Malleable Pasts: Fictional History and Radical Art History in Pagburo at Pag-alsa: Natural Depictions and Illustrated Prophecies (Gelacio, 1910) (2020)

Abstract: This review examines artist-activist Jo Tanierla's exhibition Pagburo at Pag-alsa: Natural Depictions and Illustrated Prophecies (Gelacio, 1910) (9 October–12 December 2020), which was curated by Carlo Paulo Pacolor at the Vargas Museum in the University of the Philippines Diliman. It proposes that the exhibition occupies an ambit of parafictional art as conceptualized by Carrie Lambert-Beatty, but the precedence of Tanierla's narrative depicts a more radical streak than a clever play between fiction and reality. Key artworks from the exhibition are examined here through their synchronic historical coordinates to portray how the narrative Tanierla depicts gives credence to accommodating a multiplicity of narratives that include the image of the Philippine revolution, its relegated historical chronicles and myths, along with its triumph. The exhibition is not only a mere artistic reflection of Tanierla's life as a community organizer but contains radical potency that may give leeway to rethink present socio-political conditions.