Less is More

Ramona Rivera

‘Less is more’ seems to be the new mantra of the former frontman of the psychedelic punk band Poppy Field, Jet Melencio. He studied at the UP College of Fine Arts in the early 90s and has created a hybrid body of work that combines paintings, objects, installations and floor works made out of various incongruous materials. Also a curator, he has worked for the Ayala Museum and was a key artist at Big Sky Mind, where he led a barrage of collaborations between artists and musicians in a series of Soundlab projects. Back in Manila after several years in the US and Canada, he has shed much of his excess fur and his new works are leaner and more elemental than ever.

We saw his work earlier this year at The Unnamable group exhibition curated by Roberto Chabet at Manila Contemporary. Entitled ‘Swan Dive’, it is a deceivingly simple photograph of a makeshift and flimsy diving board perilously perched on the edge of a cliff, which later on is revealed to be the actual site of the infamous Jabidah Massacre in Corregidor.

In The Clear Light, a tightly curated group exhibition also by Mr. Chabet currently ongoing at MO_Space, Mr. Melencio returned to the basic technique of frottage or surface rubbings to map the gallery’s floor and installed the drawings on top of tables, each one with one leg shorter, creating an uneven and rocky terrain. Appropriately called ‘The First Bardo’, the work refers to “the first stage of death when one momentarily enjoys a perfect balance before descending to the lower states. It alludes not only to the tremulous quality of the surface/image but also to the instability of the human consciousness.”

Mr. Melencio’s installation occupies the entire floor of the gallery and is the perfect roost for the works of his two fellow dharma bums in the exhibition. In the small room within the gallery, Jed Escueta’s black and white photographs of drug-induced heavenly visions also speak of the same tremors that yield to a kind of little death or a light-awareness, which descends as soon as we partake of the holy smoke.

Sharing the main room with Mr. Melencio, Pardo de Leon’s new works are uncharacteristic for the artist known for her exquisite figurative paintings using vivid colors. This time she uses only white, still applied thickly, but sandwiched between two canvasses, so we only see the back of the painting, raw canvas and stretcher. Her other work, the skeletal frame of a kayak suspended from the ceiling of the gallery is likewise an abstraction and an affirmation of the material. Entitled Eftya (The Clear Light), it is a device similarly used in Zen theatre, which employs minimal gestures and props to create the faintest suggestion.

Speaking of theatre, Ballet Philippines’ most recent presentation Crisostomo Ibarra just had its first run at the Cultural Center of the Philippines last weekend. Under the direction of Paul Morales, it was an excellent abridged version of the epic tale, a minimalist take on an otherwise dense melodrama. Jet Melencio designed the sets and costumes and again brings his pared down sensibility in The Clear Light to the production, allowing for a harmonious equilibrium between the other elements in the show – the movement of the dancers, the lights, and an impressive original musical score.

Like the exhibition, Mr. Melencio’s design for Crisostomo Ibarra uses an economy of means – black and white costumes (except for the brown cloaks of Padre Damaso and Padre Salvi), a few simple props and a blank movable Japanese – type screen that serves as the only backdrop. The only thing that seemed a bit excessive in the whole production were the video projections, which could have been edited down further, and instead of appearing as a constant element on the stage, it would have been interesting if they were only projected during particular scenes, the rest could have been pure light or darkness.

The move towards simplicity is refreshing amid all the noise, controversies and frenetic energy in today’s art scene. Caught up with so much spectacle and speculation, many artists are embroiled in their own horror vaccui. Illumination may still be far away, but at least there are some glimmers of a clear light, an exit in times of emergencies.

(‘The Clear Light’ is ongoing at MO_Space until October 31, 2010.)

CUT2010: Small World

Ramona Rivera

With the advent of digital technology, photography has now become a ubiquitous part of daily life. With the increasing ease and speed of its dissemination, it is undoubtedly one of the most accessible and democratic art forms. Everyone can be a photographer and photography is everywhere – from books, newspapers, magazines, street corners, malls, buildings, private homes, galleries, museums, to the internet. More interestingly, everything now can be the subject of a photograph.

