NEWS

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

WET





WET
June 1 - 25, 2011

Having traveled and lived in the Philippines for years, Neal Oshima focused his lens on familiar subjects and issues that surround the way people live. His photos have motivated many to address the problems that largely affect us. This month, he shines a spotlight on water, beautiful and undeniably essential to everyone.

Wet is a survey of Oshima’s inspired meditations on the movement and textures of water. Black and white photos serve as windows to the photographer’s many longstanding encounters with it. With simplicity and clarity, he showcases distant landscapes embraced by the sea, still waters where mangroves nest, portraits of rivers and the ripples that run through its surface. The shades captured in each photo parallel the numerous forms by which we know water.

A celebration of the waterscapes that surround our islands, Wet allows us to sightsee and reflect on both old and new, traditional and experimental photographs. These pictures, like water are quiet and still, heavy, light, and always brimming with life.

WET by Neal Oshima opens on June 1, 2011 simultaneously with Postlocal 2011 curated by Isa Lorenzo and featuring Gaston Damag, Pow Martinez, and Lynyrd Paras at SLab, and Assemblage: Project 3 by Julius Clar at 20Square.

To RSVP, please call 8160044 or email manage@silverlensphoto.com

For inquiries, contact Silverlens Gallery at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, 816- 0044, 0917-5874011, or manage@silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10am– 7pm and Saturdays 1-6pm. www.silverlensphoto.com / slab.silverlensphoto.com

BOOK FEATURE: THE SATURDAY GROUP ART BOOK





It is hard to believe that more than four decades have passed since what we now know as the Saturday Group of Artists first got together. Of course, membership was vastly different then, and of the Group’s pioneers, quite a few have passed on.

The ones who survived have since been joined and replaced in the Group’s active roster by dozens of new members over the years – many of whom have become artistic luminaries inn their own right, and who have, in turn, mentored and influenced other young Filipino artists. In this way, the Group itself has grown and remained dynamic, open to new ideas and possibilities, even as it has striven to maintain the highest standards of artistic imagination and execution.

Those of us who have been with the Group for quite a while can be proud of this tradition of membership, alongside the openness to innovation that any collective artistic endeavor requires. Art in the Philippines has never been an easy advocacy to promote – although Philippine culture and society would be unimaginable without the contributions of our visual artists – and every artist today still has to fight for his or her own space, literally and figuratively, in the minds and hearts of our people.

It is perhaps a hallmark of this new Saturday Group that we have chosen to meet regularly in malls – rather than in the private studios and small cafes of the old days – to re-establish our connection to the public at large, and the connection to art itself to the public sphere. We believe in the specialness of art, but we also believe in its accessibility. We do not mind it if people watch us as we work, or if people wonder about our paintings; it is that wonderment that we seek to share, whether it is inspired by the steeple of a church or a bouquet of roses or the sinews of workers.

This book celebrates the Saturday Group’s traditions and hallmarks, and showcases the best of our members’ work. Among us, it will evoke many memories of the Saturdays we shared together, both the good and maybe not so good, moments we will cherish to our last canvases. But it is also an offering to the public that we value, a sharing of images that we hope will cause more than a few readers to see beneath the surface of the world we know – which is every artist’s dream. These are the dreams we saw; this is our dream realized, which we hope you will enjoy.

The Saturday Group Art Book
Written and designed by Migs Villanueva
Foreword by Mauro Malang Santos, Cris Crz and Buds Convocar
2007

For sales and other inquiries,
Please contact Buds Convocar
+639209208149

Monday, May 30, 2011

JUNE SHOWS AT SILVERLENS│SLAB│20SQUARE





June Shows at Silverlens • SLab • 20SQUARE
Show Dates: June 01-25, 2011
Opening Reception: June 01, Wednesday, 6-9pm

Fresh from their participation at ArtHK, Silverlens Galleries opens three new shows on June 1st--Wet by Neal Oshima at Silverlens Main; Postlocal 2011 at SLab curated by Isa Lorenzo and featuring Gaston Damag, Pow Martinez and Lynyrd Paras; and in 20Square Assemblage: Project 3 by Julius Clar.

Wet is a survey of Neal Oshima’s water photographs that reveal his involvement in environmental projects, as well as his inspired meditations on the movement and textures of water. The show celebrates the waterscapes that surround our islands, and allows you to glimpse the photographer’s longstanding and many encounters with it.

Isa Lorenzo curates Postlocal 2011 at SLab, with selected works from Gaston Damag, Pow Martinez, and Lynyrd Paras. Conceptualized two years ago, Postlocal allows clashing and melding styles and influences from unexpected trios to play and answer the question, “What does Philippine contemporary art look like?”

At 20SQUARE, Julius Clar explores ideas on the vacancy and occupation of space. Presenting a series of shadow boxes, the artist compels viewers to read and re-interpret his collagic works, “to see what is not there …to look for the vacant parts, put them back into the assemblage piece and then reconsider the new whole.”

All shows will run simultaneously until June 25, 2011.

Image: Neal Oshima (detail) (left), Pow Martinez, Crusader, 2011 (detail) (center), Julius Clar, 7UP, 2011 (detail) (right); Words by Airam Ferrer

Saturday, May 28, 2011

HOTWAVE


Artis Corpus Gallery presents HOT WAVE, a three-part exhibition of recent works by 22 artists from the Technological University of the Philippines.

