For Art’s Sake!

Wassup! Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted something but fret not, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks time.

I’m back home in Manila right now for a *cough*well-deserved*cough* break after a hectic and happening January with the Fringe Fest, Superintense and the Singapore Short Film Awards, among others.

It looks like I’m missing some really exciting events back in Singapore, from the rather disheartening turn of events re: Victor/Victoria to this year’s Singapore Arts Fest line-up (thanks to the Abang for the post!).

But it’s not like I’ve been completely spacing out here at home. Although with the presidential elections in full swing now, there’s a tendency to do so while watching those inane campaign commercials on television.

Shoot, I’ve just alienated my three avid Singaporean readers.

So anyway, in the guise of catching up with old, dear friends, I’ve also been playing catch up on Manila’s arts scene (February has apparently been officially deemed the country’s Arts Month). So, in bullet form, if you’ve got nothing better to do:

MUSIC

There was an indie rock fest called Meiday! that was held at this hipster-ish compound called Cubao-X. Think an all-Singapore edition of Baybeats but independently-run, held in Arab Street and with booze. Oh and also a bunch of kids toting SLR cameras taking photos of everyone  (indie rock poparazzi?!) I didn’t take any pics but you can probably find a bunch of them on flickr.

PERFORMING ARTS

While I haven’t had time to catch any performances, I caught up with my friend Joelle, ballet dancer, dance critic and now, to my surprise, independent publisher of a quarterly mag on the Philippine dance scene!

It’s called RunThru and she’s in the midst of launching the website. While ballet is still lording it over the scene (the three big ballet companies I knew from five years ago are still going strong), the contemporary scene has been producing some interesting stuff, from the established (Myra Beltran) to the upstart (Donna Miranda, who was at last year’s “dancing museum” over at TheatreWorks).

Theatre-wise, there’s still a lot of re-stagings of classic Filipino works (and the always reliable Tagalog translations of Shakespeare and Brecht, apparently) – but the constant production of new works that we’ve so often taken for granted with Singapore companies seems to be lacking.

LITERARY ARTS

Just bought a bunch of new (chap)books from the poetry group High Chair. Arguably the best, most active and most rigorous literary group in the country. But then again, I’m biased, because I (used to be/am) part of it. Woot. They’ve also got a website that you must check out if you love poetry.

VISUAL ARTS

Yesterday, my friend Ina, a visual arts reporter from one of the big dailies here took me gallery hopping. So we basically covered six galleries/art spaces like Manila Contemporary (Malaysian art dealer Valentine Willie’s gallery here, where an ongoing group show A Thousand Times Yes features one work by Jason Wee – which I’m assuming would be too sexually explicit to be posted here. Naughty naughty Jason!) and Silverlens and SLab (like Singapore’s own 2902 Gallery). While I can go on about each of the exhibits, suffice it to say I’ve never seen so many things happening in the Philippine visual arts scene at one go (it wasn’t like this five years ago!). From contemporary to modern to photography to installation, it really seems set to be the next big thing after Indonesia.

My favourite from yesterday was an installation by Kiri Lluch Dalena’s The Present Disorder Is The Order Of The Future. It was at the topmost floor of a modern design/furniture store called mo_. (that reminded me of Salon Projects’ Blackout event).

You enter the room in almost total darkness, save for a video of what seems to be a road trip through a rural town in the Philippines that was projected unto the floor, on which were scattered “leftover” remnants of marble (?) sculptures (a broken hand here, a torso there). Meanwhile, hanging on the wall behind were marble epitaphs of slogans, clichés and catchphrases of a decidedly political slant. It was eerie and very powerful.

Here are some random pics of the works on exhibit at the Manila Contemporary and Silverlens’ shows.

The other week, I also dropped by the National Art Gallery – it’s a sorry-looking building that had an interesting (albeit still unfinished) permanent (?) show that juxtaposed classic works with contemporary ones all woven into what seemed like a thematically historical curatorial thread.

The highlight was seeing for the first time in years the Spoliarium, the huge-ass masterpiece from one of the country’s old masters, Juan Luna. It’s really huge-ass.

Then moving on to the other galleries, it was fun seeing how contemporary artists responded to the piece – all of which share space under this building.

But the biggest buzz right now? An arts blog by a heckler. It’s called What’s Wrong With The Art Scene and no one knows who the person is. But he/she’s obviously an arts insider who’s been heckling everyone – much to everyone’s irritation (or amusement).

And here I was thinking Singapore artists are the bitchiest. Woot.

Tags: Philippine art

As promised last week, we’ve whipped out the scorecards for the two ongoing Filipino art exhibitions at SAM. But since there’s also an exhibition on Mexican modern art, I decided to do a mash-up and rate them all! (evil laughter)

There were a lot to choose from, but here are 20 works – all mixed up – that I’ve rated on a scale of 1 (yawn) to 5 (yay).

