Ateneo Art Awards 2010: Shattering states

John Vincent Castro

MANILA, Philippines - The Ateneo Art Awards 2010’s jurors include Ramon E.S. Lerma, director and chief curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery; Fr. Rene Javellana, SJ, associate professor of the Fine Arts Program at Ateneo de Manila University; Ma. Victoria Herrera, independent curator and assistant professor at the University of the Philippines; Trickie Lopa, art collector and blogger, “Snippets from the Manila Art Scene”; Dannie Alvarez, museum administrator of the Yuchengco Museum; Carlo Tadiar, editor in chief of Metro Home; Charlie Co, visual artist; Judy Freya Sibayan, assistant professor at the De La Salle University; and Nick Simunovic, managing director of Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong.                                                 

Frankie Callaghan

Frankie Callaghan leaves the interpretation of his photographs to the viewers in “Dwelling” at Silverlens Gallery. His subjects are remarkably straightforward: empty backstreets, dilapidated shanties, informal residences, and substandard buildings. However, his presentation is digitally intricate with the sharp use of ambient light, whose amplification captures rare unfeigned colors that paint the nocturnal urban landscapes of poverty.

KiriDalena

Visual artist and filmmaker KiriDalena brings into play the cold, the dark, and the fragmented in “The Present Disorder is the Order of the Future” at Mo Space. A reflection of her state of being, the mixed- media installation is composed of three important parts: the body, the mind, and the soul. The soul of the show comes in from the video installation projected on the floor containing documentation of roads, highways, and landscapes passed by in the aftermath of tragedy. These are places where hostilities and massacres have transpired. Twenty-four slogans engraved on gray marble slates compose the mind of her installation. These are texts found in past and in present protests, buried and snubbed by the protested. And, of course, dismembered bodies make up the body of her installation. These are fragmented torsos, arms, legs, and heads in terracotta, in wood, and in cast marble.

Patty Eustaquio

Fashion designer Patty Eustaquio writes to tragedy and calamity in “Dear Sweet Filthy World” at Silverlens Gallery. Poeticizing a disaster, she paints still life images of two dead birds heartbreakingly victimized by an oil spill. Possibly, another victim is “Dear Sweet Filthy World III” constructed from felt, resembling disintegrating lifeboats on water. Part of her inspiration comes from Typhoon Ondoy, an event she failed to experience. Patty interprets the wrath of Mother Nature with a delicate, feminine style.

Riel Hilario

The second of a series of wood sculptures on the four Ilocano souls, Riel Hilario’s “Aniwaas” at Art Informal delves into the Ilocano psyche. One of the four souls completing the life force of a living person, aniwaas remains in the earthly plane when a person passes away. In ancient Ilocano mythology, the aniwaas is a living memory — a soul that lingers on and attaches itself to the familiar. The visual artist and trained santo-maker works within the vernacular language of santo-carving without the imagery of Christian icons but of birds and of faces because he wants to create vessels where the aniwaas can linger. Interestingly, there are no sketches for his works since all originate from dreams. More than just reviving Ilocano beliefs, Hilario also aspires to resurrect the lost woodcarving tradition of his hometown of San Vicente in Ilocos Sur.

Joey Cobcobo

In “7 Heads and 10 Horns,” half-Igorot and half-Ilokano Joey Cobcobo revives the religious theme of art prevalent in the 333 years of Spanish rule in the Philippines. Inspired by the Book of Revelations, his messianic themes interestingly are carved and printed onto woodcut blocks. The artist of the sacred expounds the theme to include images of the emasculated Samson, the standing serpent, and Adam and Eve. Joey emphasizes the tribulations of the people now and the rupture that can happen in the future. Aside from serving as a reminder of salvation, the show is also an aide-mémoire of his art and personal testimonies as an artist.

Leslie de Chavez

After seven years, Leslie de Chavez returns to enter the realm of Philippine socio-politics and writes the country’s present history in “Buntong Hininga” at Silverlens Gallery. With his fine technique, perfect execution, and strong sense of social realism, he exhibits drawings, paintings, video installations and sculptures that respond to the times — a result of growing up in a country filled with hardship. Rendered in dark and pessimistic tones, his eight paintings contain rich layers and narratives tackling contemporary local life. Despite the diversity of media, one idea remains consistent and his message simple: he wishes people to rethink their ways as art alone will not suffice to change society.

Kawayan de Guia

Playing with two iconic Philippine objects, Kawayan de Guia’s “Katas Ng Pilipinas: God Knows Hudas Not Play” juxtaposes jeepneys and jukeboxes to reflect the state of the nation in a bygone era. The kitschy installations, composed of five restored jukeboxes dressed in jeepney-like bodies and six blown-up record covers plastered with familiar Filipino images and words of wisdom from the street, render pop culture at its finest.

Michelline Syjuco

Old luxury and conservative femininity find a place in history in Michelline Syjuco’s “She Never Did Care About the Little Things,” the artist’s subjective interpretation of the Manton de Manila from the Galleon trade occurring in the past and its journey from the Spanish times to the present. Fantasies of her own creation, the sculpture of rusted beaten metal — acid-patented and hand-painted — tells a story of the lady manton owner through her fascination with the absence and the presence of light. The contrasts of light and shadow play a significant role in her visual skits. She is also “intrigued by the idea that an object can be infused with the spirits of the people who once owned them,” an explanation for her use of an antique chair and an object with a rich history behind it.

Rodel Tapaya

Rodel Tapaya’s featured work at last year’s Singapore Art Museum exhibition “Thrice Upon A Time,” a special show celebrating forty years of bilateral relations between Singapore and the Philippines, shows the artist playing the role of storyteller as he illustrates the wealth of Philippine mythology branching out from one myth to another.

Mark Salvatus

By creating a small paradise of plastic, Mark Salvatus plays God in his show Secret Garden at the National Museum. Literally a hole in the wall, the clandestine garden grows foliage of grass tiles, found news reports, light, and plastic bottle crafts from prison inmates. Ironically, the inspiration for the mixed media installation stems from a place where nature would not dare to flourish — specifically, a news account about Quezon Provincial Jail inmates who secretly fashioned a garden with grown plants from seeds recovered from their meals. These doomed prisoners miraculously produced cantaloupes, garlic, peppers, watermelons, and even a tiny lemon tree plant by “using water to soften soil baked hard by the sun and then scratching away with plastic spoons.”

Pow Martinez

Inspired by everything from the cute to the disturbing, Pow Martinez’s “1 Billion Years Later” challenges the preconceived notion of taste. He places art in the flatness of photos and in the rich realm of taboos from Facebook profile photos to sex and gender issues. His use of bright colors, the impasto technique, and mundane subject matter produces an articulation of variegated reactions. Reminiscent of Georg Baselitz’s upside-down works, the exhibition illustrates the unlikely coexistence of the ugly and the beautiful. After all, “taste is an illusion,” he says.

Jan Leeroy

Artist and designer Jan Leeroy New’s “Corpo Royale” plays on the word corporeal. Exhibited at The Drawing Room, alterations of existing icons are encased in clear domes with their own light sources in white acrylic bases underneath as if these are specimens meant to be studied or dissected. Heavenly iconic images take form in earthly materials like Mother Mary in pearl beads and Baby Jesus in enamel teeth. The intimate set-up of his pieces allows viewers to scrutinize the intangible and to transform it into something tangible.