ABSTRACSIONISTA 2

PORTAL OF AN ENIGMA

DAWN TO DUSK

For those of you who have not had a chance to join Tilak's DAWN TO DUSK photography workshop at BenCab Museum before, here's another chance to do so on his third DAWN TO DUSK workshop this March. And for those who have participated before, you may want to do so again...

DAWN TO DUSK 2012

Photography Workshop

with Tilak Hettige

at BenCab Museum, Farm & Gardens

2 to 4 March 2012

(Complete details on attached poster)

For more information on Tilak, check out his site:

www.tilakhettige.com

BenCab Museum

Km. 6 Asin Road

Tuba, Benguet

Philippines

Tel. (+63 74) 4427165

Mobile 0920-5301954

www.bencabmuseum.org

SIGNATURE

ART REPUBLIK

New TV show on Filipino artists airs February

Art Republik, a new TV show that features Filipino artists, debuts February 28 on Knowledge Channel at 8:40 p.m. Art Republik is a 30-minute program on Philippine arts and culture, profiling 51 artists from various art fields and two art collectors or a total of 53 guests for its first season. The first season of Art Republik carries 13 episodes anchored on themes, which are based on cultural traits.

The cultural traits used as episode themes include close family relations with a focus on siblings' relationships, respect, Bayanihan, adaptability, hard work, responsibility, strong sense of community, commitment, courage, quality, sentimentality, excellence, and perseverance.

For the first episode, Art Republik features two families involved in the fields of independent film and the visual arts: the Lee Brothers and the Dalena sisters. Roxlee is the hero of underground cinema; Romeo Lee commonly known as Lee is a University of the Philippines-Diliman icon and visual artist/performer.

Sari Lluch Dalena is a multi-awarded filmmaker who recently bagged the Best Picture and Best Director awards at the 2011 Cinema One Originals Film Festival for Ka Oryang. Aba Lluch Dalena is a visual artist, an art teacher and the lead vocals of Rockbato. Kiri Lluch Dalena traverses the fields of visual arts and film.

“We created the show to provide an alternative program to the usual entertainment and political fare on television. TV is a powerful medium to inform and engage people. We hope that Art Republik could contribute in increasing the awareness on Philippine art to a wider public by presenting its creators, the Filipino artists, whose work reflect our culture,” Betty Uy-Regala, producer of Art Republik, said.

The other members who complete the show's team are co-producer Evie dela Cruz, director JL Burgos, Imelda Morales, Opaline Santos, Ria Torrente, Kathrina Reston, Tom Estrera III, Allan Alcantara, Erwin dela Cruz, Rene Bayking, and Joel Laserna. Alma dela Pena, Mavie de Ocampo, Kristine C. Tabada, and Phillyn Lorenzo were part of the pilot episode production.

The show is produced through the Asian Christian Arts Association, Inc., a non-governmental organization, and partially funded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the policy-making body and grants-giving government agency for the preservation, development and promotion of Philippine arts and culture.

Felipe de Leon, Jr., chairman of the NCCA, said, “The Philippine government recognizes the role of culture in the development of the economy and national unity. This is embodied in our Constitution (Article XIV) and the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP).”

Art Republik will be aired on Knowledge Channel every Tuesday at 8:40 p.m. with replays on Thursday at 8:40 p.m. and Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Knowledge Channel is channel 42 on Sky Cable. Art Republik is on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/artrepublik).

HALF EMPTY HALF FULL

Half Empty Half Full

Patrick B. Fernandez

Ysobel Art Gallery

2nd flr.,Serendra,

Bonifacio High Street,

BGC,Taguig City

24 February 2012

Ysobel Art Gallery presents” Half Empty Half Full”, the first solo exhibition of Patrick B. Fernandez, on February 24, 2012, Friday, at the Second Floor Shops at Serendra in Bonifacio High Street,BGC, Taguig City.