CUT 2010: Parallel Universe, Valentine Willie’s annual survey of photography from Southeast Asia, departs from the conventional function of the photograph as a representation of the real, and instead focuses on the alternate visions, fantasy and fetish that pervade in the works of eleven young and emerging photographers from the region. Curated by Eva McGovern, Valentine Willie’s new overall curator, the exhibition includes works by Agan Harahap, Eiffel Chong, Frankie Callaghan, Michael Shaowanasai, Mintio, Sara Nuytemans and Arya Pandjalu, Shooshie Sulaiman, Tanapol Kaewpring, Wawi Navarroza, Wimo Bayang, and Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists.

Having made the rounds of Valentine Willie’s several outposts in the region, CUT 2010 finally opened in the Philippines, at Manila Contemporary last September 18. At first glance, the photographs in the exhibition seem unremarkable, perhaps brought on by the manner of their presentation. The gallery’s already cavernous space is simply too small for the number of photographs included in this exhibition. Granted that photographers often work in series, but not everything needs to be included to deliver the point. The barrage of images have a de-sensitizing, numbing effect, little is retained after seeing the show.

Except for the works of Wawi Navarroza and Shooshie Sulaiman, the other works in the exhibition follow the default output of most photographs, the traditional standard-size print on fine paper. Of course, these are more acceptable for buyers, but it denies the possibilities that contemporary photographers have already established – that photography is more than just a printed image, more than just its subject, but is a process that can have various manifestations. Photocopies, x-rays, lightboxes, albums, videos, projections, installations, even particular type of paintings and sculptures, can be linked to photography. Their inclusion would have given this exhibition a wider sense of contemporaneity and a more dynamic definition of what photography can be today.

(CUT 2010: Parallel Universe is ongoing at Manila Contemporary until October 10, 2010.)

Catalina Africa: The Etymology of Disaster

Ramona Rivera

Catalina Africa’s first solo exhibition The Etymology of Disaster, which opened last September 14, 2010 at West Gallery, ruminates on the origin of perceived tragedies, “involving moments so small, and almost secret that you hardly even notice them.” Her photographs, charts and collages depict and use everyday scenes and objects, so familiar to our landscape, yet in their ease, there is an underlying current that is seemingly just waiting to implode.

Her collection of sunset photos retrieves the image from the deep horizon of clichés and banalities. She says, “sunsets are so overused and abused that they’ve become almost sad. Yet we never tire of them, we never fail to comment on a beautiful sunset, or to take pictures of them for that matter. I find this relationship intriguing.” Shot in black and white and arranged like an organized grid on the gallery’s front wall with the word Departure in pink, the work sidesteps the obvious sentimentality associated with the sunset and instead becomes a survey, a pattern, an interplay of light and darkness.

Her other photographs – a bunch of balloons tied to a ladder by the beach, makeshift cardboard or plywood prop – houses, and letters made out of leaves, petals and small debris that spell out ‘wowowee’ – seem so natural, as if they were actually just found. Their subtle deceptiveness and vulnerability are part of a strategy that is cleverly wielded through photography.

A sense of spaced – out humor is evident in her charts and constellations. In Happy Camping, she begins with the word ‘Let’s’ and maps out endless and interconnected possibilities that can follow. In Dust, she mirrors the night sky, replacing the stars with plastic googley eyes, as if to say that the universe is watching.

Still a student at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, Ms. Africa has yet to fully grasp the potential scale of her first utterances. If she can remain steadfast and not fall into the common traps that nip young artists in the bud before they even have time to mature and blossom, then she may be someone worth watching. The works in her solo debut may be small tentative steps; but they are surely quite the opposite of a disaster.

(Catalina Africa’s ‘The Etymology of Disaster’ is on view at West Gallery until October 9, 2010.)

Cube: A Review in 4 Easy Sentences

Ramona Rivera

1. Another cube / box group exhibition, how square is that?
2. Cube is not a group show but a single work, an installation by the artist-curator, Nilo Ilarde.
3. The works of the other artists should be not be seen or represented as individual pieces, but as part of a larger whole.
4. Roberto Chabet has unpacked his work, out of which came generations of Filipino artists whom he encouraged to think outside the box; they should naturally question the premise of this exhibition.

‘Cube’ is ongoing at Finale Art File’s Tall Gallery until September 27, 2010.