I still haven’t gotten it down to a science but the gist of it is: I get someone to point out a work for me (in this case, Ida from SAM) and, without looking at the artist’s name, do a five second assessment — using my mental powers. Emphasis on “mental”, please.

By the way, I’m also thinking of simplifying things even more by changing this 1-5 scorecard thing to a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” affair. Thoughts?

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Thrice Upon A Time: A Century of Story in the Art of the Philippines runs until Jan 31. In The Eye of Modernity: Philippine Neo-Realist Masterworks from the Ateneo Art Gallery runs until Mar 14. Camino A La Modernidad (The Path To Modernity): Mexican Modern Painting runs until Jan 3. All at the Singapore Art Museum.

Tags: Mexican art, Philippine art, Singapore Art Museum

From Saturday onwards, Singapore Art Museum will be going gaga over Pinoy art, with two exhibitions. Woot.

There’s Thrice Upon A Time: A Century of Story in the Art of the Philippines, which runs until Jan 31, and In the Eye of Modernity: Philippine Neo-Realist Masterworks, until March 14.

I just came from the media tour of both works, but they haven’t finished setting up four of the eight galleries for Thrice Upon A Time, so for the sake of fairness, I’ll have to postpone my “Score Card” blog entry until all the works are up.

Apparently, those are the ones that will have some of the “crazier” stuff that this RAT craves for.

But there are two contemporary installations I got to see: Alwin Reamillo’s installation of an actual piano, created from different leftover parts from various different pianos, as a homage to his piano-maker father. It was an idea that began from Reamillo’s stint at one of the previous Future of Imagination events in Singapore.

Then, there’s this one.

It’s an installation by a young artist named Christina Poblador comprising different bottles of “perfume”. Instead of a “sights and sounds” tour of the Philippines, this one’s an olfactory one. Individually-made bottles contain both pleasant and nasty smelling liquid stuff that’s meant to evoke whatever’s written on the witty labels.

Here’s one called Squalor (aka L’eau de Pasig).

Pasig, by the way, is the main river in Manila and was probably what the Singapore River was like three decades ago. As for how it smells, let’s just say they should call it “Eewww de Pasig.”

I won’t go through all the works but suffice it to say, it’s a veritable who’s who of the entire art history of the Philippines stretching all the way back to the 1800s.

Some historically important pieces include works by two Pinoy masters from the 19^th century.

Here’s Juan Luna’s Spain and the Philippines.

Another from Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, The Christian Virgins Being Exposed to the Populace. That’s SAM curator Joyce Toh.

(They will be excluded from my coming “Score Card” experiment, lest my citizenship gets revoked. Hah.)

Unfortunately, there’s only one work by one of my favouritest Pinoy artists of all time, the late Onib Olmedo. And it’s not one of his better ones. But still. Here you go.

They’ve also got two 2D works from the infamous David Medalla, one of the more internationally-known Pinoy enfants terrible who’s now based in the UK and known for his performances and installations (like his “bubble machines” in the `60s). Kinda like the Filipino art scene’s Tang Dawu.

Off-hand, it looks like Joyce did a pretty good job with this impressive showcase. Although from the four galleries I saw, Thrice Upon A Time does seem to lean towards themes that are somewhat predictable (history, religion, politics).

But then again, it’s a survey and I haven’t seen the complete picture. Can’t wait to see the rest.

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PS, there’s also an ongoing exhibition on Mexican art, which will feature some biggies like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. More on this next time. (The Philippines, Mexico… is there a bigger theme here, like, er, Art from Former US Colonies?)

PPS, SAM will be closed on Friday and Saturday from 2pm onwards for private functions. Apparently for the benefit of the Filipino prez and Mexican first lady, and their entourage.

PPPS, the exhibitions at SAM are part of the 2009 Philippine Art Trek event, which also includes group and solo exhibitions of Filipino artists at the private galleries like Utterly Art (The Chinoy Connection, i.e. Chinese-Filipino), Valentine Willie Fine Art (Forever and ever and ever and ever), Sunjin Galleries (System Revisited by Clairelynn Uy), Artesan Gallery (Nessun Dorma by Lyra Garcellano), Galerie Joaquin (Celebration). They forgot to mention one other show by an artist I admire, Louie Cordero, which is at Osage Gallery as well. 

Tags: Alwin Reamillo, Artesan Gallery, Christina Poblador, David Medalla, Diego Rivera, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Frida Kahlo, Galerie Joaquin, Installation art, Juan Luna, Louie Cordero, Onib Olmedo, Osage Gallery, Philippine art, Philippine Art Trek, Singapore Art Museum, Sunjin Galleries, Utterly Art, Valentine Willie Fine Art