A collection of myriad images and installations inspired by visions of stained glass applied to stationary figures, Half Empty Half Full explores the expansive breadth between optimism and pessimism, choice and fate. Warm hues explode on canvas as drips, washes and splatters of acrylic paint serve as subtle background to universal characters intertwined with flora and fauna, whether alone, in duo or with a group of mongering spectators set on grounds reminiscent of contemporized cathedral iconography. Fernandez’ mosaic figures with their doleful eyes seemingly ask questions of the audience, testing one’s perception and unique interpretation of easily relatable scenario. Their bodies are made of interlocking albeit square-edged puzzles, the fabric of shared experiences serving as patterned lines segmenting and breaking each character down into pieces of occurrences and encounters. Gaps are ever-present, nothing fits perfectly into place and there is always room for reinforcement. The artist leads his audience to favorable possibilities, hoping to leave an image of positivity in the minds of his viewers in the midst of conflicting concerns pervading life today.

Born and raised in Binmaley, Pangasinan, Patrick B. Fernandez is a self-taught artist who was inspired by exhibitions in Dagupan City’s Pista’y Dayat Festival. He graduated from the Pangasinan State University with honors and has held various positions in corporations and local government before deciding to become a full-time artist and art instructor. Fernandez was a finalist in the 2009 GSIS National Painting Competition and a Semi-Finalist in the LRT Art Competition 2009 before being voted as the president of the Dagupan Artists’ Circle and the AAP Dagupan City, Pangasinan Chapter. He is also one of the four founding members of APATIRA.

Half Empty Half Full is on exhibit from February 24 to March 8. For inquires, please call +639285071117 or email ysobelartgallery@yahoo.com

ART IN THE PARK

KAIVALYA: LIBERATION

" KAIVALYA : liberation "

by Grace Katigbak

Grace Katigbak, artiste extraordinaire, returns to Alliance Française de Manille to kick off the Chinese Year of the Water Dragon. After a hiatus of four years since her last show at AFM, she comes back with a remarkable exhibition of her deeply personal paintings and sculptures, expressive of life, love, joy, and above all KAIVALYA…..liberation.

For the opening of her KAIVALYA exhibition, the artist has prepared an extravagant program of dance, poetry, and song performed by her beloved friends and family members.

In her own voice, Grace speaks to us of herself, her life and her art:

“Is an artist’s life inextricably linked to her art? If so, I won’t need photos, will I ? to chronicle these last remaining decades of myself as Grace, or dis-Grace ( as my stepfather once introduced me ). Now why do I remember that at sixty? How wonderful it is, how wonderful it all is when seen through the haze or clarity…. of understanding and to have art, to distill and express that understanding. AND to finally have something to instill: yes, one cannot help but want to share a happiness so hard won.

So I do not know if this is an autobiography or an artist’s statement. Because it is true: my statement is MY LIFE…and I am just beginning to express it in my art. But in effect, life is my real art…experience the brush strokes and the colors, the etched lines not just on my canvases but on my face, not just on my face but in my soul…

But you will see this in this exhibit: part Hindu temple, ( learning compassion is learning happiness from Amma, my guru ) part dance studio ( the body has always allowed me to soar and still does, this part I dedicate to the love of my dancing life, Antonio Fabella ), yoga asanas ( I thank my teacher, John Scott, for his timeless embrace and unconditional love ) and finally I am beginning to express my life, insights, fears and fantasies in painting. So, although visually I love the Lao’s, and used to be mistaken for Gus ( well, I did not know how to steal surreptitiously ), now, you will see some paintings I would not hang on my own wall.

My idea of breath-taking beauty are the crystal dewdrops of Impy and the architecture of Ed Ledesma but there you have it: ME, the years in-between my last exhibit in Paris (also at the Alliance Francaise, thanks to dear friends Ara and Hubert d’Aboville} in March of 2009 and today February 16,2012. Not totally distilled, understated, subtle, ( as I would like to be ) minimalist, or enlightened (as I would really like to be) but certainly: MYSELF.

The leap of love, the weep of love, and then:

KAIVALYA…….liberation

For truly when you have ‘ laughed all of your laughter, and wept all of your tears…’ and you have been cracked open, broken by love: at last, there is nothing left, but joy.”

