City Mutants (1985) is from National Artist Cesar Legaspi's Jeepney series which he primarily intended as a set of heirloom pieces to be gifted to each of his children.
The headless and seemingly mutating figures in the middle of the picture plane are reminiscent of the artist's figures of encumbered laborers in his seminal critique of mindless mechanization, Gadgets (1949). In both pieces, humans appear to be entangled and reshaped by the signifiers and purveyors of runaway urbanization and industry, of taxing gloss and making at paces unkind to frail bodies and overstimulated senses.
Published:
2024-12-28