Lena Cobangbang & Bea Camacho: Sisters?

Ramona Rivera

Two exhibitions, which opened on the same day within walking distance from one another may be perceived as a kind of twinning or a sister act. Lena Cobangbang’s Velvet Landing at MO_Space is a spread of carpets and installations that spillover from her earlier solo presentation at Finale, Crater Valley Plateau. As with her previous work, Ms. Cobangbang creates fantastic, illusory and mocking landscapes and environments using various everyday domestic materials, projects that she likens to ‘failed scientific experiments’. For this exhibition, she lays down the carpet as a stage for her comedy of errors – a panther is scorched and skinned, a clown is hit by lightning, mushrooms and stalagmites are growing, a plane crashes at night. We may fall flat on our faces, but at least it’s a soft landing.

Bea Camacho’s Standard Fiction at nearby Pablo Fort likewise works with domesticity and other controlled and simulated environments. She adds another chapter to her long-running familial narrative with her new works that aim to reconstruct memories, images and spaces of her old family home, which has now been gutted down and stripped bare for renovation. She admits the works are inadequate, an abstraction, a translation, removed from the real, a fiction. A chandelier made of wood hangs light-less and low. Images of bare walls scarred with the shadows of what used to hang on them are imprinted on neatly folded sheets. A swatch of carpet tries to remember its original color with the help of a pantone strip.

Ms. Cobangbang and Ms. Camacho’s practices overlap in many ways. Both deconstruct situations, objects and images from their personal space – either the studio or the home to create fictionalized identities, contexts and settings. Both are informed by design and sign-making; Ms. Cobangbang works as a freelance production designer, mostly for music videos and Ms. Camacho used to work as a corporate design consultant. Both of them have interests in architecture and spatial relationships, evidenced by their use of installation, objects and other props. Both are also susceptible to traditional ‘women’s work’ – crochet, embroidery and other crafty leisure activities to while away or measure time. You can even almost imagine them sister-like, threading different ends of the same quilt.

Seeing their two exhibitions side by side however, it is clear that there is a palpable divide between them when it comes to the aesthetics, values and production of their work. Trained at the UP College of Fine Arts, Ms. Cobangbang, in keeping with the 90s DIY attitude, prefers handmade, raw and messy one-offs. Nevermind if they are a tad too grungy and will most likely break apart as soon as you bring them home; that is all part of the work. Several years younger than Ms. Cobangbang, the Harvard educated Ms. Camacho, in contrast, works with white gloves and there is almost a business-like detachment with the way she approaches and represents her subjects no matter how personal they are. Sleek, machine-made editions that are so conveniently well-framed and wall-bound.

Would it be safe to say that this is largely due to a generational shift? They say art history can be simply put as a pendulum that swings back and forth. And if these two exhibitions are of any indication, where can we be now? One thing for certain, Ms. Cobangbang and Ms. Camacho are far from being even half-sisters. The thread is basically never long enough to finish the quilt, so it might be best to just leave it all in shreds.

(Lena Cobangbang’s ‘Velvet Landing’ is ongoing at MO_Space until September 26, 2010 and Bea Camacho’s ‘Standard Fiction’ at Pablo Fort until October 9, 2010)

Jayson Oliveria: Fuck You Over There

Ramona Rivera

Jayson Oliveria’s New Works on Paper Here, Fuck You Over There, flips the bird at conventional expectations while actually succeeding in what a painting exhibition should be.  The show which opened last August 18 at Mag:net Columns looks like an exploded artist’s sketchpad; or windblown detritus collecting at the juncture of a busy intersection in a tangled web of paint, spit and paper.

Mr. Oliveria studied Painting  at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in the 1990s and since then has been consistently reconfiguring it and turning it upside down. His earlier works experimented with abstraction, minimal color and rawness of material. In recent years, he shifted to a more expressionistic type of figuration, which he sometimes sabotages even before its done – a gesture not far from destroying a piece of evidence before someone else can get hold of it.

