The Maestro and the Master: Roberto Chabet and Bencab in Singapore

Roberto Chabet, "Psychopathology of Everyday Life 2.1", "Piero", and "Cargo and Decoy"

Pinoy art lovers couldn’t but strut on the streets of Singapore —after they stopped to catch their breath from all that scurrying from one affair to the next.  Almost all the fringe events organized around Art Stage Singapore last week involved Filipino visual artists. “That says a lot”, art writer Gina Fairley remarked as we discussed the very palpable Philippine presence in an important week for Southeast Asian art.  Mok Kim Chuan, Head of Southeast Asian Paintings at Sotheby’s observed, “For the first time, Filipinos, not the Indonesians, got all the attention.”

Roberta Dans, Annie Sarthou, Isa Lorenzo, and Bencab at STPI

While two days didn’t give me enough time for everything (I completely missed Manuel Ocampo at vwfa), I’d like to think that I caught the two most important exhibit openings of the week:  To be continuedRoberto Chabet at ICAS La Salle, and Bencab’s Glimpses at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute. Continue reading


Art Stage Singapore Makes Its Debut

Ai Wei Wei, "Through"

Do art fairs take on the qualities of the cities that host them?

Art Stage Singapore opened last week at the convention center of Marina Bay Sands, the slick casino complex that has been anointed the city-state’s current “it” venue.  I looked forward with as much anticipation to my first glimpse of

Another view, Ai Wei Wei, "Through"

the monumental M-shaped edifice as I did to the art inside the fair.Spearheaded by Lorenzo Rudolf, the former director of Art Basel, Art Stage Singapore’s advance publicity promised an event to rival the more established art fairs in the region.  Continue reading


Robert Langenegger Means No Offense

Robert Langenegger, "President of Heaven", lightbox, 17.5x11 3/4 in

We welcome 2011 with the crass, the crude, the inimitable Robert Langenegger.   Love him or hate him, whether his pieces make you laugh out loud or cringe in disgust, you have to admit that Robert’s work is certainly distinct.  He has claimed the cartoon-like renditions of the most coarse and vulgar–injected with a twisted sense of humor–as his very own. This purveyor of the perverse has brought his narratives to Paris, for an exhibit at Talmart Galerie in 2009, and will be headed to Austria, for a residency with the Galerie Zimmermann Krachtochwill this September. Continue reading


My Favorite Piece from 2010, The Year The Museums Showed Us How

Detail, "Balete" by Leeroy New

We saw some pretty good stuff in 2010, the year that just seemed to whiz by.  I thought the museums led the way, bringing us well-mounted exhibits that made art watching both exciting and gratifying.  The Vargas Museum started their 2010 exhibit line-up in February with Stock, a show of works by Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, then had Bound and Bomba in June, and ended the year with Rodel Tapaya’s Bulaklak ng Dila.  The Yuchengco Museum gave us Santi Bose’s retrospective, Remix, in February, and combined art and design with Pumapapel, an exhibit of works on paper, in July.  The Lopez Museum culminated their 50th Anniversary in November by inviting street artists to show their stuff for Extensions.  Meanwhile, the Ateneo Art Gallery celebrated their own 50th by inaugurating their brand new space in October with the super Lee Aguinaldo retrospective. Continue reading


Eugene Jarque and Mac Valdezco Ride In Circles

Mac Valdezco and Eugene Jarque call this exhibit Riding In Circle, an awkward title for a wonderful display of their latest work.  Unfortunately, the show ends in a few days.  This post comes a bit too late, but I thought it a pity to let the show pass and allow

Mac Valdezco, detail, "Mini Rider", monoprint on bed of strings

it to simply disappear, swallowed up by the general chaos of the holidays. Continue reading


Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan Take Us To Another Country while Kawayan de Guia Bombs Away (Again!)

