SPORTS AND THE FILIPINO ARTIST

While the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP) was the country’s governing body for basketball, the Philippine Olympic Committee, through its Education and Culture Committee, organized the local competition to select the Philippine entries for the said worldwide contest.

Formally schooled as an architect, self-taught glass artist Ramon Orlina, who then just ended his term as president of the Art Association of the Philippines, won the grand prize in the sculpture category with his entry, “Basketball Mi Mundo.” His triumph surpassed the previous year’s special prize, the Mr. F Prize, which he garnered at the 1999 Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale in Japan.

Multi-awarded Orlina was the first to employ the “cold method”-or the carving of figures and designs out of glass without the use of heat—with improvised tools at hand. With more than three decades in the craft, his reputation extends from Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States.

A decade ago, Orlina opened Museo Orlina, offering spectacular sights both inside and outside. His signature green sculpture has the Taal Lake and Taal Volcano as a backdrop, with the museum’s sculpture garden below.

Aside from the evolution of his glass sculptures, the museum highlights Orlina’s prolific output as an artist who has also produced large-scale public art (monuments), functional objects (metal chairs), and wearable art (necklaces with carved glass accents).

It was two-for-two for PHI in her only try in the International Biennale of Basketball in the Fine Arts, which proved to be the last one, as Manny Garibay, encouraged by Orlina to join the contest, brushed off with the runner-up honors in the painting category with his “One on One” opus which took two months to finish.

Garibay described his oil on canvas painting as” a metaphorical symbol of an aspect of Filipino life” and portrayed Michael Jordan as a demi-god.

A late bloomer as a basketball player, Garibay organized in 2016 a sportsfest having basketball as the featured sport; 60 artists saw action. Garibay said that if FIBA plans an art contest or exhibit when Manila hosts the 2023 FIBA World Cup, he could organize the artists and play a part in staging it. This he intimated to the Philippine Star sports columnist Quinito Henson way back in 2017.

In 2017, FIBA held a worldwide photography contest. Sixty percent of the 800 entries were from Filipinos who captured three of the top 10 places. Emerson Catindoy, who captioned his black-and-white photograph of a one-legged boy in a wheelchair enjoying a game with a friend, “physical disability is no hindrance to having a happy, normal life…They need no pity and instead, they give us bright hope and inspiration by showing they’re productive and live an active life despite their condition’’ was the highest-placed Filipino, being the runner-up, fetching $2,000.

Fourth-placer Joel Forte earned $150 with his photograph of six wheelchair basketball players entitled “Basketball on Wheels”. The photograph of Melfort showing six Filipinos playing outdoors in the rain in the hip-high floodwaters with the caption: ”For the love of the game, despite the odds” was worth $150 for wading to ninth place.

FIBA’s foray into the arts was a take-off from the Art Competition that has been a constant companion of the Games of the Olympiad. A manifestation of the Modern Olympics founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s vision of “Sports blending with education and culture” was initially staged from Stockholm 1912 until Helsinki 1952, when issues of professionalism surfaced.

The organizers held competitions in the fields of Architecture (Architectural Designs, Designs for Town Planning, Further Entries), Literature (Dramatic Works, Epic Works, Lyric Works), Music (Compositions for Orchestra, Compositions for Solo or Chorus, Instrumental and Chamber, Vocals), Painting (Applied Arts, Drawings and Water Colors, Graphic Arts, Paintings), and Sculpturing (Medals, Medals and Plaques, Medals and Reliefs, Reliefs, Statues).

Interesting trivia: Baron Pierre de Coubertin bagged the Literature gold medal with his Ode to Sport in the inaugural edition. He entered under the pseudonyms Georges Hohrod and Martin Escbach. Avery Brundage, who would also later become IOC president, entered literary works at the 1932 and 1936 Olympics.

PHI’s contestants in the penultimate staging in London, 1948, were the pair of Hernando Ocampo in painting and Graciano Nepomuceno in sculpture.

Multi-faceted Ocampo (aside from being a self-taught painter, he was also a playwright, fictionist, and editor) would rise to become a National Artist for Painting in 1991. His painting titled “Rebound”, used a gouache—he painted it using opaque pigments ground in water and thickened with a gluelike substance.

On the other hand, Nepomuceno (no relation to David Nepomuceno, PHI’s sole bet in her debut in Paris 1924) was a “santero”, an icon maker. He presented a wooden sculpture of a boy playing sipa.

Two years short of a half-century hiatus, the International Olympic Committee revived the art competitions in the Sydney 2000. Dubbed as the Sydney 2000 Olympic Art and Sport Contest. This time, it was no longer part of the Olympic Program, and medals similar to the winners of the athletic competitions were no longer offered. Instead, organizers stacked cash prizes.

PHI’s taking part in the art competitions reached its climax in the Beijing 2008. Jose Datuin with his Dancing Rings, carried off the grand prize of $30,000 and a diploma in the sculpture category.

His creation, where he deconstructed the Olympic rings, showing elegance, motion, and symmetry using steel, made his work stand out. He has demonstrated the real essence of the Olympics using movement. He has also introduced an interesting form in sculpture. He toppled 34 other countries by winning the said competition.

(SpokenVision)

The sculpture recasts the conventionally horizontal Olympic logo into a vertical leap of faith, much like a gymnast or a classical dancer in action, to signify both human grace and human solidarity, explained a critic.

Datuin was not new to prevailing in art contests. He had previously won a Special Award in the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games International Poster Design Competition, among his other awards.

In the same Beijing 2008 competition, Dreams for Goals, an oil-on-canvas work by Edmar C. Colmo, who calls his work experimental, spiritual, and, sometimes, environmental, garnered a Highly Recommended award in the Graphic Arts category.

The young self-taught artist got a diploma. Rodrigo Enriquez was the latest Filipino who won honors in the centenary of the Art and Sports Contest--London 2012; Southeast Asia countries did not win any gold medals there. His wrestling coin design was among the 29 depicting a sport chosen from 30,000 designs submitted from all over the United Kingdom for the British Royal Mint’s biggest ever competition.

Enriquez, the only Asian awarded, received the ‘one and only” pure gold 50-pence coin with his design, one of the four he submitted to the IOC.

Artistry before athleticism? Better, a gem from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday: “an equation of aesthetic distinction and physical prowess—beauty and action, if you will, form and function in exceptional union and unique expression.”