Grace Katigbak’s exhibition “KAIVALYA : liberation” opens on Thursday, February 16, 2012, at the Alliance Française Total Gallery of the Alliance Française de Manille, with cocktails at 6:30pm to 9pm. The exhibit runs until March 8, 2012. 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.

Alliance Française de Manille is located at 209 Nicanor Garcia St. formerly Reposo St.) Bel-Air 2, Makati City.

UNANG HUGNA SA MUGNA

HEART COLORS

GARAPATA

ARTISTS' TALK

Lopez Museum and Library

In the past four months, visitors to the Lopez Memorial Museum have followed the movement of The Machine of IC Jaucian, whipped out their smart phones to get data – both audio and video-- from the QR code composed by Eric Ambata, and sought to catch sound as it rippled, bounced, etc within the metal sheet of Tad Ermitaño’s work. On February 11, Saturday, visitors will have an opportunity to hear from these artists in Artists’ Talk. In discussing their work, Ambata, Ermitano, Jaucian will touch on the graphic take on hell and augmented realities, applications of sound, and how art comes to play in closing perceived gap between science and the imagination, and furthering both.

Tad Ermitaño trained in film and video at the Mowelfund Film Institute and currently designs and mixes sound for digital features and produces video for projection in a variety of stage/concert contexts. He is a media artist and was the sole Filipino artist exhibiting at 20th anniversary of ISEA in 2008 (Main Juried Exhibition) and the Ogaki Biennale 2006 New Media Festival. IC Jaucian is a BFA cum laude graduate of the UP College of Fine Arts. He works as exhibition coordinator of the Ateneo Art Gallery. Eric Ambata graduated from UST College of Architecture and Fine Arts where he got the medal for Best Thesis. He has worked on a variety of design projects for which he has been recognized.

The lecture is part of the Reverb which is ongoing until April 14, 2012. Reverb takes off from notions having to do with resonance, registration, and audible impressions. It brings together sound-based work from artists such as Eric Ambata, Kawayan de Guia, Tad Ermitaño, IC Jaucian, Diokno Pasilan, Ronald Tomas, the collaborative, E.X.I.S.T. (Experimentation in Sound Art Tradition), and UP College of Music ethnomusicologist Dr. Christine Muyco. The Lopez Memorial Museum is at the ground floor, Benpres Building, Exchange Road corner Meralco Avenue, Pasig City. Museum days and hours are Mondays-Saturdays, 8am-5pm, except holidays. For details pls call 6359545.

Lecture Fee: Php120 for non-students, Php100 for students.

The Lopez Memorial Museum is at the ground floor, Benpres Building, Exchange Road corner Meralco Avenue, Pasig City. Museum days and hours are Mondays-Saturdays, 8am-5pm, except holidays. For details pls call 6359545.

STORIES OF OUT TIME

ADDICTIONS

Cesar Caballero, an expatriate painter whose cool-blue paintings in the past have astounded or persuaded with their light-handed, expressionistic evocation of Spanish freedom and confidence, presents in this show a series of predominantly red paintings.

Not unlike his previous work, Caballero’s new series of paintings work in a fundamentally similar manner: language shares the pictorial space with a non-volumetric treatment of color, and although layered, overall the painting retains the flatness of Modernist painting—a foregrounding of art as object rather than as illusion.

There are many ways to read (and therefore see) Caballero’s new work. Let’s start with the most basic: red paintings sell. So much, indeed, depends upon the red: the red of beginning--the first color seen by infants, the first color in the spectrum of visibility, and perhaps deplorably, the first painting bought by those who would otherwise never give painting a moment’s thought, were it not for an unimaginative interior designer thrown into a new living room. Yet the decorative effectiveness of a red painting is not untrue: almost always, red works: place a red painting against almost any other color for a background and with enough calibration of lighting, it will work, which is to say that it will awaken, delight and enliven. Rendered in oil, red works even better; remarkably, more than in most other media, oil paintings show color differently in different lights.

And so: the red invites, draws, lures the viewer into the urban grit-and-glamor of Caballero’s brand of addictions. Face painted white, someone stares through a headdress, through a profusion of festive red motifs, beads, and lights, serene and almost smiling. A man tilts his chin up, takes a hit, cool and unaffected. A woman gazes at the viewer through wisps of blond hair and smoke, eyes dark and inviting.

