Nona Garcia, "A Series Of Fractures", x-ray plates made into light boxes
I loved the quiet impact of Fractures, Nona Garcia’s show that opened this week at West Gallery. I honestly did not know what to expect from this, her third show of the year, coming as it did on the heels of her SLab and Finale exhibits. For those two shows, Nona gave us major pieces, firmly announcing she had come back after a brief hiatus. As majestic as her two oversized paintings
Nona Garcia, "Above Water", photo assemblage
had been, White, blank(at Slab in March) and Fall Leaves After LeavesFall (at Finale in May) simply reacquainted us with Nona. She revisited signature devices, her portraits from behind and depictions of damaged and abandoned spaces. Continue reading →
It was not difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the galleries that thought about what they would
At West Gallery, Roberto Chabet collage, "The Erection of the Obelisk"
show for Manilart 10 from those that did not. You could tell which ones regularly mount exhibits as opposed to those who simply maintain spaces to sell paintings. I suppose, in the end, the commercial aspects of the fair outweighed all other considerations. And with 55 galleries joining this year, you had enough paintings to satisfy all sorts of sensibilities (and I do mean ALL sorts!). Continue reading →
Appropriating Kippenberger: Dear Painter, Paint For Me
So what exactly is a painting? That seems to be the question that Nilo Ilarde asks us to consider as we make our way around the colossal pieces of Painting As Something And The Opposite of Something, his solo exhibit currently on view at Finale Art File.
On a visual level, the show is spectacular. We get that wow factor without feeling overwhelmed by the number and the size of his work. While we see treatment that recall past pieces (words scraped on the wall, empty tubes of paint), we come upon surprising additions.
We all know that Nilo puts his curatorial stamp on a good number of shows in Manila. So he knew exactly how to work with Finale’s expansive Tall Gallery. But we also know that Nilo challenges on another, more cerebral, level. And his exhibits engage all the more because of that.
For starters, we have been asked to suspend our conventional notion of paintings, and accept the five pieces he has on view as his paintings, unorthodox as that may sound.
The first of those five immediately catches our eye. Scratched out in gigantic letters that fill most of the gallery’s long wall, Nilo appropriates Martin Kippenberger’s cheeky request: Dear Painter, Paint For Me. The line comes from the title of Kippenberger’s seminal suite of works from 1981 that also turned painting on its ear. Kippenberger had a sign painter execute his portraits in various stage-managed tableaux. In Nilo’s piece, the statement on the wall is itself the finished product. You have a painting, albeit one that had undergone the reverse process from the norm. Paint has carefully been stripped off wood, rather than brushed on it.
At the foreground, "The Void Speaks In Each Painting, Between The Brushstrokes"
Across from this, we see a glass receptacle that houses hundreds of used paint tubes. We saw about half this amount in 2009, as I Have Nothing to Paint, and I’m Painting It. Now with double the number collected from various artists, Nilo has transformed the piece into The Void Speaks In Each Painting, Between The Brushstrokes. Here we see the response to Kippenberger’s plea: Nilo’s colleagues, dear painters all, have indeed painted for him. Composer John Cage once said that the gap between the notes can also be considered as music. Discarded paint tubes make up a painting’s gap. Thus, these repositories of paint, from which several paintings had been created, collectively make up a painting too.
Beside the amassed tubes hangs a boxing ring’s old floor,
A closer look at the collection of empty paint tubes
resurrected, with much cajoling, from the Elorde Sports Center storage. This massive square of printed canvas acts as Nilo’s third painting. He installs this as a diamond, a nod to Mondrian’sVictory Boogie Woogie. Filled with drips of sweat accumulated from the numerous boxers who have sparred on it, their DNA served as the paint that completed the piece.
The Boxing Ring
How can we miss The Road To Flatness? A crushed blue car suspended high above the gallery’s far wall and installed just as a large-scale painting will definitely receive its share of attention. A hired pay loader went to work on an old Volkswagen Beetle until the car had been completely squashed. The pay loader mimicked an Abstract Expressionist, levelling the car’s figure, obliterating all but it’s basic form.
