Some of you may know about my association with Art In The Park, the annual affordable art fair.  I thought that because of my involvement with the event, from when it was first conceived in 2006, it would not be all the thing to feature it in this blog before. However, after six years, it no longer seems presumptuous to assume that Art In The Park has found its place in Manila’s art scene.  Still, it felt better to have someone else post their own account of the fair.

 I turn this space over to RCS, The Man On The Bench, part time artophile and full time purveyor of the written word.

An hour or so after I arrived at the 2012 edition of Art in the Park of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, I decided to do two new things: 1) I was going to stay on till night fell and 2) I was going to hold a personal performance of my own. It was time, I thought, to do something different during one of my two favorite, regular, and explicitly cultural events of the year.

Already, I had done something new. As soon as I set foot on Velasquez Park, I bumped into Madame L who promptly inveigled me into following her to a talk on the basic conservation of artwork by Missy Senares Reyes. Not that I needed much inveigling. I always try to come to Art in the Park early to get first dibs on art that feels like it should be mine. After all, the event’s logo, a little bird pulling a hapless worm out of the ground, is clearly a tip about the profitable relationships between early birds and the treasures of the Park during one day in February.

But that Saturday, an untimely drizzle had just released all that pent-up heat under the concrete and muddied the grounds in the process. A quick scan of the microcosm’s horizon also showed that I was hardly the earliest bird on the block. On the contrary, there was a veritable flock of the similarly feathered obstructing what I had imagined would have been an easy view into the many open stands. And so, after a sweaty moment of wavering, I followed Madame L across the street to Salcedo Auctions where the conservation lecture would be held. This was the first time I attended one of the “satellite” events of the art fair and it was a profitable time. To be sure, the spoken lecture was pretty much the audio version of the well-prepared slideshow, a beef I have with PowerPointers everywhere. But the delivery was young and engaging; practical and easy to follow; inclusive and unpedantic: adjectives I could well apply to the whole art fair itself. (One of the great mottoes I try to follow is best said in French: L’art pour le fun.)

As the lecture was winding down from a discussion of umm “insect excrement” and cockroach eggs, I was treated to the wonderful vision of an exquisite female African face peering from behind the half wall that separated us from the entrance. The place was starting to fill up in anticipation of an art auction to be held after the talk. I had heard about these Salcedo auctions from various friends but was surprised that, at least on that day, most of the people who had come in early seemed to be foreigners in the know (an almost oxymoronic idea!). But that was one more thing about this year: the clear rise in the numbers of the dayu-han contingent, whether expats or tourists, or friends of friends who thought the best thing to show them on a Saturday would be Philippine Art.

I was torn—not for the last time that day—between staying to watch the auction and finally returning to the park. I had of course made earlier commitments to a whole clutch of friends to play hide and seek (the fair’s main sporting event) among the oils and acrylics, the vinyl toys, and metal sculptures that made this pocket park a place of some enchantment. And so, within seconds of each other, three SMS messages from friends and relatives asking where I was (yes, it’s become an extended family thing), got my backpockets buzzing.

There is a breathlessness about Art in the Park as one tries to navigate among clearbook catalogues, acid-house video booths, and the steady succession of visitors. Since I had decided to stay and see how the park looked when night fell in three hours or so (Mesdames R and K having promised it would be beautiful), it soon became clear that I had to embark on my own personal performance.

I was, I decided, going to occupy a bench. Conveniently, four friends, W, T, J, and V had already established a beachhead on one of a pair that stood behind the bubble machine and centerpiece of the fair’s guest artist, Charlie Co. W was just waiting for J and V, who had just flown in from the US, to finally go and get their Bagnet sandwich (they had been wanting to for the last hour). T was resting after her third lap or so and commenting on how unlike last year, when she had quickly found two lovely surrealistic pieces that she simply had to have, this year, while still abristle with many visual surprises, had found nothing that “really synced with her soul.”

And so the day went its ambling, rambling way past our postmodernly appropriated bench. An old friend who once honeymooned on love yes but also (and quite unforgettably) foie gras in Perigord suddenly appeared in front of us when all the time I thought she was in northern California. She too was meeting old friends in a few minutes or so and why was she here in Manila? By the time she had finished her picaresque explanation, another set of friends dawdled along with us, offering tips about Geraldine Javiers being sold at a steal at this booth or that, or showing off a strong black and red rubbercut  of a very impressive steer. Soon enough, their own friends joined them and the air around us started to thicken with simultaneous conversations about an art critic who was someone’s mother’s dearest friend, a trip the next day to Ilocos Norte, and what a shame it was that there were so few novels being written for young Filipinos. By the time that group had decided to take some merienda, the sun had slipped behind the day, its blunted edges giving way before cooler air, a pinker sky, and a sense of the moon hiding around the corner.

Three photographer friends, Señores W, K and A, each with their found families in tow, eddied around the bench passing one point-and-shoot among them, taking turns to take pictures of themselves along with this performance on the bench. They commented on the unexpected variety of women’s footwear that the fair seemed to attract. (Had the fair become a sort of Royal Ascot for shoes?). Before the discussions of other fetishes became more involved, the liquid sounds of a hegalong, the T’bolis’ version of a guitar, began to play to the rising clink of wineglasses and ice cubes rolling into some vodka.

I looked up at the old trees that had seen many, many other things before Art in the Park began in 2006. Long strings of lights dropped from them like bio-luminous fruit. The stone bench, mine for several hours, was as warm as skin. The dark flocks of early birds were thinning now, sometimes resolving themselves into smaller groups or couples. A whole procession of couples passed before our bench. College artists in tank tops and sandals quenched their day with some cold beer. New husband and wife unable to resist one more look at abstractions purchased for a house to be built. A man craning his neck, too eager to just sit back and wait for his rendezvous.

If the day had been lovely, I thought, the night was delicious.

Art In The Park happened on Saturday, 18 February 2012 at the Jaime Velasquez Park in Salcedo Village, Makati City.  For more information, visit www.musuemfoundationph.org or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Art-In-The-Park/185102654844001

Thank you to the Occupy The Bench Movement,  Pancho Francisco, and Ann Legaspi- Co for the photos in this post.