In the Defiles of Abstraction

• Main Author: Flores, Patrick D.
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: Philippine art history; Philippine modernism; abstract art; painting
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss23/6; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/1579/viewcontent/_5BKKv00n23_2014_5D_202.5_Article_Flores.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

In this rereading of the history of modern art in the Philippines, Lee Aguinaldo is situated within the turns in the engagement of the field with modernity, beginning in the late twenties until the sixties and so scanning the period after the academic romanticism of Fernando Amosolo through the eclectic modernist styles of the Philippine Art Gallery. In this scheme, the work of Aguinaldo and the manner in which it has been imagined in the context of modern art is revisited, with the view of reflecting on the historiographic and critical language that has been harnessed to explain and understand “abstraction” and the implications of this explanation and understanding in the wider discussion of such terms as “neorealism,” “non- objective,” and “internationalism.”