Provocation and Evocation: Exhibits in September 2024
Words Amanda Juico Dela Cruz
October 1, 2024
The exhibitions featured this month respond to the provocations of their times—the aftermath of the Second World War, the epoch of Anthropocene, and the demands of the age of productivity. Some exhibitions, on the other hand, is preoccupied in its evocation of certain memories or feelings.
HERNANDO R. OCAMPO, "Isda at Mangga," 1952, Oil on canvas board, 33.5 x 43 cm., Gift of Fernando Zóbel, Collection of Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University.
A Synergy of Ventures: The Post-war Art Scene at the Ateneo Art Gallery
War changes the world. Consequently, the years after are full of uncertainties that a new language is necessary to articulate all these anxieties. The artworld is not an exemption. New modes of artmaking are necessary to express the preoccupations of the artists. Driven by Fernando Zóbel, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, Lydia Arguilla, Manuel Rodriguez Sr., and Arturo Luz among the many figures of the post-war years, a new visual idiom emerged, which we now call as the Philippine modern art. Featuring in the exhibition is the core collection that Zóbel himself donated to the Ateneo de Manila University between 1959 to 1965.
Installation shot of re_mediations at Silverlens
re_mediations by Gary-Ross Pastrana at Silverlens
Rings were remolded into a sword. Book pages were reconstructed as leaves. With the artist’s sensitivity to the qualities of the materials and his clever imagination, he created narratives that were not categorized as old or new. In Two Rings, the sword was used to wound himself, as the photograph shows, alluding to blood compact like how rings are a symbol of promise and union. In Like a Clock From Which Time Detached and Fell, the artist juxtaposed the two leaves—leaves from the thesaurus he used during his undergraduate years and leaves of a plant—to meditate on temporality.
Installation shot of the water of the well does not meet the water of the river at Gravity Art Space
the water of the well does not meet the water of the river by Neo Maestro at Gravity Art Space
The poems emancipate the souls of the figures trapped in the artist’s photographs, while the stories haunt the frames like how a house shelters its ghost stories. The exhibition is not just an exhibition of black and white photographs, but a collection of stories shared along hushed halls, among cloaked souls, and of lost parts told silently, but tormentingly. There is something eerie when you watch someone place their finger on their lips to hush like watching the smoke depart from the candlewick as soon the fire dies. It is not the scene portrayed, but it is the feeling evoked.
Magenta - Energy Specimen No. 219_ King of Pentacles [with install shot]
To Cast A Shadow, There Must First Be Light by Kris Abrigo, Adela, Alaga, Brisa Amir, Randonn Belen, Bjorn Calleja, Christal Chung, Dex Fernandez, Goran Fernando, Jed Gregorio, Mano Gonzales, Paul Jatayna, Gino Javier, Tyang Karyel, Veronica Lazo, Kelli Maeshiro, Magenta, Jose Olarte, Ioannis Sicuya, Jan Sunday, and Isola Tong and curated by the 5th House at Aphro
“Let there be light,” God said and then there was light. The light was good. Plato agreed. In his allegory of the cave, he drew the relationship between knowledge and light—the Sun was the Good, the light was the Truth. Light helps us see. But it also kills. Icarus flew too close to the sun. His wings melted. He fell from the sky. He plunged into the sea. He drowned. The moth, too, flew too close to the candlelight. It died. Light is neither black nor white. The artists here created light works probing into its complexity and nuances.
Taxonomy of a Golden Spike by Cian Dayrit, Nice Buenaventura, Charles Buenconsejo, Rolf Campos, Veronica Lazo, Joar Songcuya, Khalil Verzosa at Anima Art Space
One is invited to take a seat in the school armchair. On the writing desk is a box of counter-maps, which one is invited to browse through with care. Be careful where the feet are placed because underneath the seat is a pile of books: Ecocriticism by Greg Garrard, Anthropocene or Capitalocene by Jason W. Moore, and Errant Journal # 2: Slow Violence edited by Irene de Craen to name a few. The exhibition is, in a way, a “classroom” where one deepens and expands the discourse on ecological crises, equipping the viewers with vocabularies to cover the changing parameters.
Installation shot of Instructor’s Set at Gravity Art Space
Instructor’s Set by Mio Aceremo, Ian Cadiong, Leon Carreon, Kristina Doctora, EN, Nadine Javier, Keigh Keigh, Patreng Non, Bryan Pollero, Chop Querijero, and Julio San Jose and organized by Allan Balisi in Gravity Art Space
“If you were given an apartment unit, how would you design it? Draw what you would do for that space,” Nadine Javier’s Sa Bahay Namin instructs the viewer. The exhibition is a collection of instruction manuals, but it does not offer a step-by-step guide to perfect an outcome. It is the process that matters, not so much the result. On another wall is Mio Aceremo’s Paraan ng Paghuhugas ng Kamay. Eight illustrations show how to wash one’s hands accompanying an installation with a toy-like sink and a Good Morning hand towel waiting. The show is an instruction to slow down.
