Post No Bill at Manila Contemporary

Alwin Reamillo, "Untitled (Crab Eye)", shredded bank notes and mixed media on crabshell in plexiglass

I approach group shows with trepidation, frequently hoping I don’t find a hodgepodge of pieces haphazardly thrown together merely to make up the numbers. Although Manila’s most recent group exhibits (at least the ones I’ve managed to catch) have not given cause for complaint.  Neither does Post No Bill, just opened at Manila Contemporary. Continue reading


Mark Justiniani Goes 3D

Mark Justiniani, "Impasse"

As he prepared for this exhibit, Mark Justiniani would wake up excited every morning. “A little nervous too”, he added, “as if I were a young artist just doing his first show!” Five notebooks and his iPad had been filled with scribbles in black ink. The sketches served as studies and ruminations, his preparations for the series of works now making their debut at Finale Art Gallery. Continue reading


Momentously Monumental

Elmer Borlongan, "Pag-ahon"

I never thought I’d wish Manila Contemporary had more space.  But when an exhibit like Monumental comes along, even the vast proportions of Metro Manila’s most capacious gallery seems crowded. Continue reading


Happy Birthday Tin-Aw!

Jose John Santos III, "Clouded"

In my book, Tin-Aw holds the title as Makati’s most convivial gallery (Art Informal gets my vote for the Ortigas area).  How often have I stopped by for a quick look, only to end up staying longer than intended, chatting and laughing with other art lovers who also just happen to drop by?   Where else do you run into art superstars Mark Justiniani, Joy Mallari, Geraldine Javier, or Alfredo Esquillo Jr., and get to sit down with them as old friends?  Here, art is taken seriously, but is never intimidating.  You get treated with the same amount of charm, and welcomed with the same offer for Chocnut or coffee, whether you happen to be super collector Paulino Que or Mr. Newbie To The Art Scene.  Therein lies the secret to Tin-Aw’s success, the reason we all keep coming back to see what treasures their backroom holds. Continue reading


Mark Justiniani Goes Out To Play

Mark Justiniani likes to play. Not many people know that Mark uses clay to prepare for his paintings.  He molds his figures, shapes them with his hands, and creates miniature tableaux of his narratives.  He studies the resulting three-dimensional scenes for nuances of light and shadow that he translates into his painted images.

Detail, "Aiming for Windmills"

Mark Justiniani enjoys paradoxes.  His pieces, especially his paintings on canvas and on wood, frequently employ graphic puns that fool around with the titles of his pieces or the absurdity of his images.  He also enjoys working with mirrors, using them as devices to aid his visual tricks.  For his 2005 piece, Bipolar, he attached a scratchboard that spelled out God against a mirror of roughly the same size.  Seen through the mirror, his stylized letters transform into the word Bad.  Mark loves to dwell on these juxtapositions, this coming together of opposite sides.

Mark Justiniani identifies with the Pinoy.  His love for Philippine language, history, and culture pervades throughout his work.  He peppers his visuals with uniquely Pinoy touches:  Jose Rizal holding on to a flagpole for dear life, the Illustrado who wears a hat too big for his head, OFWs sailing away on a fragile paper boat.  Underlying this is a close affinity to Pinoy humor. Even as he tackles the social realities of the day, Mark’s pieces retain the sense of self-deprecating whimsy that is so Filipino.

Detail, "Aiming For Windmills"

Mark Justiniani brings all these together, crystallizing all the elements that he uses as an artist, into a show of supersized proportions. Working with curator Patrick Flores, Mark propels to a new direction with Malikmata, a major solo exhibit opening this month at SLab.

Mark Justiniani "A Jar of Fireflies"

To move his art forward, Mark journeys back to his boyhood.  He takes accoutrements from a bucolic childhood spent in the sugar fields of Bacolod, and morphs them into gigantic, interactive objects and installations in resin, glass, mirrors, and steel.  Lola Basyang meets Anish Kapoor.

Malikmata means blink of an eye, and indeed, walking around his pieces will make viewers do a double take.  Aiming For Windmills is a six-foot- high slingshot fabricated in steel, the two points of its yoke connected by a rubber band 20 feet long.  It tilts to one side, ready to take aim with its bullet, a silicone head two feet in diameter.  A resin palm-sized firely hovers in its vicinity.

As a young boy Mark ran around catching spiders.  He sat listening to tales of aswang and duwende.  He snuck out at dusk chasing fireflies. His pieces allow you to glory in these reminiscences.

Detail of Agtabayon's chain mail with carabao horn inserts

Marvel at Collision, the four-foot -long matchbox of resin and steel, painted to resemble the box of Sunset matches from the 1970s, slid open to reveal enormous crossed matchsticks and Agtabayon, a pre-colonial Filipino diety in full battle armor. He fiercely protects the Philippines against a menacing spider decked in the battle gear of a Spanish conquistador.  Waiting in the wings, ready to spin its deadly web is another spider who symbolizes the American invader.   With its multiple components, I find this to be the most interesting piece of the show.

