Enrico JL Manlapaz: Aethernity will open on 18 July 2011 at Sining Kamalig Gateway Mall, concurrently with Vinculum.
This exhibition is third in the series of "art directed" shows which I have been mounting since early 2011. The first was “Recycling Bubbles” in January. Second was “Sacrum” in March. Both shows I installed in Sining Kamalig.
These projects go one step beyond the usual shows I curate for Artis Corpus Gallery. In these shows, I conceptualize and actually compose the pieces, by collaging, photographing, sketching, assembling, and directing all the elements found on the finished pieces. The major contribution of the participating artists is their talent in translating the studies into paintings. Of course, their own personal artistic styles have surfaced during the process.
The first five paintings in the exhibition were painted by Mark Anthony Bello. I baptized the series “Gods of an Idolatry” as I have been fascinated by Greek and Roman Classical Mythology since I was young; perhaps because of its idealization of the human form and its reverence for the beauty of the human face. I did a photoshoot of yet another artist Ian Unsana and from the set, I plucked out and cropped five photographs which I thought were the best and most expressive. The photographs, hardly retouched, ended up in the hands of Mark Bello in late 2010. The resulting paintings have just been given titles whimsically by me.
The next two paintings were painted by Ian Unsana, based on photographs taken of him by me. These were intended as backdrop for yet another major project of mine: “Ramesh Kumar’s Chakras”, silver and crystal jewelry. In the process, affirmations were painted on them and I decided to just use them as regular stand-alone paintings.
The next two paintings are the most important in the show. Sangre Divina (or Divine Blood), a diptych, is a take-off from the controversy that Jesus himself actually left a bloodline through the Magdalene. The top panel, painted by Averil Paras, presents a reproduction of a surreal painting done by a would-be papal assassin in the 1960s, Benjamin Mendoza y Amor Flores, presented as though painted at the back of another painting, and laced with two haunting images of Bernini, both in ecstasy. The bottom panel, painted by Zaldy Garra, presents symbols of Catholicism, including a pope in state and fragments of the tiara, possibly speaking about the effect of the alleged bloodline on the Faith. Again, Bernini’s massive sculptures finish off the diptych.
Classical mythology, catholicism, and our connection with the Universal Mind, my own personal fascinations since birth, are now bound for eternity. I bequeath them to the next generations.
The actual 1967 painting of Benjamin Mendoza will grace the show in cameo role during the opening. Similarly, Ramesh Kumar’s Chakras will be presented only during opening night.