But then, the red is ominous: another intrinsic quality of this color. Red exemplifies the duality inherent in any addiction: the inward pull of it, the danger within it. Lips part and a tongue snakes out between bared teeth as if for greed or wanting. Somber eyes stare through text and texture. A woman with full, red lips mourns love—if not, herself, the object of mourning.

But it is not just color. The paintings, as mentioned, show language: in them, words are legible. Many other painters in painting’s illustrious recent past have done the same, and perhaps the most memorable exemplar of the practice is Francis Bacon. Bacon, however, translated text into the language of his paintings, so that when language appears in his painting, it attains an ontological status in the field of vision. Bacon, in other words, did not ‘quote’ text nor write language; with oil, he evoked the image of text so that nowhere in his work are we asked to read as we do when we read books or papers. In contrast, the invitation to read seems operative in Caballero’s work. But notice how the legible words were painted—as if to say that these paintings are not pages, that the series is not excerpts from a palimpsest or diary. Notice how candidly they recall graphics. Notice how pleasurably, textual language in Caballero’s new work is at once sweet, cheerful, and cold.

Caballero has been painting in the Philippines for some time. One might think that his new series of paintings evokes some aspects of a Southeast Asian ethos, and perhaps, one can see that to a certain extent, his red paintings do succeed in evoking la ciudad. But if Caballero’s series is not a diary, what then are they paintings of? A tentative answer is that they are paintings of the ability of an unstudied impression to evoke the very impulse that generated it. Apart from the red, there is, in the paintings, a certain kind of brown—a brown that seems posed, not poised, to avoid the gaze that would not quite rest on it; a brown whose hue does not quite harmonize with the tone of the red; a brown that seems to lead, separately, its own rigid, lazy life. It seems to me a brown that is almost human in the same way that red is almost human, standing on alert as it does in the spectrum of color.

Caballero’s new paintings could be read as a complex revisitation of colonial themes and tactics, but more preferably, they could be seen as stills from a static dance: an extended pictorial exercise in which two colors become shapes, and through which shapes become colors, all in search of a compositional balance. Note, however, that it is not the balance that Caballero paints. In the series, he has painted the extension and style of his attention.

EQUILIBRIUM POISONING

SYGNOS

The Ayala Museum invites you to the exhibition opening and reception of SYGNOS. Curated by JCrisanto Martinez, the group exhibition features the works of Joey SimSim, Marga Rodriguez, Milmar Onal, Wayan Narra, Indigo Narra, Manju Gagoomal and Benedict Abigan. SYGNOS opens on 07 February 2012 at 6:00 pm. For further inquiries please contact +63922.331.41.08 or send electronic mail at artepinas@gmail.com. Visit the website www.artepinas.tk

SAMENESS AND DIFFRERENCE

WAYAN NARRA: SYGNOS

TRANSLATING THE DISCOURSE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS

The Ayala Museum invites you to the exhibition opening and reception of SYGNOS. Curated by JCrisanto Martinez, the group exhibition features the works of Joey SimSim, Marga Rodriguez, Milmar Onal, Wayan Narra, Indigo Narra, Manju Gagoomal and Benedict Abigan. SYGNOS opens on 07 February 2012 at 6:00 pm. For further inquiries please contact +63922.331.41.08 or send electronic mail at artepinas@gmail.com. Visit the website www.artepinas.tk

GARBAGE FLOWERS AND FOOLISH WORDS

Garbage Flowers and Foolish Words: Solo Exhibition by Lynyrd Paras

TAKSU Singapore, 9 - 26 February 2012

TAKSU presents Garbage Flowers and Foolish Words, a solo exhibition by Lynyrd Paras (Philippines). Exploring the theme of pain and suffering in relationships, Lynyrd Paras continues to tell stories about human beings, emotions, and thoughts, through his latest series of paintings. Garbage Flowers and Foolish Words, Lynyrd's first solo exhibition in TAKSU Singapore, is the follow-up to Boxed Noises, his first international solo exhibition in TAKSU KL (2008).

