{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":3587,"auction_id":6,"set_id":8,"lot_number":"183","artist":"Charlie Co (b. 1960)","title":"Here They Come Again","starting_price":600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2012 (upper right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"72\" x 72\" (183 cm x 183 cm)","property":null,"coa":"*This lot is sold to benefit the restoration/renovation projects of the The Ritz Tower","provenance":"The Ritz Towers, Makati City","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Continuing with his surrealist-expressionist paintings imbued with themes of social realism, Charlie Co’s Here They Come Again is a compelling critique of the country’s elections and the overall fragility of Philippine (procedural) democracy.
The work depicts three figures rendered in Co’s trademark satirical style. They appear as acrobats dressed in circus clothes, all the while riding a unicycle and blowing trumpets. Microphones suspend from an invisible ceiling, further resounding the blare of their trumpets. Confetti falls from above, signifying a “celebratory atmosphere.”
Co painted the work in 2012, a year before the 2013 Philippine midterm elections. The artist says the piece is a visual allegory for politicians campaigning and laying out their deceptive platforms to the people, sham manifestos that they would only use to leverage their self-serving, mercenary interests.
The three figures represent the connivance of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism, the three ills of Philippine society. The Philippines’ electoral system only allows those with the best political machinery to win— and these winning candidates usually come from the big comprador-landlord class, agents of imperialists and monopoly capitalists in protecting their vested economic interests in the country. They are trained to become the bureaucrat capitalists, the lapdogs of imperialism in the government, be it on a national or local government scale.
Under this system of procedural democracy, the people are manipulated to believe they are participating in choosing their representatives in the government. US imperialism has been instrumental in determining the election results. It installs its local agents in the government, resulting in puppet regimes with cosmetic reforms and mercenary interests. Especially in the age of the internet and social media, big foreign political The Ritz Tower, Makati firms and strategic communication companies engage in violating our data privacy and launching misleading propaganda in favor of the “imperialist bet,” thus manipulating the people.
In this semi-colonial and semi-feudal system, we only have the illusion of choice in our elections: different political parties but the same oppressive classes. A revolutionary and progressive resistance may be the answer to these entrenched ills. (A.M.)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":1000000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":1000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":1168000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":3890,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/6/8/lot/183.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":3888,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/6/8/lot/183a.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":182,"next":184,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}