Mark Justiniani, "Collision"

Feel the sides of  the man-sized Jar of Fireflies,  made to simulate glass, translucent from the glow of fist-sized fireflies electronically blinking from within.  Peer through peepholes that bore through three sides of Council,  a nuno sa punso’s chest-high mound of fiberglass and steel shavings. Each set of peepholes show the goblins in varying states of battle.  Avoid the stare of the fiberglass tikbalang mounted high on a resin shirt of a child it has preyed on.

The pre-colonial diety, Agtabayon, standing up against the Spanish conquistador spider

As Patrick Flores describes it, Mark “…lapses into childhood in this exhibition, a wonderful place to be …he is able to take a pause from painting to recover the sense of play and image before “art.” It is a transition period in his practice, and uncannily he surrounds himself with artifacts of perception or the “techniques of the observer” that afford him a double vision, so to speak: a look back at the past and a glimpse into a possible future.”

Detail of spider as spanish conquistador

Mark Justiniani spent months doodling, filling six sketchbooks with ideas for this show.   He forged and reforged maquettes in clay.  He built wooden prototypes and consulted with experts.  All his energies culminate in this fantastic display that Manila’s art scene has not witnessed before.

Mark Justiniani, "Ligaw'

One piece in this exhibit stands out for its normal proportions. Inscribed on a strip of metal, which he pleated just as an accordion, are the words Tayo Na Kinupkop Sa Sinag ng Dilim.  Stand to the right and the words blend together to read Takipsilim.  Dusk.  That special time when day melds into the night, and it is neither light nor dark.  A paradox that Mark Justiniani revels in, that point of evolution that echoes just where he himself currently stands.

Detail of spider as an American GI

One view of "Takipsilim"

Another view, "Takipsilim"

Malikmata runs from 19 February to 13 March 2010 at SLab, 2F YMC Bldg. 2, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City.  Phone (632)816-0044 or visit http://www.slab.silverlensphoto.com

Mark Justinian, "Ligaw" at upper left, and "Council"

Note:  This post is reprinted from an article I wrote for the February 2010 issue of Rogue Magazine.  See http://www.rogue.ph

Julie Lluch, Mark Justiniani, Gilda Cordero Fernando, Dawn Atienza, and Joy Mallari

Haraya Ching takes a peep into Council


A peep through "Council"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsQ_W0mgrKk


Viewing The Paulino Que Collection of Young Contemporary Artists (aka, The I Wish They Were Mine Show)

Three years ago, Ambeth Ocampo arranged for the

Kim Atienza and Ayala Museum's Ken Esguerra with Jojo Legaspi's "St Thelma"

Kim Atienza and Ayala Museum's Ken Esguerra with Jojo Legaspi's "St Thelma"

Board of Trustees of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines to view Paulino and Hetty Que’s collection of Philippine art and historical objets.  Ambeth, perhaps only half-kidding, dubbed the occasion the tour of the”… real National Gallery”.  As he took us through the assembly of works, from Juan Luna’s canvases, to Fabian dela Rosa’s landscapes, then onto the Amorsolos, and the Thirteen Moderns, from the Ben Cabs to the Ang Kiukoks, we realized what Ambeth meant.  The staggering display covered the whole gamut of Philippine art history from Damian Domingo’s Academia de Dibujo to the 1980s.   Continue reading


Tin-Aw Turns One!

 

Don Salubayba "The Best Unit of Oneself is Oneself"

Don Salubayba "The Best Unit of Oneself is Oneself"

When Dawn Atienza decided to finally open her own gallery, she knew the kind of place she longed for.  Aside from an easily accessible location, she wanted her space to simulate the relaxed, informal atmoshpere of Art In The Park, the Museum Foundation’s annual affordable art fair. Continue reading


Mark Justiniani and Joy Mallari at Sitio Remedios

Early this year, sometime in Febuary or March, the Museum Foundation of the Philippines went on a cultural tour of Ilocos. We visited the churches of Paoay and Sta. Monica, enjoyed the famed empanada of Batac,  drove all the way up north to Pagudpud, and on our last day, spent time in the heritage town of Vigan.  Throughout our stay,  we had as our base Sitio Remedios,  the lovely resort of art patron Dr. Joven Cuanang, beautifully situated by the sea in Currimao, Ilocos Norte. From here, after a hearty breakfast of longganisa and rice, we would start our day, driving off to see the sights.  In the evenings, we returned to sunset cocktails and dinners by the beach, unwinding amidst the glow of hundreds of candles. Continue reading