT DOES NOT RESIDE IN ONE PLACE PRESENTED BY TAKSU SINGAPORE FOR ART STAGE SINGAPOREJANUARY 12-16, 2011, MARINA BAY SANDS, SINGAPORE

ESSAY Joselina CruzDESIGN Norberto RoldanPHOTOGRAPHY At Maculangan AND MM Yu PRODUCTION Jeffrey LimPRINTING Miracle Offset Print S/B (Kuala Lumpur)

THE ARTIST WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTION IN MAKING THIS EXHIBITION AND PUBLICATION POSSIBLE Suherwan Abu, Judy Yuen, Theresia Irma and Haslinda AR of TAKSU SingaporeAntonio Luz of Artour ExhibitionsRami (Apid) Jiloca and Roni Jiloca (studio assistants)

[email protected] WWW.TAKSU.COM [email protected]

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