Pinoy power at Southeast Asia’s biggest art fair

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino artists flexed their star-power in Singapore over the weekend at Art SG 2025, the biggest art fair in Southeast Asia.

Two trends were increasingly apparent: first, regional collectors remain upbeat and energized compared to a downturn in gallery and auction sales in the West. China’s slow economic recovery and the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles have likewise conspired to make Southeast Asia an oasis of stability and prosperity.

Secondly and just as important, the Philippines and Indonesia have solidified their positions as Southeast Asia’s two leading art markets.

To underscore the point, an artwork by Filipino Gerard Tan was selected as cover photo of a special report by the prestigious cultural bible, The Art Newspaper.

Indeed, fueled by Manila’s robust auction results, Filipino artists have found representation not only in galleries owned by fellow Filipinos, but have also crossed over to galleries as far afield as Madrid and London as well as in the region’s dynamic epicenters of Singapore and Jakarta.

Madrid-based Galeria Cayon exhibited two important works by Fernando Zobel, including “Monstrance,” a glittering metallic piece that once belonged to modernist pioneer and National Artist Arturo Luz. It was priced at $575,000 or P33.6 million, befitting its rarity and gilt-edged provenance.

Interest in Zobel is particularly high since a landmark exhibit in the Prado Museum in Spain, which drew a record 80,000 visitors. The exhibition made its Asian debut in Manila last year and is set to travel to Singapore in May.

Profitable results

The Ames Yavuz Gallery (with spaces in both Singapore and Sydney) exhibited 29 coffee-washed watercolors by Elmer Borlongan, The series was titled “A Day in the Life” and was painted by Borlongan using the last drops of each of his daily cups of Barako coffee. Eighty percent of these unusual works, specially created for the art fair, were snapped up at prices of up to $16,000 or almost P1 million each on the fair’s opening day.

Installation artists Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan exhibited a 10-meter-long sonic art piece titled “Cage” at the same gallery. It was made of antique birdcages with a soundtrack of bird cries. Caryn Quek, director of Ames Yavuz, said that the work received strong interest from several museums. The Aquilizans have been selected to open Ames Yavuz’s first gallery in London with a solo exhibition this April.

Gajah Gallery of Indonesia has also attracted heavy-hitters in the Philippine art scene, including Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera, Mark Justiniani and Marina Cruz. The gallery is a pioneer in cutting-edge contemporary art and has sweetened the pot by offering its state-of-the-art foundry called the Yogya Art Lab to create 3D versions of these artist’s signature pieces on canvas.

Unsung heroes

Sculptures by Filipino artists created in Indonesia unite two regional powerhouses – and were the unsung heroes of Art SG. Jasdeep Sandhu of Gajah said he preferred to focus less on the prices of the bronze works, some measuring as high as 1.8 meters, and more on the “region’s increasing interest in Filipino storytelling and cultural depth.” Indeed, inquiries for the various works indicate that they were between 50 to 100 percent sold out per artist.

However, the reticence of Filipino artists to share the actual levels of their turnover for publication skewed Art SG’s sales reports in favor of Western artists. The fair’s recorded top-seller was a Picasso pencil sketch on paper for $1.2 million or P70 million, sold by Cardi Gallery (Milan, London). It was followed by a painted commentary on the diaspora by British-Nigerian artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones which was snatched up on the fair’s first day, with a price tag of $350,000 or P20 million.

Art SG released a study funded by its institutional partner-bank, UBS, which indicated that “collectors allocated 52 percent of their expenditures to new and emerging artists.” Reflecting this appetite were strong sales for young tapestry-maker Cian Dayrit and the photographic totems of Diokno Pasilan, which both sold out at the Manila-based Drawing Room Gallery.

In step with UBS’ focus on guiding investments for high net-worth individuals, its survey of collectors in Singapore showed that it was the only region where collecting for financial return outweighed motivations such as pleasure or personal fulfillment.”

Filipino art therefore showed itself to be both a desirable and durable asset class for both new and seasoned art enthusiasts.