Seeing Big

The line between photography and painT-ing is blurring yet again, with eight shutter meisters showing large-scale abstract works at the country’s largest shopping mall. Aside from the venue—the unarguably large SM Mall of Asia in the expansive reclaimed area of Manila Bay—everything about this exhibit is large.

Each of the 16 prints on show are physically large, measuring 80 inches by 120 inches, or around 7 feet by 10 feet, the largest fine art prints ever exhibited in the country. The prints will be made by Epson printers.

The goals are large too: to get the most number of people to view the photo-prints. "People who visit galleries usually appreciate fine art photographs like paintings. However, the majority do not find the time to view them for a variety of reasons. One of the more practical reasons is that most people cannot afford to collect art or fine photographs," the artists aver. "This brings us to the rationale behind this undertaking. We want to increase the awareness and appreciation of photographic art among Filipinos. Abstract is meant primarily to make the majority ask what photographs they are seeing. The experience of viewing the abstractions will make people wonder about not only what the images are or how they were made. More importantly, viewers will ask why people like us bother to spend time making them."

And the largest aspect of all is the roster of photographers—eight of the biggest names in photography today. National Artist for visual arts Benedicto Cabrera or BenCab, who is getting to be as accomplished an art photographer as he is a painter, Camera Club of the Philippines’ Master Photographer awardees Bien Bautista and Quincy Castillo, multi-awarded Wig Tysman, Pancho Escaler and Emil Davocol, advertising photographer Jojo Guingona, and Jaime Zobel de Ayala, who can be credited with pushing photography as art to the forefront and a pioneer in using advances in photo-composition and printing technology to stretch the definition and perception of a photograph.

Perhaps the only thing "little" about this exhibit is the way it came about, a confluence of "little" things that added up to something big.

Jojo Guingona held an architectural photography exhibit at the Filipinas Heritage Library. Friends Ben Cabrera, Wig Tysmans, Pancho Escaler and Quincy Castillo attended the opening of the show. A few days later, Jojo invited the guys to dinner at his home, and Bien Bautista also came to dinner.

Before dinner Quincy mentioned that since they were all photographers, why not hold a group exhibit. Everyone got excited, and started talking about abstraction as a theme. They talked about holding it not in a gallery but in the middle of a huge mall so that as many people as possible would see it. Pancho immediately volunteered that he knew the president of SM SuperMalls, Annie Garcia.

The following day, Pancho called with the news that the SM SuperMall people were interested in such a show. A couple of days later, BenCab told Wig that they should go ahead and plan the show since he was already shooting abstractions.

One more piece of the puzzle—or rather, the photograph—came via another show: Jaime Zobel’s "Emergence" at the Ayala Museum, the opening of which Bien attended. Opening night conversation and Bien mentioned plans for the exhibit and, since Zobel started public awareness about photo abstractions in the first place, Bien asked if Jaime would consider joining the group exhibit; he agreed.

Emil Davocol, one of the most talented and successful photographers in the Philippines, also agreed to come on board upon the invitation of Quincy. With the acceptance of Emil, the group became a magic circle of 8 photographers, which explains the name of the show: Large 8.

Large 8 runs at the main hall of the SM Mall of Asia until March 19, then travels to other SM malls: Megamall March 21-27; Baguio March 29-April 9; Clark April 11-17; North Edsa April 19-24; Davao May 9-13; Bacolod May 30-June 7; Cebu Sept. 14-20.