Upon his graduation from Technological University of the Philippines, Manila in 2007, Lynyrd Paras (b. 1982, Manila) has mounted 7 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions in various venues in Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and USA. Among his solo exhibitions are: No One Waits For A Lonely Answer at BENCAB Museum Baguio City Philippines (2011), Some Things Are Not Meant To Be Beautiful at Ayala Museum, Makati City (2010), Boxed Noises at TAKSU KL (2008), and A Day When Everything Is Beautiful at Cultural Center of the Philippines (2007). Apart from receiving Grand Prize, 1st GSIS Museum National Painting Competition (2004), Honorable Mention, Art Association of the Philippines Annual National Art Competition (2005), and Finalist of Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards (2007); Lynyrd was also a recipient of the Sinugdanan Program Grants from National Commission for Culture and the Arts Philippines (2007), Blanc Compound Art Residency Philippines (2008), and Rimbun Dahan Art Residency Malaysia (2009). Lynyrd Paras lives and works in Manila, Philippines.

Exhibition runs from 9 - 26 February 2012.

Opening reception: Thursday, 9 February 2012, 6.30-10.30pm.

RSVP at sing@taksu.com by 8 February

TAKSU Singapore

43 Jalan Merah Saga

#01-72 Workloft@ChipBee

Singapore 228115

T: +65 6476 4788

F: +65 6476 4787

E: sing@taksu.com

www.taksu.com

Gallery Hours:

Tues – Sat: 10am – 7pm

Sun: 12 – 6pm

MILMAR ONAL: SYGNOS

THE CIRCUITOUS DISSERTATION OF LIFE

The Ayala Museum invites you to the exhibition opening and reception of SYGNOS. Curated by JCrisanto Martinez, the group exhibition features the works of Joey SimSim, Marga Rodriguez, Milmar Onal, Wayan Narra, Indigo Narra, Manju Gagoomal and Benedict Abigan. SYGNOS opens on 07 February 2012 at 6:00 pm. For further inquiries please contact +63922.331.41.08 or send electronic mail at artepinas@gmail.com. Visit the website www.artepinas.tk

ASCETICS(UNBOUND)

Lui Medina's ASCETICS(UNBOUND)

Opening on February 9, Thursday at 20SQUARE

Drawing inspiration from the concept of limits and an aim to gain an understanding of its nature is what prompted Lui Medina’s latest body of work titled ASCETICS(UNBOUND). In this show, she continues to delve deeper and investigate the metaphysical manifestation of simple objects, just as she has done in her past shows. The 30-year-old artist pursues this investigation not only through her artworks but also through the processes and materials used to create each piece. “Both material and the ritual of making are signifiers that attempt to verbalize the continuity and intimate relationships that take place,” Medina expounds.

ASCETICS(UNBOUND) features four pieces tediously crafted by the artist. Medina’s affinity to oval panels, which she has showed in past exhibitions, is once again evident in this display. She states, “I think there’s something about these shapes that allow me to see and treat my works as objects.” For this body of work, the UP Fine Arts and Slade School of Art graduate worked with oil and beeswax on gesso panels and genuine gold leaf. She also went the traditional way using a mixture of rabbit skin glue and chalk, working layer by layer, slowly building the surface to be painted on. Even bits of the red oil paint used in the artworks, she made herself. Bordering on sculptural pieces, it’s Medina’s interest in the idea and interpretation of her artworks as objects is what shines through.

Medina’s practice places itself on the thin line between the visible and invisible. The manifestation of being in that borderline position, such as tension and anxiety, is a recurring element in her work. It may as well be the driving force behind her practice and craft. It’s obvious that she has a deep interest in the process by which her art is created and the actual making of the pieces. Materials like beeswax, gold leaf, and oil are constant mediums Medina utilizes and starting points for ideas.

In addition, Medina shares, “The materiality of the immaterial, depth and transcendence creates the platform on which my enquiry lies and are, at the same time, the very ideas I question. Material is substance and significant, process and making are involvements, and all play a part in the effort to reach that state of sensory and psychological experience, both between the objects and themselves, and between the objects and spectators.