In this new exhibition, fairly large oils on canvas paper and sprawling collage installations are a lazy fit on the gallery’s tightly configured wall spaces and floors emphasizing the “no-problem”atic and self-contradictory nature of the exhibit itself.  The main body of works are called “Demotivational Posters”  the first of which hangs, or should I say, is crammed onto a wall roughly half its size; it’s edges curling up against a glass wall on one side and projecting into space on the other.  The word “FIAL?”(FAIL) is misspelled in bold red letters across the top establishing the thread of cleverly circular absurdist humor prevalent throughout the exhibition.  The “poster” presents the perfect slogan for the failed- so much so that it fails to even declare failure and ends with a question mark.  However, by succeeding in aptly portraying the absurdities of  failure, the work itself ultimately fails to fail and has the last laugh.

Most of the images used in the exhibition; randomly found or mined from the internet quagmire, some even twice or thrice regurgitated – are disposable salvagings from the recycle bin of  public consciousness and have little value or connection beyond their service as vehicles for the act of painting.  The works universally evoke the casual ease and detachment of sketches.  Paper itself, medium as well as ground is used to full expression-in the form of misprints, found photographs and clippings. Crumpled, cut, painted, collaged and sculpted into horn or phallus, it is painting and paper. There is no concept; it is all about delivery.

(Jayson Oliveria’s “New Works on Paper Here, Fuck You Over There” is ongoing at Mag:net Columns until September 18, 2010)

The Ishmael Bernal Gallery at the UP Film Center

Ramona Rivera

There is now a new reason to visit the Film Center at the University of the Philippines in Diliman aside from free independent film showings by some of the best Filipino and foreign filmmakers. Under the helm of its new director, Yason Banal, the Ishmael Bernal Gallery on the academic oval side of the Center has now been revitalized as an alternative space for contemporary photography and video to complement the Center’s film program.

Mr. Banal, a Film graduate of UP, works with various media, integrating performance, installation, film, photography, and video, and exploring themes that range from fantasy, fetish, cult acts, legends, and myths. After he graduated from Diliman, he taught at the UP in Baguio where he created his early memorable performances like parading the city’s streets dressed up like the Black Nazarene, or the time he locked himself in a chest freezer at the Café By The Ruins and had to be rushed to a hospital for hypothermia.

For three years, Mr. Banal ran Third Space, an alternative space in St. Ignatius Village, Quezon City for exhibitions, performances, film showings, workshops and other heady projects that he organized along with the help of his other artist friends like Katya Guerrero and Ringo Bunoan, before the two opened Big Sky Mind. He also curated a number of off-site projects, like the guerrilla performance Queenly Matter, where he led a parade of dressed – up and costumed artists, all women, from Third Space to SM Megamall, and struck a pose inside the galleries along the Artwalk, and Kaka, where he invited several artists to convert the toilets at the Cultural Center of the Philippines into exhibition and performance spaces. After closing Third Space, he left for London for another three years and took up further studies at the Goldsmiths College and at the St. Martins School for Fashion Design. Back in the Philippines, he returns to his alma mater and is currently on his third year teaching Film and Conceptual Photography and Video at the UP College of Mass Communication.

It is a pity that Manila audiences seldom get to see works by Mr. Banal, for he often exhibits in other countries like the UK, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong where performance and video are more easily accepted and shown in galleries and museums, and not just in underground, hard-to-find, alternative venues. Last year, he had a rare participation in a local group exhibition called Coloratura at MO_Space with fellow UP graduates Bunoan, Sandra Palomar, and Trek Valdizno, presenting a dreamy video based on the classic art film by French New Wave director Alain Resnais, Last Year at Marienbad.

Mr. Banal hopes that the Ishmael Bernal Gallery will not only provide an alternative space for artists to exhibit their works, but will also educate and inspire students and young artists to take up conceptual photography and video. Last July 23, the gallery opened with the exhibit Paper Cuts, featuring works by students and recent graduates from the UP College of Mass Comm,  Mr. Banal also called on his ever – reliable artist friends and neighbors to exhibit side by side with the students.

A few days after the opening of the students’ exhibition, Ringo Bunoan installed her “Twin Towers”, a large – scale outdoor photograph of the two old water towers in Barangay Socorro, Cubao, which she tied up as her work for an exhibition at Manila Contemporary earlier this year. Though she has already moved out of the artists’ compound on 18^th Avenue, she is obviously still attached to her old neighborhood. Moving out of her studio though pushed Ms. Bunoan’s work to a new direction, from installation she is now showing interest in monumental projects that deal with history, ephemerality, public space, and architecture. Coincidentally in this exhibition, Ms. Bunoan’s “Twin Towers” stands right next to another historical phallic landmark, the UP Carillon.