Part 1: WHAT COME NEXT includes Dale Erispe, Jeffrey Jarin, Amber Lecito, Paolo Marin, Adams Nacianceno, Jett Osian, Levin Paras, Roy Rosatase, and Jhon Tejones.

Part 2: CHANGING BRIDGES includes Rey Alejandro, Keb Cerda, Ronson Culibrina, Ivan Elpa, John Marin, Keo Mendoza, Diego Rivera, Ian Unsana, and Erick Villarruz.

Part 3: STRANGE LIGHT includes Sherwin Callejo, Gracey Ighut, Norven Valenzuela, and Moises Villanueva.

The show opens by invitation on Monday 30 May 6pm and will run till 22 June 2011 at the Sining Kamalig, Level 4 of Gateway Mall, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City.

The public is invited during the show’s regular run. Entrance is free. Gallery hours are 12 noon to 9pm daily. For inquiries, please contact the exhibition manager at enricojlmanlapaz@yahoo.com.ph or sms 0920-9537426.


Friday, May 27, 2011

MANSTERS AND PHONYTALES





CHAOS AND COLOR
Nemo Aguila’s Mansters and Phonytales
Words By DAVE LOCK

This is the place where nightmares and princesses dance together.

In Nemo Aguila’s first one-man exhibition MANSTERS AND PHONY TALES, he decides to delve inside the play zone of his own unconscious, drawing out colorful creatures that have influenced both his past and present life as an artist, and more importantly, as a child; or if you look at them, perhaps, an amusing combination of both.

Within his recent collection of works, the artist transforms characters encountered during his childhood into gruesome things that grew an extra pair of eyes or sharpened teeth, images which are much closer
to the graffiti characters that he had been painting and marking on walls for years now. Nemo comically describes them as “Snow White meets Freddie Krueger” or “Batibot gone wrong” instances. This may be a simple symbolism for the bridging of two timelines in his life, of innocence and the slow destruction of it, and basically the realization that as we grow older, these fairy tales, as we knew them, are nothing but timeless, classic tales bastardized by Disney and the deception of worldwide consumerism.

But it’s not at all this dark. The artist focuses mainly on the humorous, lighter side of it. He makes fun of its absurdity by vandalizing these faces and forms the same as he does with walls and other objects that needs to grow a little life and excitement. From these juxtapositions of multicolored monsters,
Nemo explains that he is only exaggerating unusual facial expressions such as the opening of the mouth because of its rather strange and uncommon nature. He also includes famous graffiti characters of his fellow artists in his works to pay tribute to the raw culture of street art in the Philippines.

The artist also expounds that the inclusion of popular Filipino brands in his paintings is another way of giving a Filipino identity to his art instead of embedding it with flags and stars as they are quite overrated especially these days. These local products are well-liked but ironically low-profile, especially when compared to other snacks that are more famous, and obviously much more expensive. Think street foods and one-peso packed peanuts. This may be because as an artist, Nemo worships the
language of the streets, and effortlessly mirrors it through his art in a complete atmosphere of chaos, wit and color.

Sneak peek – Bochog Manster Toy
Nemo Aguila’s Bochog Manster toy launch coincides with his first solo show called “Mansters and Phonytales” this Sunday May 29, 2011 6 PM at Secret Fresh Gallery, RONAC Art Center.
http://i-firstpersonsingular.blogspot.com/2011/05/bochog-manster-nemo-aguila.html

Sunday, May 22, 2011

MOURNING DANCE




Mourning Dance
A One-man exhibit by Ben-Hur Cabana
26 May – 4 June 2011
Renaissance Gallery, Level 4, Building A,
SM Megamall, EDSA, Mandaluyong City

A little over a year ago Ben-Hur Cabana produced a series of work right after the sudden and unexpected death of his father. It was a time of mixed emotions and unanswered questions . Having the right recipe at hand, as Robert Rauschenberg puts it, “You have to have time to be sorry for yourself to be a good Abstract Expressionist” ,” thus, "Mourning Dance” was created.

Cabana again gives us a series of large abstract paintings. Canvases are filled with overflowing passion as he mourns and dances with each piece. Being strongly influenced by the 1950s American art movement, championed by the painter Jackson Pollock, Cabana pays homage to his hero’s drips.

Ben-Hur Cabana studied Fine Arts at the University of Sto. Tomas from 1987-1994. He was awarded the Juror’s Choice in the 1994 Philip Morris Art Awards, Juror’s Choice in the AAP open Art Competition 1992 and cited as one of the Finalists in the 1991 Shell National Student Competition. “Mourning Dance” is his 4th Solo show. With Guest Curator, Jonathan Olazo, the Exhibition opens 26 May at 5PM and will be on view until 4 June 2011. For inquiries please contact the Renaissance Gallery at (632) 637-3101, Level 4, Building A, SM Megamall, EDSA, Mandaluyong City, Philippines.