Medina is a Manila based full-time artist and part-time lecturer at the School of Design and Arts of De la Salle College of St. Benilde. ASCETICS(UNBOUND) is her eighth solo exhibition.

ASCETICS(UNBOUND) by Lui Medina opens on February 9, 2012 in 20Square, together with FROZEN ACTUALITIES by Rachel Rillo in Silverlens, and Carlos Celdran’s LIVIN LA VIDA IMELDA in SLab.

For inquiries, contact Silverlens Gallery at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, tel. no. 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

THE ROMANTIC LIE

Desire, Ennui, Anxiety: Marcel Antonio at the Water Dragon Gallery, Yuchengco Museum, February 6 – 25, 2012.

In July of 2010, the poet V.I.S. de Veyra posted a blog essay on the art of Marcel Antonio titled “Blue Funk’d Stories: The Expanding Art of Marcel Antonio” (read at http://partycrashingangle.blogspot.com/2010/07/blue-funked-silent-stories-expanding_26.html) and coined the phrase-tag Blue Funk Erotica for Antonio’s art. De Veyra described Blue Funk Erotica as 1) unsmiling faces-derived figurative drama (primarily portraiture, then), 2) replete of appropriations or art-historical quotes, 3) suggestive (but only suggestive) of a narrative, 4) quasi-rebellious towards rigid allusions and painting titles’ guidance, 5) unpainterly expressionist, 6) of an in-a-trance mood as against a happy one, and 7) conscriptive of the painting viewer as peeper. “This erotica should stay around and keep us entranced,” the poet-critic wrote, “being not so much one that tickles the groin as a kind that promotes the understanding that every face, gesture, object, color, and shape is a secret sex object and clandestine true story waiting to be told.” But also debunking a previous simplistic tag on Antonio’s art as “narrative expressionist,” de Veyra wrote: “In Antonio’s case, his blue funkism's ‘de-expression’, or ‘dis-expression’ and narrative confusion through the mannerisms of narrative imagery and titling, seems to be a produce of a Russian Formalist narrative bent to ‘defamiliarize’ images and shapes towards a higher enigma. Thus his refusal to ‘express’.”

The abovementioned blog started a dialogue between Antonio’s art as well as intent (of unintent) and de Veyra’s reading, culminating in a late-2011 collection titled “Desire, Ennui, Anxiety” which shall be shown this coming February at the Yuchengco Museum.

This title for Antonio’s new series does not so much signal a change in his art’s direction as clarify where de Veyra’s reading is right and where it needs to be tweaked. For instance, while de Veyra opts for a Barthesian “variety of narrative possibilities,” Antonio’s pragmatic knowledge of his audience allows/welcomes two basic approaches to his art.

The one approach favours rigid symbolist readings, especially as Antonio is himself attracted to the “monumental” (Antonio’s term) figure common among utopian-art compositions (of Wagnerian glorifications, classical idealism, Nazi art, Stalinist totalitarian art, socialist realism, etc.) as well as in advertising art or the idealizations of soft porn.

But, for the other approach, Antonio acknowledges that de Veyra is right about his—Antonio’s—own efforts to frustrate, so to speak, all symbolist and narrative approaches, via experimentations with juxtapositions/relations and eclectic allusions. These experimentations, appropriations, and art-history quotes result in a dehumanized atmosphere, involving such stuff as machine esthetics and the usual facial expressions of ennui and boredom, all moving towards Antonio’s intended postmodernist multiplicity of meanings. But the final result on each single canvas is an invite to a pseudo-narrative half-aware of this pseudo-ness, welcoming while parodying the various cultural and moral significations possible to professional and popular semiotics.

In this sense, Antonio’s art would be self-described as anxious about the unknown, desirous of knowledge as a matter of course but likewise celebrating the ennui of knowledge’s elusivity, even the charm of that ennui itself alone. Ennui as both springboard and object of desire, then, visually fulfilled or illustrated on an Antonio-esque drama field.

A final stamp to this anti-narrative effort to “recover the sensation of life” (Victor Shklovsky) is the artist’s devotion to the coloration of Diego Velázquez or Chagall as well as the latent abstract geometrics beneath all his pseudo-narrative stagings.

