Cris Villanueva Jr.
Same as it Never Was
16 December 2008 - 5 January 2009
The retrospective renegade asserts itself through voluminous remakes, covers, renditions, revival, recycles - a complete rewind of what might be a hang up, a nostalgia, a strong personal impression that it is either irreconcilably never easy to forget, or simply the tendency to go back into a time where one might pick himself up for the now, so much so that it is evident to most music, fashion, film, visual art. A critique might recklessly say, "same, same", but hey...
The post of the modern world blurs most of what the old and the new know, it is perfectly twisted where it does not claim a single remark, to its absolute - it claims to all remarks uniquely. The post of the modern world is not static though it is and can be linear to change, but an ever sine of change. Sameness is but an illusion of what appears to be absolutely different things.
Cris Villanueva's show, entitled Same As It Never Was, is a collection of pieces in 4'x4', 3'x3' and 2'x2' frames. This one-man show is made to look as if this is a group show since each work is intentionally done in a different style, as to Villanueva who wants to go against the notion that one should have a particular style in painting'. Not to literally leave an artist mark or from what is openly said about the artist's signature.
The approach to painting using oil, for his work particularly entitled Something For Everyone, is a reproduction of a photo of a group show of small paintings dated back in 1987, it's a new work with a historical setting, yet it is blurred by the artist's style in painting, and is produced into a new light and kind of visual art technique. Taking note to works which are all original, though reproductions from other artists' work.
From the pack of redundant figures and things of the past to the present, the post of the modern world does not at all rewind a hang up nor a nostalgia, but simply asserts the new aesthetics of today and asserts the artist's accumulated grown idea being the artist that he is. It is very well "same, same" but really "different".
Same As It Never Was opens on 16 December 2008, and runs until 5 January 2009 at Mag:net Ayala. Mag:net Gallery Ayala, is at the ground floor of The Columns Tower 1, at the corner of
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