"Another Country" installation view

If I had not known any better, I would have reacted just as bewildered as the shoppers strolling down Bonifacio High Street.  A rooster’s intermittent crowing mingled incongruously with the Christmas carols that blared out from the mall’s speakers.  Passers-by jumped up and glanced around to find its source. A misunderstanding had allowed me to view the current exhibit at MO Space a few days early.  So I knew very well that the repeated cock-a-doodle-doos emanated from the building’s third floor, where Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan laid out their latest work. Continue reading


Rodel Tapaya’s Florid Tales at the Vargas Museum

Rodel Tapaya, "Baston ni Kabunian Bilang pero hindi Mabilang", acrylic on canvas, 10ft x 20 ft

The Jorge B. Vargas Museum in the University of the Philippines’ Diliman campus ends the year (and begins the next) by playing host to an exhibit by contemporary artist Rodel TapayaContinue reading


Joy Mallari Illustrates Doll Eyes

Joy Mallari, "Pasakalye"

Joy Mallari, "Gigil"

Every year, CANVAS (Center for Art, New Ventures, and Sustainable Development) commissions a Filipino visual artist for a painting that will serve as the focal point for a children’s book competition.  The Romeo Forbes Children’s Book Initiative calls for children’s stories woven around this commissioned piece.  Continue reading


Bea Camacho and Maria Taniguchi, Material/Parallel

Bea Camacho, "Module Pair Series"

Now here’s a show that makes others out there look pretty superfluous.  You don’t expect fluff and excess at an exhibit headlined by Bea Camacho and Maria Taniguchi.  You get work that’s been stripped of layers, reduced to their basic essences.  The challenge for the viewer lies in working back, reconstructing what has been peeled off, to fully appreciate their pieces.

Majority of Bea’s works hang in the first of  Galleria Duemila’s two rooms.  Framed simply in black and printed on archival paper, Bea has shown fifteen laser etchings of interconnected triangular patterns.

Maria Taniguchi, "Untitled Mirrors Series"

These depict the manifold combinations that Bea has come up with in her attempts to render two structures into abstract forms.  A small-scale sculpture that resembles two conjoined pyramids has been fabricated similar to an architectural maquette.  Displayed on a stand, this marks Bea’s starting point, the base from which she has transformed the 3D into a series of two-dimensional pieces.

Bea Camacho, "Module Pair Series"

I don’t see myself bringing home art as devoid of ornamentation as Bea creates.  However, I do enjoy sifting through her processes.  Her concepts are never complicated, and her pieces come out as logical conclusions to valid premises.

Maria presents five paintings in black, marked contrasts to Bea’s white works.  Maria has covered

Bea Camacho, "Module Pair Series"

the entirety of her canvases in a brick-like pattern–a labor-intensive, fastidious employment of her painting skills.  She calls these pieces Untitled Mirrors.  Each of them differs from the other through the varied rectangular patterns that seem to have been superimposed in an opposite direction atop the underlying field of “bricks”.  To quote Maria, “I’ve worked with (this pattern) for a couple of years now. I stick to it because it’s efficient and really effective in creating a kind of dimensionality and thingness to the painting.”

Maria Taniguchi, "Untitled Mirrors Series"

I don’t pretend to fully understand Maria’s basis for reducing her work to these forms.  But I do admit a fascination to what she has created, not least of all because of the obvious amount of work she has put into her acrylic  paintings.  The repetitiveness of those bricks mesmerize; one could lose oneself enjoying their depths.

Material/Parallel runs from 5 December 2010 to 30 January 2011 at Galleria Duemila, 210 Loring St., Pasay City. Phone (632)831-9990 or visit http://www.galleriaduemila.com

Maria Taniguchi, "Untitled Mirrors Series"

Exhibit installation of Bea Camacho's pieces

Exhibit installation

Bea Camacho, "Module Pair" sculpture


Pinto Art Museum Opens Its Doors

Salingpusa Collective, "Karnabal", 1992

Elmer Borlongan, "Walang Iwanan", 1999 and "Hating Kapatid", 1993

Only Dr. Joven Cuanang can make Manila’s culturati trek all the way to the hills of Antipolo early on a Sunday morning. Continue reading