The last installment in the first round of exhibitions, Wrath of My Nuts, features works by Jed Escueta, Kaloy Olavides and Sam Kiyoumarsi, whose practices revolve or are linked to photography, popular culture and the underground. Mr. Escueta is known for photographic works that focus on drugs, punks and the various ecstasies and highs that lace the scene. For this exhibition, he presented an album of intimate portraits of his smoking buddies. If you want to know all the stoners in Manila, just leaf through Mr. Escueta’s album and they are all there. Mr. Escueta also showed a miniature photograph – covered dinosaur, the giant version of which he first showed at the Room 307: Inkling, Gutfeel & Hunch exhibition at the National Museum in 2008.

Kaloy Olavides’ collages made from images of various body parts from fashion and glossy magazines, have a similar psychedelic feel. His labor – intensive collages depart from the customary methods: the rips, the tears, the chance and abandon that often characterize this art form. Olavides’ myopic and pre-determined manner of composing his images works around a central axis like a k-hole that sucks viewers right in.

Newcomer Sam Kiyoumarsi is not from UP, but hangs with many artists who studied there and live around Cubao like Jayson Oliveria, Poklong Anading and Lena Cobangbang. He has worked for various publications including Clavel, where he has been assigned to take pictures of half-naked women and high – end footwear. His random photographs reflect the same eccentricities and oddball characters. His other work, a pile of magazine bundles still wrapped in their brown paper, adopts a more serious conceptual tone. Casually placed on top of the bundles is a lone photograph of an empty wall with shadows and imprints of what hung there before.

Yason Banal’s new take for the Ishmael Bernal Gallery is a counterpoint to the other exhibition space across the UP oval, the more institutionalized UP Vargas Museum, headed by another queen. Here’s hoping that Mr. Banal doesn’t succumb to his usual three – year itch.

(The exhibitions ‘Paper Cuts’, ‘Twin Towers’, and ‘Wrath of My Nuts’ are ongoing at the Ishmael Bernal Gallery, UP Film Center until the end of August 2010.)

Vic Balanon & Ferdz Valencia: All in a Hard Day’s Work

Ramona Rivera

Its sometimes interesting to wonder about what artists do during the day. Artists are often seen as nocturnal creatures, who only come out of their studios or houses starting at 6 pm when galleries usually have their openings. A typical day for an artist might be something like this: wake up, recover from last night’s work and/or hangover, eat something, start working, text, email, check facebook, look for materials, do something with it, break for a drink with other artists and friends who suddenly drop by, go to an opening, more drinks, more artists and friends, more art…

Many artists, unfortunately, cannot live on their art alone. Like everyone else, they have day jobs to sustain themselves and their art. On top of the usual things than an artist does, they have do all kinds of work – teach, write, curate, run galleries and spaces, do production design, advertising, graphics, commercial photography, shoot weddings and music videos, give workshops to kids, landscape gardens, anything, just to get by. After hours, cigarette breaks and fleeting moments throughout the day are for art, if not actually for making, but at least for thinking about it.

Artists Vic Balanon and Ferdz Valencia both work in graphic design, illustration and animation during the day. They have a common interest in underground culture, skateboards, death metal, independent film, and comic book publications. They both studied at the University of the East, majoring in Fine Arts and at the Mowelfund Film Institute, where they first collaborated on a 35 mm film animation project called Terminus in 1999. The same year they also participated in the annual group exhibition, Dog Show at Surrounded By Water in Angono, showing drawings and other works on paper. They also had a collaborative exhibition entitled Failure of a Modern Man in 2005 and participated in the group show Conflict Resolutions organized by artists Lena Cobangbang and Jayson Oliveria in 2006 at another critical but now sadly defunct alternative artist – run space Future Prospects at Cubao Expo, way before it became a hip and popular weekend destination.

