MM Yu, Jonathan Ching, At Maculangan, and Cos Zicarelli at Silverlens

MM Yu, "Beliefs II", detail

Another terrific trio opened at Silverlens last week, three shows that also relaunched the gallery as a single space with three exhibit areas. SLab and 20Square opened in 2008 as two distinct galleries under the Silverlens group, envisioned for non-photography exhibits. These two spaces and the original photography gallery will now all carry the Silverlens name, with a soon-to-open Silverlens Singapore in the pipeline for the last quarter of the year.

MM Yu, Inventory

Whether she’s documenting superstar artists at work, like she did last year for Manila Contemporary’s Monumental, or recording scenes in the city, no one captures details like MM Yu. Her photographs brim with wit and catch the ridiculous in the otherwise mundane.

In this show, MM reconfigures colored photographs from a trove encompassing ten years of work. Among them, a wonderful series she calls Sit, a collection of photographs of used couches and armchairs. Abandoned on roadsides, or gouged with their springs exposed, some with their floral upholstery set against grimy concrete walls, or standing awkwardly on three wooden legs, MM’s chairs chronicle the seedy side of the city. Study the background detail of the images in Sit I and Sit II, and you realize that they could have only come from the environs of Metro Manila.

This familiarity with Manila likewise flavors her Inventory series, a group of photographs of knick-knacks for sale, trinkets amassed in colored plastic baskets that we first saw in her 2010 solo Waste Not Want Not at Finale Art Gallery. Beliefs I and II are two groups of ten framed photographs displayed on shelves. They showcase objects of faith, mostly Catholic symbols of which our city is rife, in not quite pristine conditions.

The joy derived from MM’s work comes from the transformation she has wrought on the banal and decrepit, realities we can’t help but confront. MM’s lenses tint them differently.

MM Yu, "Sit II", detail

MM Yu, "Sit I" and "Sit II"

MM Yu, "Sit III" and "Sit IV"

MM Yu, "Subject/ Object"

MM Yu, "Beliefs I", detail

MM Yu, "Beliefs II", detail

MM Yu, "Inventory" series

Detail

MM Yu, "Pantone"

MM Yu, "Like Pulling Someone's Hair Back"

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Jonathan Ching and At Maculangan, Postlocal 2012: As Is Where Is

Every year, Isa Lorenzo curates Postlocal. She puts together an unlikely combination of artists in a single show. This year’s edition has not only paired two artists with different aesthetics, it has also introduced us to an unheralded side to one of them.

At Maculangan has made his name as one of our more successful commercial photographers. What I did not realize until now is that he actually majored in Painting at the University of Sto. Tomas. He returns to this medium with oil and beeswax renditions of pin-ups from the 1940s. He has de-glamorized these women with his menacing impressions of them in black and white, smeared here and there with the occasional splotch of color.

They hang side by side with Jonathan Ching’s paintings, thick dabs of paint depicting subjects also taken from familiar photographs. Jon incorporates commissioned copper objects to embellish his paintings. I remember when he first experimented with this device, some three years ago now. Here we experience it expanded, polished, and turned into his visual signature.

Jonathan Ching, "Secret Silence of Gods and Rainbows"

At Maculangan, "L"

Jonathan Ching, "Charlie Foxtrot"

At Maculangan, "Spatial Memory"

Jonathan Ching, "All Things Are Last Things"

Detail, copper wing

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Costantino Zicarelli, Empire

Costantino Zicarelli just spent the winter in Norway, on two residency programs. There he completed the three drawings now exhibited in this show, graphite works on paper of some of his favorite album covers.

Empire is the name of the exhibit’s centerpiece, the word spelled out in fluorescent lights. The sculpture dominates the small alcove where the show is mounted, as it should. After all, empire does not connote the puny or the meek.

The exhibit notes explain that Empire celebrates how far Cos has already traveled as an artist, from his beginnings in the Northern province of Isabela. I see Empire as his personal goal. The word throws down a challenge, and pushes him towards what he has yet to conquer.

Inventory, Postlocal: As Is Where Is, and Empire run from 19 April to 19 May 2012 at Silverlens, 2F YMC Bldg. 2, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City. Phone (632) 816-0044 or www.silverlensgalleries.com