Maria Jeona Zoleta, "Playground Love"
Even with a title like Tricky Sexy Sodomy or The Case of The Attention Seeking Whores, by Maria Jeona’s standards, you could call this show restrained. No bloodstained feminine napkins, no panties and bras hanging anywhere. Certainly a touch more circumspect than we’ve seen from her before. Continue reading
Exhibit installation view
Three colleagues come together for Cosmetic Order, the exhibit now running at MO Space. To quote from the wall notes, this show “…takes from the artists’ fairly recent entanglements with superficiality.” Continue reading
I can’t remember the last time Kiko Escora mounted a solo exhibit. We’ve kept up to date with his work largely through The Drawing Room’s participation in art fairs and his own intermittent appearances in group shows around Manila. This one, then, is long overdue. Continue reading
By Andres Barrioquinto
For his solo exhibit, Shadow Dancer, Andres Barrioquinto continues with his series of portraits embellished by elements from Japanese prints. He has taken this direction for the past two years, decidedly moving away from the darker, mildly grotesque, faces of his early paintings into the realm of the decorative. Andy has adopted the bright palette associated with these prints— bright purples, and oranges, and reds— piling on layers of traditional Japanese figures (the samurai, the geisha, the theater actor) as adornments that partially obscure his subjects’ features. Continue reading
Natee Utarit, "Economy Lesson"
For many of us who keep abreast of the Southeast Asian contemporary art scene, Natee Utarit is a rock star. Arguably Thailand’s best-known painter, he enjoys the same stature that Manila accords Ronald Ventura or Geraldine Javier. Like them, he is a familiar presence in the auction circuit. Natee has exhibited extensively throughout the region, including solo shows in China and Korea. Last year, the Singapore Art Museum mounted a mid-career retrospective of the 41-year-old’s work. Continue reading
By Jigger Cruz
The skull must be to us as the peace sign was to the hippies and rebels of the 1960s and 70s. We see it everywhere, on everything. The visual arts, especially, has adopted it an all manner of works. Damien Hirst’s For The Love of God counts as one of the more notorious ones in recent history, platinum cast and encrusted in diamonds, priced at close to $100 million dollars. Unfazed by the controversy created by the sale (or non-sale, depending on which report one subscribes to), the artist made another one, this time using the cast of an infant’s skull, to inaugurate the Gagosian Gallery’s Hong Kong branch early this year. He called this second version For Heaven’s Sake. Continue reading
Now this is a show! Boredom must count as the biggest peril to an art blogger—well, it is mine. When art overdose sets in, exhibits start melding into one another. I feel as though I’ve seen them all before. It becomes difficult to muster 
excitement from the pieces that stand before you. So when I come across an exhibit that makes me rush back to my computer, eager to post my photos and my thoughts, I know that the thrill of art has come back. Continue reading
Poklong Anading, "Anonimity", lightboxes series
It will hit you, as you make your way around the Singapore Art Museum’s (SAM) galleries, that we share so much of the same sensibilities as our Southeast Asian neighbors. Now on its last week, Negotiating Home History and Nation- Two Decades of Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia 1991-2011 presents a survey of works from within the region by 54 artists whose pieces belong to the museum’s permanent collection. While the overt references to Catholicism obviously originated from the Filipinos, the palette and images that majority of the artists adopted could have come from anywhere: the streets of Manila, KL, Jakarta, Hanoi, or Bangkok. Continue reading
Alfredo Esquillo Jr., "Mamakinley", (image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila)
A break in my schedule allowed me to swing by the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, a serendipitous occurrence I took advantage of as I hardly find myself in that side of town. I so wanted to catch BISA: Potent Presences, and, as luck would have it, there I was. Continue reading
Renato Barja Jr., "How To Fight The Loneliness"
In The Jungle and The Rain, Renato Barja Jr. takes us on a stroll through his former neighborhood, an urban landscape he douses with the color of unpainted
Renato Barja Jr.,"Bumbo the Butcher"
cement, the same ashen hue that water turns into after it’s been used to scrub off grime. He looks back at the love-hate relationship he maintained with this corner of Cavite, at the cast of characters he encountered for five years on a daily basis. With them he shared in the din, the putrid smells, the overall drabness of a working class community, one that recession and Typhoon Ondoy had reduced to skid row. Continue reading