Friday, May 20, 2011

10





10
Ysobel Art Gallery
May 21, 2011

Ysobel Art Gallery exhibits 10 on May 21, 2011. With recent works by Rene Cuvos, Jaylenver Peñafiel, Teofilo Alagao, Joselito Jandayan, Heraldo Corpus, Jake Catah, Martin Honasan, Niño Hernandez, Lirio Salvador and Ian Valladarez, Ysobel Art Gallery opens its doors for the unveiling of its first group exhibition.

Having earned their laurels in various local and international competitions, these ten emerging artists will showcase the diversity in form, technique and sensibilities that the gallery wants to present to the art-going public. True to the mystical representation of the number 10 in literature and the arts, a well-rounded sampling of Honasan’s experimental forays into acrylics, Catah’s fauvist saturations of color, Corpus’ deviation from grayscale, Hernandez’ hybridized abstractions, Cuvos’ harlequinesque characters, Peñafiel’s puzzle portraits and the biting commentary of works on canvas by Jandayan and Alagao will be displayed along with metal sculptural assemblages by Salvador and the continuous wire forms of Valladarez.

Ysobel Art Gallery is located at the second floor of Serendra, Bonifacio High Street, Bonifacio Global City. Artists’ Reception is on May 21, Saturday, at six o’clock in the evening. 10 will run until June 9, 2011. Call or text +639285071117 and email mark.sancheztiongco@gmail.com for details.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

WALONG FILIPINA




2011 Walong Filipina environmentalist honorees reunite with 2010 honorees at Pinto Gallery

On May 22, the two batches of Walong Filipina Sa Ngalan ng Kalikasan: Parangal sa mga Alagad ng Kalikasan will reunite to celebrate once again the lives of environmental advocates. The show runs until June 19, which falls on the birthday of Jose Rizal, an unheralded environmentalist, whose 150th birth anniversary is being commemorated this year.

The recent Walong Filipina edition pays tribute to Rizal and Leonard Co, a botanist who was slain while in the field, and was launched last March at the Liongoren Gallery in New York, Cubao. The honorees are: Mr. Gonzalo Catan, inventor and advocate of organic products; Dr. Metodio Palaypay, zero waste management worker; Fr. Alfredo Albor, forest conservationist; Lutgardo Labad, cultural worker; Col. Romeo Magsalos, Marikina Chief of Police “No to Plastic” campaigner; Andy Orencio, artist and gardener; Dr. Warlito Laquihon, sloping land technologist; and Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, former secretary of Health, herbalist and traditional medicine practitioner.

The eight women artists who pay tribute to these exemplary men are: Lena Cobangbang, Marika Constantino, Marina Cruz, Hermogena Borja “Nene” Lungay, Goldie Poblador, Jeannie Tan, Josie Tionko and Pam Yan-Santos.

Joining the 2011 honorees will be the 2010 Filipina environmentalist-honorees: Evelyn Cacha, co-founder of Alyansa Laban sa Mina (ALAMIN) in Mindoro; UP Tacloban Dean Margarita dela Cruz; Sis. Luz Emmanuel of Assumption Antipolo; environmental lawyer Ipat Luna; Judea Millora, a waste management expert; Jurgenne Primavera, renowned advocate of sustainable fish farming and mangrove conservationist; Lydia Robledo, butterfly habitat conservation advocate, and Luz Sabas, 80 years old, who together with her late husband pioneered waste management in the Philippines.

The advocacies of these eight women were portrayed by eight male artists: Egai Talusan Fernandez, Efren Garcellano, Renato Habulan, Rico Palacio, Mario de Rivera, Mark Salvatus, Jojit Solano and PG Zoluaga.

The artists worked on their subjects based on research supplied by student and guest writers supervised by Walong Filipina co-curator and University of the Philippines art studies Prof. Flaudette May Datuin. The student researchers for 2011 are: Hemerson Dimacale, who was also part of the 2010 team; Christina Pangan and Loreli Pama, winners of the 2010 Walong Filipina Essay Writing Contest; UP Art Studies majors Jacqueline Ali, Aliana Gimena and Meg Fontanilla. They were joined by guest writer Malen Dulay. The student researchers in 2010 were: Ceres Canilao, Hemerson Dimacale, Aleth Gayosa, Romena Luciano, Virna Odiver Mai Saporsantos, Debbie Virata.

There will also be an essay writing contest for this edition of Walong Filipina, Details of which are to be announced later.

For updates and more details, visit the Walong Filipina website or call 9124319.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

LAST POST




Ateneo Art Gallery
warmly invites you to the opening of

Last Post
Patricia Eustaquio
2009 New York Art Project Residency Grant Recipient

on Thursday, 19 May 2011, 6 pm
Second Level, Rizal Library Special Collections Building
Ateneo de Manila University
Katipunan Avenue
Loyola Heights, Quezon City

ArtSpeak: Tuesday, 5 July 2011, 4.30pm

Exhibition runs until 12 August 2011

Gallery Hours:
Weekdays 8am - 7pm
Saturdays 8am - 6pm
Closed on Sundays and Holidays

For more information please call 4266488

Sunday, May 15, 2011

PERIPHERAL REVISIONS




“Peripheral Revisions”
Alexander Moscoso

Art is my platform for personal and social discourse. It is the product of my struggle and discipline in pursuit of transforming thought and energy into material form. My commitment is geared towards the materialization of ideas and transference of energy in this lifetime. Thus, it has been my resolve to create art as part of my daily practice.