Their most recent collaboration called The Crocogator at Green Papaya Art Projects, one of the few remaining alternative artist – run spaces in Manila, is a continuation of their long – standing interest in impromptu, guerrilla work: drawings directly on the gallery’s wall, temporary installations and assemblages using scraps and found material. For two weeks, they went to work and transformed Green Papaya’s front area into an open studio. Anybody who passed by can watch the two artists as they go about their job. They didn’t really have a plan about what to do; they just maximized the time, space and readily available resources to create their work. In the end, the products and remnants of their two – week collaboration was shown together with an animated video that documented their process, and a performance by sound artists Erick Calilan and Roger Lopez.

Mr. Balanon and Mr. Valencia’s The Crocogator is the first part of a new program called The Ephemera of Disposable Goods organized by Lian Ladia, Green Papaya’s new resident curator for this season, July – December 2010. Ms. Ladia is an artist herself and co-founder of the Filipino – American art collective Kwatro Kwantos and has organized various exhibitions in San Francisco, Oakland and Manila. Now she is based in town, where apart from Green Papaya, she also works as Silvana Diaz’ new assistant at Galleria Duemila. For her project at Green Papaya, she aims to present a series of collaborations, bringing together artists of “similar or dissimilar genres investigating social sculptural projects based on context of time/place, relational works and encounters and to make available to them Green Papaya’s space and bar hours as a facility where artists and public can engage in discussions and debates as the artist go through their process of constructions and deconstructions every session.”

Green Papaya is back on track after a tumultuous period of domestic squabbles and other issues. Norberto Roldan, Green Papaya’s founder, at one point announced that he would close the space after his very public separation from his former partner. Then he decided to keep it open and maintain the space as a bar. Now it seems like Mr. Roldan has found a more stable working relationship with Ms. Ladia, whose new program is reminiscent of the early alternative projects of artists at Surrounded By Water, Big Sky Mind and Future Prospects. Relational aesthetics was not yet a catch phrase then. Artists just did their work on their own terms, free from the expectations and limitations of commercial galleries and institutions. And often at the end of each working day, especially if there was an opening, they would gather, have too many cold beers and toast to the next round.

(Ferdz Valencia and Vic Balanon’s’ The Crocogator’ was presented at Green Papaya from July 28 – August 14, 2010. It is part of ‘The Ephemera of Disposable Goods’, an ongoing program by guest artist – curator Lian Ladia until December 2010.)

(Photos courtesy of Albert Ascona)

The 2010 Ateneo Art Awards: Shattered

Ramona Rivera

This August, Ateneo Art Gallery celebrates its 50^th year as the country’s first modern art museum. What began as a donation of select artworks from artist Fernando Zobel in 1960 has evolved into quite a significant permanent collection of modern and contemporary Philippine art. Among over 200 pieces that Mr. Zobel bequeathed to the university are works by the country’s top modernists and avant-garde artists such as Vicente Manannsala, H.R. Ocampo, Cesar Legaspi, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, David Medalla, Roberto Chabet, Aturo Luz, and Napoleon Abueva.

In the spirit of Mr. Zobel’s pioneering efforts in advancing Philippine art, the Ateneo Art Gallery initiated in 2004 the first Ateneo Art Awards. The annual award is given to Filipino artists aged 35 and below in recognition of their outstanding work for the past twelve months. Among those who have received the Award are Geraldine Javier, Jayson Oliveria and Louie Cordero (2004); Ronald Ventura, Eric Zamuco and Annie Cabigting (2005); Poklong Anading (2006 & 2008), Mideo Cruz and Maya Muñoz (2006); Lyle Buencamino, Wawi Navarozza and MM Yu (2007); Kawayan De Guia and Marina Cruz (2008); and Patricia Eustaquio, Leeroy New and Kiri Lluch-Dalena (2009).

This year’s round –up with the theme, ‘Shattering States’, aims to “traverse the range and scale of art practice, and actively underscore the transgressions being carried out by artists rather than being an evocation of stasis or permanence. Ceaselessly challenging traditional media forms, this year presents an explosive gamut of artists whose codified works in one way or another hybridize manifestations that delineate and define the cutting edge.” Without a doubt these are good things to aspire for.