In Making Nothing Out Of Something, Nilo goes further than merely scraping off paint from the gallery’s walls. With the intent to start afresh–he uses the term Tabula Rasa– he completely removed all traces of what had been in that portion of the wall, layer by layer, until only empty space remains. But the irony is, because the emptiness gives us a peek into what we did not see before (Finale’s backroom), he hasn’t really created nothing. We get a framed look at more paintings—Nilo’s final painting of stacked paintings.
“The paintings are about paintings thinking about paintings”, is how Nilo explains his work. We could probably say the same thing about his impact on us. Once we’ve gone beyond the visual feast, the show gets us thinking about paintings too. Well, it did me.
Painting As Something And As The Opposite Of Something runs from 9 July to 2 August at the Finale Art File, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo, Makati City. Phone (632)813-2310 or visit http://www.finaleartfile.com
Sometimes only a Pinoy word will do to convey an incredible experience. Find time to pass by the Ateneo Art Gallery’s newly-
Another detail, "Balete"
expanded space (they’ve completely taken over the old Rizal Library), and see if you don’t agree with me. How else can you describe
Detail, Leeroy New, "Balete"
Leeroy New’s installation other than galing? Because it is. So galing! Conceptualized with thinking that goes beyond awesome, and put together by the creative use of simple materials that goes beyond super, you really just have to say
Leeroy New next to his Balete tree
“Ang Galing!”
In Balete, Leeroy wraps the posts of the gallery’s facade with his version of a Balete tree, one constructed from cable lines , flexible tubing used for electric conduits. Accented by plastic cable ties, the tree twists and turns between the building’s columns, simulating the gnarling, gigantic roots of an actual Balete. Also known as the Banyan in Southeast Asia, the Balete possesses a mystical reputation. It guards sacred spaces, monasteries and old churches. Leeroy comments that the orange cables remind him of the saffron robes used by Buddhist monks.
Detail, "Balete"
In the Philippines, we know the Balete as the dwelling place of extra-terrestrials and enchanted spirits. Leeroy worked with graphic designer Dan Matutina for projections that mimic the enchantments bestowed by legend on a Balete. Come by during the evenings of the exhibit’s run and catch the apparitions suggested by the light patterns. You may even see a wisp of the legendary White Lady crossing the tree’s intermingling branches.
Another view of Balete
Simultaneous to Leeroy’s installation, Kiri Dalena mounts Watch History Repeat Itself inside the gallery’s space for contemporary exhibits. Kiri continues her documentation of protest slogans that began with Keeping the Faith, the piece that won the 2009 Ateneo Art Awards. Earlier this year, she carried on this exercise in The Present Disorder Is The Order Of The Future (for which she got into the shortlist of this year’s awards) by using marble slabs as the medium to memorialize these slogans and placard texts. For this current exhibit, she shifts to another medium—neon lights. The idea of recording text in neon came to her after an evening spent with
Kiri Dalena's Yellow Book of Slogans
Caucasian colleagues in the red light district of Mabini. Subjected to the indignities that inevitably fall on a young Filipina seen in the company of foreigners, the experience sparked her militant streak, leading to an “aha” moment among the flashing signs. In her exhibit, she recreates the tag Liar Liar in neon, appropriated from the Jim Carrey movie by rally participants of a 2004 protest action after the Hello Garci scandal. Kiri also compiles her collected texts in her Yellow Book Of Slogans. Playing on one wall is video clip borrowed from ABS-CBN News. It shows a student protest at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. The film catches school chairs being hurled from inside the campus, forming a mound of chairs that echo the detritus left from student protests during the Martial Law era. A sure sign that some things never change.
Neon bright: Liar Liar
Both Leeroy and Kiri return to the gallery for homecoming exhibits after their 2009 Ateneo Art Awards residency grants. Leeroy spent time in Sydney, at the LaTrobe University Visual Arts Centre while Kiri went to Bandung, Indonesia, to the Common Room Networks Foundation.
History in neon
Balete runs from 14 July to 30 October 2010.
Watch History Repeat Itself runs from 14 July to 16 August 2010.