Initially, Peripheral Revisions is a body of work that explores art history specificities and how it relates to one’s own practice. It first started as a response to the question of how could one make sense and non-sense of art history and its corresponding artifacts, or rather, art as facts?

Peripheral Revisions is composed of paintings that will use reproductions of historically significant paintings as its ground. In this way, I will be able to establish a discourse with a particular work of art, examine its structure, as well as attempt at gaining insights on the technical and conceptual momentum and trajectories of its creator.

While working on these paintings, I realized that these are not reproductions of the original works being appropriated per se but in the process has become impressions of the appropriated works and an imagining of the state of mind of these artists. Because of this process dynamics, the current works seem to have transcended the realm of reproduction/illustration and has morphed into an original in itself. Other than that, the original intentions of the works being a personal discourse in art history as well as paintings being phenomenological constructs or channels remain the same.

Eventually, the trajectory of the body of work has veered towards works of art as vehicles of perception. The discursive nature of Peripheral Revisions zeroes in on paintings, as well as video art installation, as contemporary phenomenological tools i.e. methods to observe and reflect on one’s conscious experience, or even attempt to access the subconscious. The polygons at the center of the works serve as demarcations of physical and symbolic space. The introduction of colored polygons other than black is an additional parameter I have set to widen the field and likewise as a response to a personal discourse on color theory, art history, politics, philosophy, and psychology which I encountered while working on the first few works. Furthermore, I realized that this set of work is just a start of a long-term topographical project to map existing art-as-facts and its possible relations. Process-wise, these works are finger painted. I had to forego the use of brushes and experimented with the notion of bypassing any mediating object between the hand and canvas in moving paint.

In sum, the works that comprise Peripheral Revisions are accessories to an experience. Its relevance lies not on technical or conceptual techniques and/or art history specific issues but on its capability to give its viewers a window to examine one’s self.


Artist Alexander Moscoso unveils his own version of famous modern artists’ works in his new show “Peripheral Revisions”. Utilizing his bare fingers, Moscoso plays around with famous modern artists’ works and presents them with colored polygon centers and upside down orientations. Moscoso’s courageous play on these works fosters a question on the artworks’ originality and a discussion on art reproduction.

Working with only his fingers, artist Alex Moscoso touches on famous modern artists’ works in his new show “Peripheral Revisions”. Moscoso turns the modernists’ works literally upside down as he manipulates them to a hundred and eighty degree rotation while plastering colored polygons on each works’ center. These changes the artist has inflicted to the artworks greatly provokes a discussion on originality of art and its reproduction.

The exhibit runs from 20 May to 10 June 2011 at NOVA Gallery, Warehouse 12A, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Don Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

DAGGERS OF THOUGHT




“Daggers of Thought”
Alvin Zafra

This exhibition is a collection of portraits of known personalities, all of which are victims of gun violence and gun culture. It is a tribute to the pillars of thought and a marker to the violence that persists in history. The portraits were chosen relative to my existence – Gandhi’s non violence mirrors object/medium’s approach, Lean being a fellow UP student and a leader of resistance, and Kurt’s craft as a big influence on my musical vocabulary.

In this series, icons meet their end via a gunshot; bullet and subject are both resurrected into a new existence which is Art.


Etching bullets against sandpaper, artist Alvin Zafra resurrects influential men in his new show “Daggers of Thought”. Zafra reunites these men with the material that has caused their deaths; but this time, these bullets take form as a medium in immortalizing them through a new realm that is Art.

Artist Alvin Zafra brings men back to life in his new show “Daggers of Thought”. The exhibit features portraits of men whose lives were cut short by bullets and gunshots. Zafra however, resurrects these men through the same material as he uses and infuses such in his art-making.

The exhibit runs from 20 May to 10 June 2011 at NOVA Gallery, Warehouse 12A, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Don Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.

Friday, May 13, 2011

MONUMENTAL




MONUMENTAL
Featuring: Mike Adrao, Plet Bolipata, Elmer Borlongan, Antipas Delotavo, Alfredo Esquillo Jr., Mark Justiniani, Joy Mallari, Ferdie Montemayor, Maya Muñoz, Jose Santos III

Scale has played an important part in Art History representing celestial and religious grandeur, classical love stories as well as the warnings/ memorials of socio-political conflict and violence. This sense of the monumental in Art whether large scale mural or ceiling painting, colossal canvases or public sculpture reflects the marvelous, awe inspiring and powerful qualities of creativity to represent the human experience and provoke emotion and pathos.

Manila Contemporary in collaboration with Tin-aw Art Management presents Monumental, an exhibition that showcases the work of contemporary artists specially commissioned to make use of the expansive gallery space to create contemporary works of epic proportions. Giving a platform to the skill involved in the handling of large surfaces and complex compositional form Mike Adrao, Plet Bolipata, Elmer Borlongan, Antipas Delotavo, Alfredo Esquillo Jr., Mark Justiniani, Joy Mallari, Ferdie Montemayor, Maya Muñoz, Jose Santos III present spectacular new works in the gallery.

