The following was written by Adjani Guerrero Arumpac for Ms. Anna Varona – Rivilla (known for many years simply as Anna Varona in her milieu of artists).  She has an ongoing art exhibit at the Boston Gallery in Cubao, Quezon City which will run until May 8, 2009.  Pieces were done in collaboration with our fellow Paniquenians Arnold Camiling and Kagawad Yamar.  Photo credits: Visual artist Ferdie Montemayor

My Machiavellian Manifesto

Anna Varona

Visuals and visions, vanities and vacuities. The modern culture of imagery has permeated politics to create the spectacular. Diego Von Vacano nailed it down when he noted that political judgments are increasingly based on visual stimulus. This is the contemporary Machiavellian—aesthetic politics, which Anna Varona painstakingly deconstructs.  A politician’s wife, Varona sculpts seven visions, depicting the plight of the public figure. Candid and seemingly bordering on bigotry, My Machiavellian Manifesto pulls down the public figure to reveal his intimate, all too human façade.  

Take, for example, "Fronti Necessari. " A janus-faced head is surrounded by three other heads. The sculptor recounts how a governor swore to wipe jueteng in his province. The very same illegal activity feeds thousands of families in the same locale. How does one reconcile such irony? In Machiavellian politics, the perpetuation of state is emphasized above all other considerations. The leader puts on a noble face for the public, and then another one—severe, quite immoral—for the state’s sake. Such is the paradox of being the Divine Prince, as Varona shows us in "Principe Divino." The bust of the chief is drowning in his garment, his crown too big for his head. The responsibility to the post trounces the obligation to be human/e.

This is a public declaration of things one would rather not say, more so if one is tasked to represent an office. This is the sculptor’s brave call to defense and reconsideration of the public figure. My Machiavellian Manifesto constitutes small monuments, anti-thesis of tributes really, that attempt to freeze the flux of that pendulum precariously swinging between ethics and politics. To choose what is fitting over what is right. To pat one’s self on the back, then pass on the big question, head thrown back: what would you have done, given the circumstances?

The collection, in the alleged tradition of Machiavelli’s well-known political treatise, is a satire meant to be thrown at figures such as the "Preceptor," the veil-shrouded sculpture, who represent those deemed most knowledgeable yet remain cloaked in idealisms. It aims to open discourse as with "Discursi”—made up of two halves of a head, one upright the other right side up—among the critics who struggle, bleed through their nose, to keep principles intact.

"Domination of the Egalitarian." The piece, one big head wherein two smaller heads balance, summarize the quandary of every head—whom to prioritize? In an egalitarian society where everyone is supposedly equal, whose interest counts more? The judge is caught in a deadlock. Or more accurately, the ideal egalitarianism is non-existent as the relentless moving, up and down, of the smaller heads shows. By mimicking the prized form of justice, Varona shatters precisely its myth. There will never be justice in the face of conflicting interests, as long as a human, flawed that he is, is the arbitrator.  The point is to coerce all to believe in one’s authority.