V.I.S. de Veyra joins Antonio in this exhibit with fourteen new poems printed in the exhibition catalogue.

For more information about the show, contact the Yuchengco Museum, 2/F RCBC Plaza, cor. Ayala and Sen. Gil J. Puyat Aves., Makati City, Philippines 1200 or Galleria Quattrocento, 3rd Floor Glorietta 4 Art Space, Glorietta 4, Ayala Center, Barangay San Lorenzo, Makati City (Telephone: [632] 818-5939 // [632] 519-7221 // 915-2846; Mobile #: 0917-8911322; Email: galleria.quattrocento@gmail.com; Website: http://www.philpaintings.com/). Quattrocento’s Contact Person is Snap Montemayor, Gallery Supervisor.

FROZEN ACTUALITIES

Rachel Rillo's FROZEN ACTUALITIES Opening on February 9, Thursday at silverlens

In the early 19th c., photography was a way for painters to record still life tableaux, with the intention to paint these later on as realistically as possible. Two centuries later, photorealistic painting is still de rigueur in the Philippines, with photography still taking a backseat to its canvas cousin.

Rachel Rillo does something beautiful with paint, and with photography. Taking objects with shapes all too familiar, she paints a coat of white acrylic over them. These painted forms—an erasure of identity or, alternately, a masking of meaning— she photographs repeatedly against a brown pigment wall. The fissures and cracks in the wall show, witness to time, while the bottles and balls, figures and objects are stripped of scale, duration, and technology. Sunlight wraps around her objects, allowing shadows to fall as they do.

Akin to Morandi’s still life paintings, these are simple photographs. But they are by no means naïve. “The sifting process enables the generation of a new image, one that is estranged, and somehow more sublime, than its original source”, Rillo says.

Rachel Rillo’s Frozen Actualities opens on February 9, 2012 at Silverlens Gallery, simultaneously with Carlos Celdran’s Livin' La Vida Imelda at SLab and Lui Medina’s ASCETICS(UNBOUND) in 20Square. All shows run until March 10, 2012.

Words by Isa Lorenzo; Image: Rachel Rillo, She Sells, 2012

JOEY SIMSIM: SYGNOS

THE QUESTIONINGS OF THE VANISHING

The Ayala Museum invites you to the exhibition opening and reception of SYGNOS. Curated by JCrisanto Martinez, the group exhibition features the works of Joey SimSim, Marga Rodriguez, Milmar Onal, Wayan Narra, Indigo Narra, Manju Gagoomal and Benedict Abigan. SYGNOS opens on 07 February 2012 at 6:00 pm. For further inquiries please contact +63922.331.41.08 or send electronic mail at artepinas@gmail.com. Visit the website www.artepinas.tk

ALVARADO

ASIAN CULTURAL COUNCIL ANNUAL ART AUCTION

Asian Cultural Council Annual Art Auction

Constantly championing the Filipino artist, the Asian Cultural Council

Philippines holds its annual art auction on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012 to raise funds for its Philippine Fellowship Program.

Since its establishment in 2000, the ACC Philippines together with ACC New York Foundation, has been providing grants to over 60 Filipino artists in various disciplines. In the last two years, grants were given to 9 Filipino artists in the fields of visual arts, museology, enthomusicology, theater, and music.

This year’s auction features the art works of Filipino masters and top

contemporary artists courtesy of ACC gallery partners -- Artis Corpus Art Gallery, Art Verite, Big Gallery, Boston Gallery, Crucible Gallery, Finale Art File, Galleria Duemila , Galerie Joaquin, Kingkong Art Projects Unlimited, Liongoren Gallery, Mag:Net Gallery, Manila Contemporary, Pinto Gallery, Silverlens Gallery, Sining Kamalig, The Drawing Room Gallery and Tin-Aw Gallery.

Some of the most distinguished visual artists and ACC grantees have also pledged participation in the event.

The ACC benefit auction starts at 4PM at the Finale Art File, Makati.