Amplifying their current concerns as artists and individuals grand themes unfold across the gallery absorbing personal obsessions, social critique and aesthetique threads of inquiry. These visual stories showcase diverse approaches that incorporate the poetic, comic, tragic and spiritual aspects of Filipino culture to inspire and provoke viewers regarding their social responsibilities as well as triggering a visual delight in the monumental.

Documentation of artworks in progress in the artists’ studio by MM Yu will be exhibited concurrently in the Upstairs Gallery of Manila Contemporary.

Cocktails will be served.
RSVP Jean at +632 8447328 j.reyes@manilacontemporary.com
Manila Contemporary, Whitespace, 2314 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City, Philippines

Thursday, May 12, 2011

PHILIPPINE ART AWARDS 2011

THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE




“The Ghost in the Machine”
by Friday Abbas

“The Ghost in the Machine,” is Goldie Poblador’s first solo exhibition in which she continues to question the universal and spiritual nature of her urban environment and furthers her exploration of pre-colonial pagan beliefs, a recurring concern in her past works.

The exhibition’s central artwork and title piece depicts two female figures facing each other as they are joined together at the breast by ...twisted coils of cloth and cogon leaves as a physical representation of the connection between them. In a feather-like lilac surrounding that separates it from the rest of gallery space, on one side is a small female figure with a bird’s head that portrays the early inhabitants of the Philippines while on the other side is a taller woman of seemingly Caucasian descent that depicts the colonial and post-colonial people of the country. With its shrine-like venerable set up, Poblador is in a way challenging the viewer to meditate within a noisy environment as the gallery is located on a busy street with cars, buses and tricycles passing at all hours as she strives to convey the juxtaposition of nature and civilization with the tranquility within the gallery and the chaos found outside. The Liongoren Gallery itself lends an earthier air to Poblador’s pieces, allowing the viewer to appreciate the role of the natural environment to Poblador’s creation as opposed to the austere and unnatural setting that would have been provided by the more urban styled art galleries.

Another installation, “Cabinet of Curiosities” is inspired from her earlier work, “The Perfume Bar: Collected Memories and Ephemeral Representations,” from the 2009 UP College of Fine Arts exhibition of thesis works and a finalist of the Ateneo Art Awards of the same year. “The Perfume Bar,” a boutique-like environment with delicate glass blown bottles filled with scents Poblador collected or formulated herself that are contextualized with metaphors, such as “Elias,” “Ilog Pasig,” and “Squalor,” to depict an environment or idea that appeals to one’s memories or conscience.

“Cabinet of Curiosities” is a collection of amulets, bones, stones, dried leaves, and small and large bottles each filled with a different type of root, leaf, or flower marinated in water. Wanting to professionally create scents of her own but lacking the knowledge and skill to do so, Poblador was advised to experiment with distillation instead. In the earlier stages of distillation, the artist was successful in creating fragrant water from the distilled plants. Encouraged by her small success, she further researched on preservation of plants (and insects) and her passion for flora grew.

Her small glass sculptures of plants and animals that are each encased in glass, not only as a means of security, but also impart a feeling of having a constant state of preservation within their own pristine space. This could be a projection of the artist’s own appeal to conserve the natural environment. With the small sculptures adjacent to idol heads with the same organic matter growing on the top of it, the artist communicates a pervasive desire for our urban societies to return to a homogenous relationship with nature.

Some of these delicate glass sculptures are similar to Poblador’s previous exhibition, “The Within,” exhibited in 2010 at Picasso Boutique Service Residences. Along with the glass sculptures are preserved plants and insects in glass cases and sculptural light pieces. To describe her previous exhibit, Poblador states that she wanted to create something beautiful and “at the same time encourage a deeper respect for nature.”

The theme of nature versus urban conflict is reiterated in her oil paintings and watercolors which mostly depict weeping females. These works illustrate the artist’s own personal discontent of living in an urban environment and she feels she is, as one piece is entitled, “Not In My Element”.

After a year of intense, even borderline obsessive reflection, Poblador at least finds an answer to some of her questions. She realizes that a 180° turnabout is not what modern society needs but certainly a partial requirement would be for man to once more attune himself with nature.

For this exhibition, Poblador collaborated with Angono artists Charlie Anorico & Associates to make all the white cement sculptures and Randy Caringal (of DJR Frames) who was the only one willing and able to create the glass display cases.

At the exhibit opening, “Flight of the Primal Being” will be staged by performance artist Martin de Mesa accompanied by sound art by Vinty Lava and video art by Denise Castillo. Doors to the performance will close at 8pm.

"The Ghost in the Machine" exhibition opens at Liongoren Gallery on 13 May 2011 and will run until 3 June 2011. Gallery hours are from 10am to 7pm, Monday to Saturday. Visit www.liongorengallery.com for more information or you can send inquiries via email liongorengallery@yahoo.com or call (02)9124319 or (02)4393962.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

BENCAB GRAPHICS, A PRINT RETROSPECTIVE




Bencab Graphics, A Print Retrospective
12 May – 12 June 2011
NCCA Gallery
633 Gen Luna St. Intramuros, Manila

BENCAB Graphics: A Print Retrospective includes the most essential outputs in the printmaking medium by our National Artist Benedicto Cabrera or popularly known as BENCAB. From the artist’s collection of etching prints delivering the most iconic images in printmaking in the Philippines; to the very recent prints that involve the exhilarating combinations of processes which challenge the definitions of the medium and are, most likely, the most ambitious undertaking ever done by a Filipino artist; this body of work, to date, has found the artist profoundly fulfilled.