Both shows are at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. Phone (632)426-6488 or visit http://www.gallery.ateneo.edu
Video still from installation of "Watch History Repeat Itself"
The celebration continues at Tin-Aw with the second installment of their anniversary exhibit. I must say I enjoyed this show more
Detail, Pamela Yan Santos, "Sugar Coated"
than the first. Perhaps it had to do with the combination of pieces. Perhaps the smaller number of artists included in this show made me appreciate each artist’s effort more. Perhaps the exhibit’s installation just felt easier to navigate. Perhaps it was all of the above! Continue reading →
I wanted to see this show because its title intrigued me. Why does Jonathan Ching need to search for Botero’s leg? It turns out that he intends for the exhibit toplay on memories, random thoughts and experiences that cross hismind, including recollections
Found: Botero's Leg
of his own past work. A favorite computer game, Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego, inspired the exhibit’s title, along with the show’s biggest piece.
Jonathan Ching, "Topiary Of My Mind"
In the first three panels of Living With Botero’s Leg, a multi-media quadriptych, Jon depicts distinctive footwear: two styles of cowboy boots and a pair of silk Chinese slippers for bound feet. None of them would suit the hefty proportions of a Fernando Botero subject, an approximation of which he places on the piece’s fourth panel. Here we find the elusive leg, portly as expected, cast in metal, and crowned with tin embellishments used for altarpieces. With this piece, Jon continues his series of incorporating objects within his paintings, a device he used extensively for his show at Blanc Compound in April.
Smaller canvases make up the rest of the show, most of them oval-shaped. Jon felt
Detail, "Topiary Of My Mind"
that his personal reminiscences called for these intimate sizes. On two of these, Topiary Of My Mindand Chimes, he integrates sculpted blackbirds fabricated from polymer clay.
Exhibit Installation
The pieces I find most interesting are the three free-standing sculpture of black swans that hearken to origami, the Japanese art of creating figures from folded paper. Constructed from GI sheets and finished with automotive paint, the swans reference his past work, an installation of numerous folded birds from his 2003 two-man show with Christina Dy at the now-defunct Surrounded By Water. I don’t exactly know how these three pieces fit in with his paintings, and perhaps they don’t. However, I think it would be great to see him take his origami sculpture further, explore different patterns, even experiment with textures. Maybe next time, at some future show, Jon can allow his sculpture to take center stage. But of course, I am usually more partial to sculpture. So perhaps my biases are showing.
Jonathan Ching, "Two Rivers"
Where In The World Is Botero’s Leg runs from 9 July to 2 August 2010 at Finale Art File, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo, Makati. Phone (632) 813-2310 or visit http://www.finaleartfile.com or visit http://www.jonching.com
Now this is my kind of group show. The concept is simple, and you don’t get overwhelmed by the range of pieces on view. Four
Pow Martinez, "Walking Corpse"
artists seem to be a good number for the venue, both to give each artist enough space to showcase their work, and for the viewer to take in the variety of styles present. Continue reading →
Maria Jeona, detail, "Monogamist Kultur at Si Sexy at Maraming Stretchmarks at Malalaking Butas ng Ilong Long Long"
Early last week, I spent 14 hours straight in serious contemplation of art, and the better part of the next few days writing about it. Even I needed a break from the art overload. Enter Maria Jeona and her first solo show, mounted at SLab’s 20Square, the perfect antidote to all that cerebral activity. She gave me just what I needed to get back into the swing of Manila’s art scene after a (very brief!) hiatus. Continue reading →
I made it a point to come in early for the opening reception of Attached, Mark Salvatus’ show at The Drawing Room. You appreciate Mark’s work by going through his process, the thinking that went behind the creation of his pieces. I wanted a chance to speak to him before the crowds made their appearance.
This show brings together various projects, components of a series he calls Wrapped. The work he exhibits here continue from work that he carried out in the various communities around the world where he spent time in art residency programs. To quote Lisa Chikiamco’s notes, “…these projects examine the ideas of presence through the imprints left behind.”
Mark Salvatus, detail, "Attached"
Attached is also the title of the exhibit’s main piece, the latest work in this series. Mark stationed himself in his downtown Manila neighborhood and asked random passers-by to trace possessions found on their person onto sheets of paper. He then filled these outlines with pencil patterns that make these objects appear to be swathed in bandages. Hence, “wrapped”. Mark cut out each person’s collection of “wrapped” objects and framed them in glass. In the show, we see the frames installed as vitrines lined up on the walls, one frame for each individual’s group of objects. You get diverted going through the vitrines and identifying the objects through their wrapped outlines (was that a set of keys or a lizard with a squiggly tail?).
