Words Portia Placino
Photos courtesy of Art Fair Philippines
February 3, 2025

Art Fair Philippines 2025 has a refreshing take for the year as they shift venues and go back to the basics of strengthening Projects—the long-term highlight of the fair. Ayala Triangle Gardens saw Art Fair Philippines transition to onsite exhibitions in 2022 as they featured strong outdoor components involving the Projects and Residencies. It was a memorable comeback with the visual and critical strength of Aze Ong, Nune Alvarado, Melvin Guirhem, and Tyang Karyel, among others, for Projects—set against colorful panels and the natural vista of Ayala Triangle Gardens. 

2025, on the other hand, will rely on air-conditioned tents for the majority of gallery exhibitions, perhaps to the relief of visitors whose main complaint in 2022 was the heat of the outdoor setting. AFP 2025 will use the two entrances of the Ayala Triangle Gardens—Makati Ave. and Ayala Ave.—both of which are starting points for buying tickets and exploring the year’s art fair. 

Outdoor projections and installations are expected around the gardens, including Isaiah Cacnio’s The Language of Infinity. Last year, Cacnio’s digital projection Prismatic Embrace at the Ayala Triangle Gardens activated the space—even with the main fair still at The Link parking lot. For 2025, Cacnio will engage with mathematical concepts in projecting immersive animated fractal art. 

In collaboration with the Embassy of Spain, Projects artist collective SpY Studio will install Barrier Tape 2. The anonymous collective is reportedly buying up tapes from online stores, hoping to get enough for the installation, with the embassy ensuring the recycling process of the plastics at the end of the process. According to Carla Gamalinda, writer for AFP 2-25, “All individual elements are from usual city life, but the intervention makes for a bizarre sight. As the tapes reach down to the ground, it lends focus to the breeze, the scale of the tree, its shadows, the people moving around; offering the public a moment to rethink their relationship with their environment.” 

The true potential of Art Fair Philippines 2025 edition is in going back to featuring diverse, critical, and experimental Filipino artists—Manny Garibay, Manuel Ocampo, Ryan Rubio, Goldie Poblador, and Jezzel Wee. The Projects artists are in different stages of their careers, using varying mediums and materials, and engage in distinct sensibilities and criticalities. Though contemporary art is highly anchored on the global, highlighting and investigating the local is an integral part of creating a significant voice, taking the fair beyond the market’s limitations. 

Manny Garibay, a long-established senior artist, especially in social realism, will present Dambana: A Critical Reflection on Belief, Power, and  Memory. The exhibition will look into local belief system, but as Gamalinda writes, “In the end, the exhibit is a call to action—a demand that we confront the fractures of our identity, the commodification of culture, and the apathy that permeates our collective consciousness. This is not an invitation to nostalgia but to renewal, to a rediscovery of  the sacred as something alive and dynamic, capable of inspiring resistance against the forces that seek to diminish human dignity.”

Another senior artist for Projects is Manuel Ocampo who will present Ideological mash-up/remix involving prints he produced during his residency at STPI Gallery, Singapore in 2019. Ocampo, known for his cutting social commentaries in his artworks, grounds the fair further in Filipino life and experiences. 

On the other hand, Ryan Rubio worked on stone for The pain passes...the beauty remains, highlighting the role of labor in artistic production. His experimentations on various materials are often labor intensive—something he worked on himself, looking into the importance of learning and leaning toward materials.

Younger artists Goldie Poblador and Jezzel Wee are the refreshing air for Projects as they work on glass and ceramics respectively. Poblador, with The Rise of Medusa, will look into the oil spills in Verde Island as a critical point in her project. Reportedly designed as multi-sensorial, the glass works will involve olfactory senses as she uses scents in the project. 

Wee, with Pagbulong, will engage her learnings from her three-year residency in Japan in creating interactive ceramics meant to create ringing sounds when moved. In contrast with how breakable works are typically displayed, the audience is meant to hold and engage with Pagbulong pieces.

Another key shift in the program is the lack of artist residencies exhibition. The Residencies rather shifted to the Curator’s Grant Program for 2025. Though there are no details on the presentations yet, the edgier takes of residency artists from the past few years will be missed. 

The Curator’s Grant Program, in partnership with Ateneo Art Gallery, sounds promising. The Education Partners of AFP are another consistent anchor for the fair, with their strong and well-curated talks, lectures, and panels. In the past few years, the Talks have been the best parts—many schedule their visits around preferred talks or attend multiple days especially to catch panels. 

Art Fair Philippines has been running successfully for over a decade, and though the constant search for new and contemporary could get tiring, the critical turns are the excellent part. Contemporary art engages the global, and Filipinos are a steady presence in the diaspora. But sometimes, easing on the ideas of the global and embracing the nuance and capacity of Filipino artists and galleries to engage deeply on the local presents opportunities for a more sincere engagement of the ideas of contemporary. Hopefully, this is something the 2025 edition can reflect on, particularly with the stronger presence of critically engaged Filipino artists. 

Art Fair Philippines will run from February 21-23, 2025 at Ayala Triangle, Makati City. For more information, please visit artfairphilippines.com.