Jonathan Olazo, a noted contemporary visual artist and art educator, is the curator of the exhibit. A joint project of the National Committee on Art Galleries (NCAG) and National Committee on Visual Arts (NCVA), BenCab Graphics: A Print Retrospective will open at the NCCA Gallery on 12 May 2011 at 5:00PM. The exhibition is also made possible with the support of Metrobank, Figaro Coffee Inc., Bencab Museum, and Novellino Wines. Exhibit is on view until 12 June 2011. Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00AM – 5:00PM. For details please contact: Jenny Picart, Ethel Buluran or Mimi Santos at 527-21-92 loc. 512 or email us at ncca_gallery@yahoo.com , website: www.ncca.gov.ph

Monday, May 9, 2011

HUNGRY FOR MORE


After our nod to our local NAFA artists for our 10th anniversary celebrations, we now shift to the main event, a mammoth group show of the best of Utterly Artists at the well-situated ION Art Gallery, Level 4 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, Singapore 238801. Based on the theme of “HUNGRY FOR MORE”, we examine what our Singaporean and Filipino artists are HUNGRY for in the show from Thursday 12th May to Sunday 22nd May 2011, which features
Singaporeans: Chng Seok Tin, Wong Shih Yaw, Justin Lee, Andre Tan, Hong Sek Chern, Yeo Siak Goon, Aiman Hakim, Boo Sze Yang, TraseOne, Chua Chon Hee, Martin Loh, Ye Ruoshi, Mohamed Kamal bin Dollah, Michael Lee Hong Hwee, Paul Koh
Filipinos: Andres Barrioquinto, Michael Cacnio, Jaypee Samson, John Paul Antido, Edrick Daniel, Dennis Fortozo, R.G. Habulan, Reynaldo Samson, Reynold dela Cruz, Max Balatbat, Rene Cuvos, Josue Mangrobang Jr, Malyn Bonayog, Kris Soguilon, Norman Dreo
And an odd Greek: Alex Kataras

31 artists in one show and maybe growing…!

ION Art Gallery is open from 10am to 10pm daily, but do contact us at 94872006 for queries and appointments (Keng Hock) or through utterlyart@pacific.net.sg. View the works at www.utterlyart.com.sg. The opening reception is on THURSDAY 12th MAY at 7 pm. Members of the press are most welcome to attend. Attendance at the exhibition is FREE.



About the show:

"Please, sir, I want some more." - Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

Humans are beings of wants and desires. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs postulated that human motivation is driven by unsatisfied needs – once a need is mostly satisfied, it will cease to motivate and the next higher need will take its place. We first satisfy lower-order needs such as food, sleep and warmth, then progress to safety and stability, before thinking of good family and work relationships, achievement and esteem, finally leading to personal growth and self-actualization.

In 21st century Singapore which has achieved developed country status, what drives its citizens to strive beyond a full belly and comfortable condominium? What about our foreign friends who want a piece of our sizzling economic pie? In particular, how do artists view this never-ending quest to improve our lot and aim for the stars?

Utterly Art celebrates ten years in the rough and tumble of a very dynamic local art scene, which now boasts hundreds of galleries, stimulating museum presentations, regular auctions, art fairs and our very own biennale. When we began, we were the first to bridge the gap between a bare exhibition hall for hire and a commercial gallery which provided artists with its marketing and curatorial expertise. Today, literally several hundred artists have exhibited under the Utterly Art banner, we are supported by twin pillars of artistic strength in our Singapore and Philippine artists, and our frenetic presentations average thirty exhibitions a year, both within and beyond our Chinatown home.

What MORE could we want?

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

EMBODY: NEW FIGURATION IN PHILIPPINE CONTEMPORARY ART



Postmodernism is not a new beginning, only the aftermath of modernism. The New Figuration is post-postmodern because it strives to realize an entirely non-modernist and non-postmodernist paradigm.

The New Figuration in Philippine Contemporary Art respects tradition and has its feet firmly planted in the now outdated postmodernism - it integrates styles and manners of painting, that were developed and refined in the centuries preceding modernism. This New Figuration has its feet firmly planted in modernism since it thinks the work of art should be an aesthetically integrated, coloristical and compositional self-contained unit.

The word “figurative” is problematic. Who isn’t figurative now? Post-modernity seems to have unleashed a torrent of images into the world.

In this group exhibition, the artists need to demonstrate a tiny little bit of intellectual rigour in their definition of the word. There has for some time been a tendency to use the word pejoratively. This show will reinforce that tendency..

The New Figuration, however, can not fall into the intellectually conceited simplemindedness of concept art, nor the aestetically confused roomdecorations of installation art. The reason for this is simple: we are trying to express that which transcends concepts. A new, post-postmodern, figuration must be anti-narrative and anti-discursive.


DUMMIES




Charlie Co lines up 'Dummies' for a solo show at Galleria Duemila
7 May 2011 - 5 June 2011

Bacolod-based artist Charlie Co presents his latest paintings at Galleria Duemila in a one-man rebuttal to modern-day malevolence and malaise.