Previews begin on Feb. 2, 2012 while online viewing starts on Jan. 28, 2012 at www.asianculturalcouncil.org.

ASIAN CULTURAL COUNCIL ANNUAL ART AUCTION

MARGA RODRIGUEZ: SYGNOS

THE POETICS OF FLORIOGRAPHY

The Ayala Museum invites you to the exhibition opening and reception of SYGNOS. Curated by JCrisanto Martinez, the group exhibition features the works of Joey SimSim, Marga Rodrigues, Milmar Onal, Wayan Narra, Indigo Narra, Manju Gagoomal and Benedict Abigan. SYGNOS opens on 07 February 2012 at 6:00 pm. For further inquiries please contact +63922.331.41.08 or send electronic mail at artepinas@gmail.com. Visit the website www.artepinas.tk

SURFACES

LA LINEA INEXORABLE

ON THE TRAIL BLAZED BY THE PIONEERS

LIVIN’ LA VIDA IMELDA

Livin' La Vida Imelda: Carlos Celdran in Silverlens' Slab

Since 2004, performance artist and cultural activist Carlos Celdran has been performing his multi-media 1970's Philippine history and disco themed "Livin' La Vida Imelda" tour/ performance at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex. His performance explores issues of Cold-War geopolitics, the global influence of Hollywood, Philippine Post-colonial cultural identity and it's constructs, the ideals of democracy in developing nations, and the creation of what Mr. Celdran likes to call: "State sanctioned arts & culture".

This gossipy performance is framed by the biography of the Philippine's flamboyant former first lady Imelda Marcos and set to disco music.

In lieu of the setting provided by Mrs. Imelda Marcos' commissioned architecture, Mr. Celdran will be using handmade visual guides, multi-media and selected artworks among the Silverlens/SLab collection as a jumping point for the "Livin' La Vida Imelda" narrative. This is the second time Mr. Celdran has transposed the performance to a gallery setting. "Livin' La Vida Imelda - The Performance" premiered in 2011 at Twist Gallery in Toronto, Canada.

There will be 15 show dates, these are scheduled on: February 7, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, March 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10.

All shows start promptly at 8 pm and will be held at Silverlens SLab gallery located at the 2/F YMC Building II, 2320 Don Chino Roces Extension (formerly Pasong Tamo Extension), Makati City. Regular tickets sell for P800 while student tickets sell for P400. The performance runs one hour and forty minutes long with a 15-minute intermission.

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT SILVERLENS: 2320 PASONG TAMO EXT., MAKATI CITY,

PLEASE CALL KAT LUCIANO AT 816-0044 (OFFICE HOURS) OR TEXT 0917-587-4011 (ANYTIME).

SANDATAHANG LAKAS PARA KAY LIRIO SALVADOR

Secret Fresh invites you join a worthy movement, as artists unite to raise funds and help cover the hospital expenses of a friend and esteemed colleague, Lirio Salvador. Lirio Salvador a master in transforming everyday and industrial materials into masterpieces of sound assemblages was a hit-and-run victim near Espasyo Singingdikato, a gallery that he owns and manages in Dasmanrinas, Cavite, last December 30, 2011. Starting 2006, his musical installations are tour de forces that have been featured in local venues such as The Drawing Room and Metropolitan Mueseum. As well as international art fairs, Pulse Los Angeles, Scope Basel, Switzerland , Bridge Art Fair New York amongst others. Pieces from his well-known series, Sandata, were also sold by the Christie’s auction house in Hong Kong.

Take advantage of this limited time when works of notable artists such as Dina Gadia, Yasmin Sison, MM Yu, Bjorn Calleja, Christan Tamondong, JP Cuison, Buen Calubayan, Farley Del Rosario, and Roel Obemio will be specially prized and featured in Secret Fresh. 100% of the proceeds of this sale will be sent directly to Lirio’s family to help pay for the mounting medical expenses as he remains to be in a coma to this day.

The exhibit opens on February 5, 2012 at 6pm in Secret Fresh at Ronac Art Center located along Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan. Store hours are from 2pm to 10pm. For more information you can email secretfreshinfo@gmail.com or call 570-9815 local 7