EXPERIENCE THE FACE

Sining Kamalig…an art gallery presents the collection of Dr. Leovino Ma. Garcia, exhibition curator, in a rare exhibition of paintings featuring the face. The show curiously entitled EXPERIENCE THE FACE takes on the philosophical meaning behind the act of looking at someone else’s face. The saying “ I see myself in you” takes on a new meaning. Works of the following artists will be included: Ang Kiukok, Mark Andy Garcia, Emmanuel Garibay, Lao Lianben, Jonathan Olazo, Onib Olmedo, Levin Paras, Lynyrd Paras, Neil Pasilan, Ryan Rubio, Gino Tioseco, and Oca Villamiel, as well as Grandier Bella, Jose Ibay, and John Marin. The show opens on Monday 6 December and runs till 29 December 2010. Artis Corpus Gallery manages the show which will be mounted at the Main Gallery of Sining Kamalig…an art gallery located at Level 4 of Gateway Mall, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City. Please email enricojlmanlapaz@yahoo.com.ph or sms 09209537426 for details.


Exhibition Notes by
Dr. Leovino Ma. Garcia, exhibition curator
Former Dean, School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University

This exhibition pays homage to the eminent French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.

For him, the Face is not an image that represents an abstract command. Rather, the Face, in its very concreteness as flesh, is the source of all meaning.

In experiencing the Other’s Face, a meaning that does not come from the “I” emerges and presents itself: to acknowledge and to be responsible for the Other. This is what is most essential and what we often forget Hence, the urgent task of Levinas’s philosophy: to wake us up, to make us listen, to hear the call of the Face.

Levinas comes up with a new meaning of ethics. Ethics is an experience which is no longer an experience in the usual sense because the “I” does not go back to itself but goes out of itself. The “I” loses all control, all initiative. The “I” is no longer the center.

I am decentered. The Other is the center.

Provoking us to experience this most fundamental reality are these visual artists: Ang Kiukok, Mark Andy Garcia, Emmanuel Garibay, Lao Lianben, Jonathan Olazo, Onib Olmedo, Levin Paras, Lynyrd Paras, Neil Pasilan, Ryan Rubio, Gino Tioseco, and Oca Villamiel, as well as Grandier Bella, Jose Ibay, and John Marin.