Starring in Co's eleven large canvases are life-sized wooden mannequins in various quotidian scenarios. Faceless and seemingly soulless, they enact misdemeanors that are all too human and thus embarrassingly familiar: debauchery, conspiracy, apathy, and fraud.

Current events, be they national scandals or global conflict, inform all of these pieces, all executed in the last four months. "I have always associated the subject matter of most of my works with everyday scenarios. I cannot help but put these situations on canvas, not in literal level but more as a satire," Co says.

For example, “Done Deal” and “Checkmates” were inspired by recent senate investigations into alleged illegal behavior by public officials while "Blind Pinocchios leading blind Pinocchios" recall images of Middle East streets enveloped in protest.
All of these performances play out under Co's deceptively light baton: carnival-like in arrangement but rendered with a gloomy palette, generating a mood that is tense, at times apocalyptic.

As art critic Gina Fairley notes in the exhibition catalogue, this show is “is classic Co imagery melding fantasy with the big topics. They are the marks of a mature and considered artist, and Co’s constant push for a currency in his art making is what has sustained his practice over the past three decades and, indeed, signals this new body of work as a superb next chapter."

Far beyond a record of present-day events, these works capture the prevailing zeitgeist not only within Filipino experience but also over at further shores. For what these paintings disguise underneath the light strokes and Crayola wash is a palpable fury - an artist's bellow arising from a spring of discontent.

Charlie Co's 'Dummies' will run from 7 May 2011 to 5 June 2011 at Galleria Duemila, 210 Loring Street, Pasay City, Philippines.

For more information, please contact, Thess Ponce of Galleria Duemila through Tel. No. (+632) 831-9990 Telefax (+632) 8339815, e-mail: gduemila@gmail.com or visit our website at www.galleriaduemila.com.

Galleria Duemila is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

MOTHER’S LOVE: AN ARTIST’S DEVOTION


His artworks have always been characterized as very modern abstracted style. But for Seb Chua, award-winning sculptor-painter, such unfolding of his creativity is his own journey. And it is in the midst of that journey that in 2008 the artist grabbed a one-of-a-king opportunity for a collaborative project with the UNICEF. The resultant piece is “Mother’s Love,” a cold cast bronze sculpture of a breastfeeding mother cradling her child which has been UNICEF’s symbol in a national campaign to save lives of mothers and children.

One of the 100 limited edition sculptures of “Mother’s Love” shall become the centerpiece in EmBODY (New Figuration in Philippine Contemporary Art) exhibition to be held at the Baguio Museum. The main original piece is currently set at the UNICEF headquarters at the Yuchengco Building in Makati City.

Seb Chua is a graduate of the University of Santo Tomas College of Fine Arts and the Columbia College in Canada. He is a recipient of an honorable mention in the Art Association of the Philippines 2006 annual art competition.

EmBODY (New Figuration in Philippine Contemporary Art) opens at the Baguio Museum on 06 May 2011 and shall be on view until 23 May 2011. It is curated by JCrisanto Martinez. The Baguio Museum is located at the DOT Compound, Governor Pack Road, Baguio City, 2600 Philippines. For inquiries about the EcoLOGIC artworks and the exhibition, please contact (6374) 444.75.41, sms at (+63) 915.655.06.68, or thru email at baguio_museum@yahoo.com. Further inquiries about the artists and the artworks can be coursed thru sms at (+63) 922.331.41.08, or via email at info@jcrisanto.tk.



BOX PAINTINGS




Roberto Chabet
Box Paintings

The box form is a basic containment unit that defines space. Hence a room may be considered a box. A frame boxes a picture, a window frames a room. The camera obscura is a box contraption that projects images of its surroundings on a screen, which then imprints it on a medium to record the projected image though in reverse view. Vermeer was speculated as to have used such a device for his magnificent attention to detail in his paintings, which were window views to the illuminated interior domesticity of Dutch daily life in the 17th century, or as curtained tableaus to an allegory of painting such as in The Art of Painting.

Joseph Cornell ‘s boxes are compendiums of time and memory, and “of shadows of forgotten dreams” patinated or rendered mysterious and precious by their very juxtaposition in the boxed confines of his dioramas that intuit to a greater personal mythology.

Roberto Chabet’s exhibits from the 1990s to 2007 in the adjacent galleries of Finale and West in Megamall were often compared or viewed as Cornell boxes as they were simultaneously held, offering twin views of life-sized “assemblages” that either complement each other, or seen as seamless causal trajectory utterances of each other, visually enunciated metaphors/allegories in “viewing” and the very assimilation of such spectacle within existence itself, or on the ruminations of art history vis-à-vis the course of human history or civilization.

The box form had been a recurrent motif, a visual device for Chabet, which can be gleaned from his ziggurat works (another recurrent form, which had been recently exhibited in West Gallery last March), as boxes, in diminishing sizes like matryoshka dolls sitting on top of each other, as a built mountain reaching up to touch the sky, or as how he prefers to frame his collages in box-type frames of bleached wood, a seeming Cornell box with time compressed unto a single page.

