< width="196" height="164" align="left" src=" cut. " alt="" />Etched on the walls of the Lopez Memorial Museum Library is a passage from Sturken and Cartwright’s The Manufacturing of Desire: “The attachment of the value of art, in particular fine art, to a product gives it a connotation of prestige, tradition and authenticity.”
Curiously, “Cut and Paste,” the Museum’s current exhibit features a vast array of print ads taken from various Philippine publications, from the illustration-heavy ads of the late 1800s, to the use of photography, and the advent of color in the early 1960s.
“Cut and Paste,” though, does not intend nor attempt to encapsulate the history of Philippine print advertising. The exhibit does not provide any historical and cultural background behind the event. Perhaps because it does not need to. Apparently, advertising is self-explanatory and readily accepted, and “Cut and Paste” does not dilly-dally with it.
In its presentation, however, it succeeds in imparting, without being didactic, a comprehensive view of the history of selling in the Philippine context. “Cut and Paste” encompasses the basic elements of our recent history: colonialism, multi-lingual cultural shifts and socio-political and economic transformation. Meticulously chosen from the Museum’s massive cache, the exhibit features ads from the actual pages of magazines and other publications.
A young audience would definitely view “Cut and Paste” with awe, perhaps never having imagined television in black and white, or the TV set as massive as a dining table with built-in speakers bigger than a personal refrigerator on both ends. For an older generation, the exhibit is a rush of memories. Remember Choco Vim?
Regardless of age, “Cut and Paste” is show and tell at its historic finest. Present day premium brands had advertising from its initial launch. Brands and companies synonymous with quality, i.e. Quaker Oats, Colgate, Jockey, General Electric, Eveready, Pepsi and Astring-o-sol, as well as Del Monte to name a few, have had a long-lasting and profitable relationship with advertising.
“Cut and Paste” proves that belief in advertising, and a huge amount of disposable income, of course, are assets. That for Philippine conglomerates like the San Miguel Corporation, Elizalde & Co, Menzi & Co. and the Ayala Group that understood, appreciated and perhaps manipulated advertising—the medium is hugely instrumental, even essential and necessary, to their existence and endurance.