Another detail from "Attached"
On the gallery’s main exhibit wall hangs Wrapped: Persona, a piece that includes some video element. Mark started work on this in 2007. He photographed individuals with their faces covered by a generic “wrapped” mask. Mark then made an approximation of the shapes of these individuals’ heads, “wrapped” these with his pencil patterns, and cut them out. He has dozens of these wrapped paper masks installed on the wall beside his video
Installation shot, "Attached"
screen.
Mark Salvatus makes my list of the most talented and intelligent artists working in Manila today. His strength comes out when he mounts pieces that have gone through a complete conceptual process. In other words, they don’t work as well in group shows where he is perhaps limited to doing wall-bound, more commercial pieces. He has brought his art to Europe, the Middle East, and to other parts of Asia. In May, he represented the collective TutoK at Melbourne’s Next Wave Festival. However, I do admit a bias towards his pieces produced from his immersion with inmates in the Manila City Jail, work shown in his exhibit Courtyard at Pablo last year. I also loved Secret Garden, his piece for the 2009 Sungduan at the National Musem, for which he has been shortlisted for this year’s Ateneo Art Awards. While I don’t find Attached as compelling as his previous exhibits, the works do prove the commitment he invests on his concepts. If you find the time to speak to him, as I did, you can’t but admire the steadfastness with which he regards his practice of art.
Alwin Reamillo, detail of "Mutya ng Pasig", one of his restored pianos
A friend of mine described it as an art lover’s show. And with good reason. Alwin Reamillo continues to channel his family’s involvement in local piano-making into art pieces, producing large and small wall-bound assemblages and three restored pianos. Clouds and Wings is a two-person exhibit with Juliet Lea, and aside from both artists’ individual works, they also show collaborative pieces.
Installation of four large-scale wings
It’s the first time that I’ve seen Manila Contemporary mount an exhibit without a cast of thousands. What a difference it makes when the space allows us viewers to enjoy an artist’s work in-depth. Although I am familiar with Alwin’s piano projects, and I know that the Singapore Art Museum acquired one of his pianos for its collection, I have not actually seen any of them before. Here he shows one grand piano inspired by Nicanor Abelardo, embellished with image transfers and found objects. He treats his wings in a similar vein, finishing these off with the gloss that you use on actual pianos. The wings take their name from the shape of the grand piano’s awning. He names four of the bigger ones after seasonal wind directions: Amianan, Katimugan, Kanluran, Sirangan.
Alwin Reamillo, "Katimugan (Southern Wing)"
I suppose I can safely say that both artists work a lot with image transfers. Although Juliet also exhibits a series of paintings on wood of mainly polka dot patterns. These remind me a bit too much of Yayoi Kusama’s work. I prefer her Cloud Books, charcoal cloud drawings on book paper. And I thought she did really beautiful work for Garden Of Delights, where she put her image transfers on printed fabric. Two other pieces on printed fabric were done in collaboration with Alwin. All these works on fabric spilled over with rich details that you won’t ever get tired of. Well, I wouldn’t.
I missed the piano performance on opening night, but I did catch the random playing that ensued the rest of the evening. The tinkling of the keys, the free-flowing wine, and hors d’oeuvres from Cibo’s adjacent commissary—not a bad way to spend the early part of a Saturday evening.
Clouds and Wings runs from 19 June to 11 July 2010 at Manila Contemporary, Whitespace, 2314 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City. Phone (632) 844-7328 or visit http://www.manilacontemporary.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKSQF0FaZ5M
Alwin Reamillo, "Nicanor Abelardo Grand Piano"
Portrait of Nicanor Abelardo on the grand piano's soundboard
Another detail, grand piano
Alwin Reamillo, "Cloud Piano"
Juliet Lea, "Cloud Painting"
Juliet Lea, "Garden of Delights"
Juliet Lea and Alwin Reamillo, "Humayo Ka Satanas, sapagkat ito ay nakasulat, Wala kang ibang sasambahin kundi ang Panginoon Mong Diyos at tanging Siya lamang ang iyong paglilinkuran"
Alwin Remillo and Juliet Lea, detail of "Humayo Kayo at Magparami"