Over a hundred nominations were received this year from artists, gallery owners, curators, writers, academics, and previous winners and members of the jury of the Ateneo Art Awards. The twelve artists who made it to the short-list for this year’s Award are: Frankie Callaghan, Joey Cobcobo, Kiri Dalena, Leslie De Chavez, Kawayan De Guia, Patricia Eustaquio, Riel Hilario, Pow Martinez, Leeroy New, Mark Salvatus, Michelline Syjuco, and Rodel Tapaya.

They were selected by this year’s panel composed of Ramon E.S. Lerma (Director and Chief Curator, Ateneo Art Gallery), Fr. Rene Javellana, SJ (Associate Professor, Fine Arts Program, Ateneo de Manila University), Ma. Victoria Herrera (Independent Curator and Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines, Diliman), Trickie Lopa (Art Collector and Blogger), Dannie Alvarez (Museum Administrator, Yuchengco Museum), Nick Simonovic (Managing Director, Gagosian Gallery), Carlo Tadiar (Editor-in-Chief, Metro Home), Charlie Co (Visual artist), and Judy Freya Sibayan (Artist and Assistant Professor, De La Salle University).

Last August 12 at the Grand Atrium of the EDSA Shangri-la Plaza Mall, the three winners of this year’s Awards were announced: Pow Martinez, Leslie De Chavez and Mark Salvatus. Mr. Salvatus, who was first short-listed for the Award in 2008, is lucky this year, bagging two of the art residencies that come with the Awards. Apart from a cash prize, he will participate in the residency at the Common Room Networks Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia and the La Trobe University Art Center in Bendigo, Australia. Recipients of the residencies at Artesan Gallery & Studio in Singapore and a three-week, all-expense paid stay at the Art OMI in upstate New York courtesy of Ateneo Society member and art collector Marcel Crespo have yet to be declared.

Mr. Salvatus was chosen for his work ‘Secret Garden’, which was included in the exhibition Sungduan 5: Daloy ng Dunong at the National Museum last September 30 – November 15, 2009. Inspired by a tale of prisoners at the Quezon Provincial Jail who created a secret vegetable garden in their cell, Mr. Salvatus made an installation using fake plants made by the prisoners themselves out of recycled plastic bottles, and on an adjacent wall, a sticker based on the tattoo of a snarling tiger, which is the emblem of one of the gangs in the prison. While the work appeals to those with socio-political inclinations, the backstory is more interesting than the actual work, a weak installation of glossy decals and wishful decorations.

Leslie De Chavez’ exhibition Buntong Hininga at Silverlens and SLab last April 22 – May 2, 2010, is another re-working of tired social realist themes. His overpriced, large, round shaped canvasses with those dark, awfully colored, ghoulish figures speak of the same old topics, stale news like corruption, poverty, and political scandals, as if that’s all there is to the Philippine landscape. But the rich and the foreigners love it. They like to romanticize the grief and squalor of the poor masses in Third World countries. Which probably accounts for Mr. De Chavez’ shows in Seoul, Beijing and Zurich, and a well trumped up show at Silverlens and SLab, his first in Manila since 2003.

Pow Martinez’ 1 Billion Years shown at West Gallery last June 4 – July 6, 2009, is the dark horse in the group. He has no grand statements about art and Philippine politics. He doesn’t really care about what he’s painting and how he’s going to paint it. He just enjoys slathering paint, mostly directly from the tube, onto his canvas, creating images that are at once naïve, absurd, and sometimes horrific. While his paintings have a refreshing raw intensity and corporeality, his earlier and less popular conceptual works in sound and installation were more thought – provoking and trippy.

While the Ateneo Art Award has undeniably spurned the public’s attention towards the work of young Filipino artists and contemporary art in general, it is facing a lot of criticism. Out of the 12 artists in this year’s shortlist, more than half are repeat nominees and winners. Many people are saying, what is so shattering about this list, when majority of the artists included are so last year? Though some maybe catchy, nothing is groundbreaking or entirely new about their work. If there’s anything remotely close to being shattering, it’s the record prices that their works command in recent sales and auctions.