In this latest installment, Box Paintings, one of the exhibits that commemorate 50 years of his art practice, boxes sized 12” x 9” x 9”, all painted in primary colors, white and black, are arranged in 3s and randomly scattered or hung on the walls of Mag:net Gallery.

The boxes are intentionally left blank, as to strip them off for the unmitigated meditation of their form; light and shadow would suffice to fill the otherwise void. But what is the void? Chabet himself has said of these boxes as “emptied of its contents”, but are they really “emptied of its contents”, and if they are emptied of its contents, do they echo instead Alexander Rodchenko’s declaration for painting’s end: "I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue, and yellow. I affirmed: this is the end of painting." Hence, are these boxes coffins for painting’s demise? Perhaps it was for a certain painting at that time of Rodchenko’s declaration as he aspired for a utopia of forms, for an absolute maxim of void and fullness, a plastic revolution in liberating painting from the confines of the easel and the picture window view.

But for Chabet, an individual box is a box painting, a painting in itself, content and form in itself. Unlike Donald Judd’s boxes which the latter calls as “objects”, not sculpture or painting but “objects”, things taken matter-of-factly for their minimal qualities and the process by which they were produced, undifferentiated from factory made products, but clear-cut as it were of its own essence in its very form, no superfluous pronouncements, no metaphors, no nothing but the object in and of itself.

This idea of seriality is one of Minimalism’s tropes in championing form over anything else. It recalls or stresses the impersonal and industrial qualities by which they were made, as though uniqueness of a certain object or its very essence can be capitulated in one but given full body when they come in numbers or in succession, as one thing after another, like the waves of aluminum sheets carpeting the floor of Finale (in his other show Onethingafteranother), forming a silver sea illuminating a boxlike interior.

One thing after another – it can either be a string of attributes compiled, or as an accumulation of attributes to define the perfect form, as espoused by Umberto Ecco’s Infinity of Lists, especially when general qualities are undefined and there’s no other way to fully describe an object other than through a list, which is but an attempt to rationalize the world, for “behind each list is the essence of ineffability”. As such, he states painting as having “beauty that is born of accumulation” for “art embodies the plurality and variety of reality in the limits of the form. From antiquity down to the 19th century we have been prisoners of the picture frame; in painting, the frame tells us that ‘everything’ we should be interested in is inside it. “

It wasn’t through monochrome paintings that Rodchenko killed painting or declared it dead. It was actually through finding a form that can contain infinity; only a perfect form can contain such.

(Exhibition notes by Lena Cobangbang)

Box Paintings is organized by King Kong Art Projects Unlimited as part of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in various venues in Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila throughout 2011 – 2012 in celebration of Roberto Chabet’s fifty years of pioneering conceptual work and his role in shaping Philippine contemporary art. For further information, email chabet.50years@gmail.com or log on to www.kingkongartprojects.org.

Opening: May 5, 2011, 6 pm
Exhibition Dates: May 5 – 28, 2011
Mag:net Gallery – Agcor Building, 335 Katipunan Ave., Quezon City. Tel. +632 9293191, www.magnetgalleries.com

PASSE PARTOUT






Alliance Francaise de Manille’s Total Gallery proudly presents noted printmaker and visual artist Virgillio “Pandy” Aviado’s “Passe Partout”. Described by Gemma Cruz Araneta in her recent column as “Another Filipino Master”, she calls Aviado “a multi-faceted artist who masters a wide range of styles, materials, techniques, moods, themes, and forms.” Indeed, Aviado is a man of many talents: aside from being a multi-awarded printmaker who has represented the Philippines at several biennales and other international exhibitions, he has also been a graphic arts teacher and administrator. He has served as President of the Philippine Association of Printmakers (PAP) and the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP). He was also Director of Visual Arts of the CCP and Chair of the Committee on the Visual Arts of the NCCA.

As a printmaker, Aviado has mastered numerous printmaking techniques, from woodcut to color etching. After training under pioneer printmaker Manuel Rodriguez, he pursued further studies in this medium at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

In “Passe Partout”, Aviado seamlessly integrates the printmaking technique of gravure or etching/engraving with painting. In his Exhibition Notes for the show, critic Carlomar Arcangel Daoana writes:

“Perhaps what the master key (passé partout) of this exhibit unlocks is that slit of line and surface of color. In their various intersections breed surreal, hallucinatory images: skulls encircled with flames of petals, interiors of bodies (usually of women), winged eyes flapping across a pink sky, floating bodies dreaming of trees. There are hands, scissors, automobile, pitcher plants, orchids, horse, phoenix, multi-colored hives. They are not involved with any scenery; they are still lifes, art objects, voodoo shrines. They have an opacity that is alarming. They resist to be reconstituted into narrative.”

Virgillio “Pandy” Aviado’s exhibition “Passe Partout” is curated by Albert Avellana of Avellana Art Gallery, and opens on Thursday, May 5, 2011, at the Total Gallery of the Alliance Française de Manille, with cocktails at 6:30pm to 9pm. The exhibit runs until June 2, 2011. For high resolution images of the artworks and more details about the exhibit, kindly contact Mr. Earl Parco (AFM Cultural Officer) at 895 7441 / 895 7585 or email cultural@alliance.ph, or visit the AFM website at www.alliance.ph.

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