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To the natives
of Benguet and Mt. Province, he is known as "mambunong"
and, to those of Ifugao, "mumbaki," but to Baguio-born
and bred
Leonard Aguinaldo,
he is plain "shaman." That nonindigenous reference
to a traditional healer and/or "priest," for which
he expresses a bias, says a little at least about Aguinaldo's
orientation as an artist. Enamored of Cordillera
lore but not so awed by it as
to be parochial in its representation, he has opted for a more
subjective interpretation, colored by his Western exposure,
particularly in the graphic arts. Not that "shaman"
is American or European, but definitely, even to a Cordilleran
in a deeply suggestive trance, it doesn't sound like "mambunong"
or "mumbaki."
In
Chadjang and Other Rites,
his first major solo exhibit at the Hiraya Gallery last March
2001, the 34-years-old Aguinaldo-a younger contemporary of John
Frank Sabado, the current exponent of ethnic Cordillera art;
they are colleagues at the Baguio Integrated Arts, formerly
Baguio Arts Guild-shows off with warmer colors and a somewhat
more complex compositional scheme than Sabado has favored: they
are, in fact, qualities reminiscent
of some tapestries woven in the land of homegrown shamans.
In the exhibit,
Aguinaldo had about 15 fairly large and not-so-large
paintings on handmade paper,
rendered with a mix of water-based media, including acrylic,
with over half of them done this year and the last, and the
rest in 1996 and 1998. Like those of Sabado, his paintings have
more than their share of geometric shapes, notably the cosmic
circle, but unlike Sabado's, they are less dominant in his,
perhaps because they are less symbolic. As Aguinaldo himself
explains it, his fascination for mambunongs and mumbakis usually
takes the form of visual
narratives. In that vein, "Chadjang
and Other Rites" may very well carry the subtitle,
Folk Stories and Tales on the
Quest for the Healing Art. That
"art" is actually a mystical
prayer, written down but mostly
chanted, delivered in behalf of a petitioner after a ritual
offering often consisting of rice wine (tapuy) and a butchered
pig or chickens (how many, depends on the shaman) and, for good
measure, betel nut.
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In
dealing with the lore of the Cordillera healer, Aguinaldo
combines the myth with the experiential. In two of the
"tales"-A
Ritual for Ama and
Healing
Hands, he, in fact,
is both narrator and protagonist. Otherwise, he
yields the stage to the legendary Wigan, the warrior,
as in the exhibit's title piece, Chadjang
Rites. In this work,
where he uses to advantage his characteristically
multi-pictorial approach
to "storytelling,"
as in several others, what may draw an unintended attention
is the prominent role a monkey plays not just in it but
in the Cordillera lore as a whole. To be sure it's not
as pervasive-or even just familiar, as the bulul, but
Aguinaldo says he didn't invent it.
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Aguinaldo,
who holds a certificate in architectural drafting from the Baguio
Colleges Foundation, was 22 when he got drawn to serious art
through the 1st Baguio Arts Festival in 1989. Since then he
has participated in a number of group shows, in the Philippines
and abroad. He has had fewer individual shows, the last being
the one in 1994, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
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