The conservative dictates of the art market are so evident in this selection made by a jury that usually includes collectors, gallery owners, and other members with possible conflicts of interests. It is becoming a popularity contest based on market standards rather than a real pursuit of aesthetic transgressions in today’s art. Many of the jury members have not even seen the actual exhibitions and base their selection on a presentation made by the artists who have to inconveniently re-mount their works. For artists who made site-specific or temporal works, the jury has to make do with the documentation, which sometimes can never really fully capture and translate the nuances and particularities of certain types of works. This is an extra burden on the artists, many of whom have no savvy presentation skills or couldn’t care less about such demonstrations. It also seems unfair and questionable that an artist’s single work in a group exhibition is taken with the same consideration as a solo exhibition, or an entire body of work. Also flawed is the fact that one artist can hog all the residencies, or be short-listed for more than one exhibition. Surely, there are other worthy artists out there who deserve the recognition. But they are probably over 35.

The Philippine art scene today is marked by a growing excess and frivolity. Never before have we had this kind of spectacle. Art aside, the Ateneo Art Awards is a true-blue high – society event where so much is spent on the pageantry, the over-designed invitations and catalogues, dinners and cocktails. If this money was channeled into acquiring the works of the winners, then it would have been a more meaningful way to support the artists and build a museum collection at the same time, instead of waiting for donations or works on loan from other collectors. A museum’s main business is the building, housing and caring for a collection of historically important works so that current and future generations can experience, learn and understand art. This was the reason why Fernando Zobel donated his collection, and the Ateneo Art Gallery must always remember this.

(The 2010 Ateneo Art Awards: “Shattering States” exhibition is on view at the Grand Atrium of the EDSA Shangri-la Plaza Mall until August 16, 2010. It will then move to the Ateneo Art Gallery, from August 25 – October 2, 2010)

Poklong Anading: Things Washed Up Along The Shore

Ramona Rivera

He must be out surfing, for he is now rarely seen around Cubao, his stomping ground for almost ten years. Yes, for the moment, Poklong, the artist turned surfer has found a different wave to ride. Where is it taking him?

Mr. Anading, a two-time Ateneo Art Awardee and recipient of the 2006 CCP 13 Artist Award, studied at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts under the legendary artist and professor Roberto Chabet. Along with his contemporaries like Manny Migriño, Kaloy Olavides and Ernest Concepcion, they formed a group called the Boboists whose manifesto called for meaningless art, echoing Walter de Maria’s famous call in 1960.

In his most recent solo exhibition at Pablo Fort, There’s Money in Spending, Mr. Anading is seemingly wanting to search for meaning in life’s many contradictions and ironies – strange alchemies like plastic and gold. An electric fan is installed on the floor and attached to it are plastic bags splattered with gold paint – whirling around to remind us that it has not lost its breath, unlike the plastic hooded faces he photographed, like convicts waiting to be executed. Their crime? Shopping.

Mr. Anading hates the idea of shopping, but he is one big consumer who at one point amassed piles and piles of molded plastic packaging, which he cast in resin and turned into hand – grips and footholds for a wall for climbing at the Finale Art File Inaugural in 2008 and in the most recent Jakarta Biennale. He hates the idea of accumulation and suffocation, yet for art he collected the dust that layered in his studio on 18^th Avenue, when it was still Big Sky Mind. For art, he will walk the extra mile, like he did with his clunky wooden circle and pencil from CCP to Quezon City and beyond.

But now at Pablo, he is stuck with the plastic bag. Upstairs, on opposing corners, are two light boxes with images of more plastic hooded figures, one in red, the other blue. A silenced conversation, a failed collaboration or a lovers’ confrontation? Whatever it is, it remains unresolved.

Just above the short flight of stairs, Mr. Anading installed another lingering shadow of a previous investigation with fluorescent light. Before he attempted to seal light in concrete, now he allows some light to seep through. The carved letters, which read ‘mind your head’ seem absurd since it is hung so low, like a fragile swing.

These are the endless loops and questions that Mr. Anading’s works bring forth. Their beauty lies in their capacity to engage us into questioning, without ever really seeking any definite answers. Because maybe even the artist himself, doesn’t know, yet he seeks it. He continues to mine these mundane everyday things, maybe they will turn into art one day.

Poklong Anading’s ‘There’s Money in Spending’ is ongoing at Pablo Fort until August 22, 2010.