Peewee Roldan and Maxine Syjuco at NOW Gallery

Noberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Beauty? 2"

NOW OPEN!  Pasong Tamo Extension just welcomed another art space. Now Gallery, a venture of collector Patrick Reyno, opened its doors last month.  Together with Silverlens/SLab, Manila Contemporary, and DAGC (Department of Avant-Garde Clichés), it will cement the strip’s reputation as the place for exciting contemporary art.  Now (no pun intended), if they could just all coordinate their openings!

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Beauty 2", detail

NORBERTO ROLDAN:  THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY AND FATAL STRATEGIES

When TAKSU, the Southeast Asian gallery network with branches in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Bali, submitted their application for Art Stage Singapore in late 2010, they received a surprising directive from Lorenzo Rudolf, the fair director.  For the high-profile 2011 debut of Asia’s newest art fair, Rudolf wanted the gallery to carry the works of only one artist from their roster:  that of Norberto “Peewee” Roldan’s from the Philippines.  “It was very stressful for me,” Peewee intimates.  “They told me in October, and the fair was scheduled for January!”

Norberto Roldan, "What Is the Color of Beauty 1", detail

By the fair’s opening date, however, The Beauty Of History Is That It Does Not Reside in One Place, Peewee’s one-man show, had been wonderfully installed inside the TAKSU booth.  The Singapore Art Museum promptly acquired one of the pieces on view.  Invisibilitus Est 1, an assemblage anchored on an old chasuble, now joins Faith In Sorcery, Sorcery In Faith (1+2),a Roldan piece from 1998, in the museum’s permanent collection.

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color Of Beauty 1", more detail

Peewee creates art primarily from putting together an assortment of objects, mostly curios that ascribe to Filipino folk Catholicism. Metal amulets, estampitas, anting-antings, and heirloom vestments are precisely arranged within specially fabricated wooden frames or panels that mimic pigeonholes.  They stand juxtaposed against a variety of bibelots—old fabric, antique photographs, kitschy religious statuettes, vintage toys, brass compacts, colored glass bottles.  Peewee initially culled these knickknacks from his own collection. When he had used up the lot for major exhibits in KL and Singapore in 2009, he turned to street vendors and second-hand shops in the vicinity of his Kamuning studio.

Norberto Roldan, Invisibilitus Est. 4"

The 58-year-old artist, who possesses degrees in Philosophy and Fine Arts, founded Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila’s foremost independent art space, in 2000.  He continues to run its programs. Until 2007, he also worked with ABS-CBN Merchandising, completing two stints as its Creative Director.  Concurrent to his day jobs, he practiced his art, a career that began with his first solo exhibit in 1987 at Hiraya Gallery.

Norberto Roldan, "Invisibilitus Sum 2"

This month, Peewee brings out more of his boxed constructions, a continuation of his April exhibit at Green Papaya.  Invisibilitus Est. 4, Invisibilitus Sum No. 1, and Invisibilitus Sum No. 2, again center on old chasubles.  Peewee confides how difficult these have been to come by lately.  He collected vintage studio shots for both What is the color of beauty? (1) and (2), the two largest pieces on view.  Both diptychs, the first pits the old photographs against clippings from current fashion magazines, composed with a gathering of clear and colored old bottles.  For the second, he has arranged more of these photos inside boxes.  Peewee has encapsulated the stories of an era within the frames inside the piece.

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Faith 3"

My favorite pieces in the show belong to the series What Is The Color Of Faith?  For the three pieces that make up this group of works, Peewee resurrected devices he has used in previous works.  Amulets, neon figurines, and bottles filled with herbs and finished with carmen-carmen (square bits of cloth pinned on garments of infants to serve as protection) form crucifixes.  Estampitas pasted on holograms create mesmerizing repetitions.

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Faith 3", detail

At the center of the gallery, a hundred used bottles of perfume inside an heirloom glass cabinet and two crystal chandeliers make up the installation Remembering My Mother’s Long Forgotten Scent.

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Faith 2"

Peewee’s pieces are social commentaries, discourses on our faith and history through collectibles.  “I consider objects as possessing anthropological values.  I cannot use an object merely on a whim… I put together old and new objects to signify the contemporary in the old,” Peewee explains his method of classifying his assemblages.  “In the end, all the objects participate in making a whole narrative…and to me that’s what makes the work art.  You’re not just telling a straight narrative but you are trying to break the narrative for people to make their own…each [person] can have their own reading of my pieces.”

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Faith 1", detail

Joaquin and Peewee Roldan with Triccie Luchangco and "What Is The Color of Faith 1"

Maxine Syjuco, "Propensity for Pain"

MAXINE SYJUCO:  A PROPENSITY FOR PAIN

Quite coincidentally, the second exhibit currently running at Now has also made use of found photographs, their sepia tones complementing Peewee’s works.  Maxine Syjuco printed a collection of discovered images on canvas.  She concealed the faces in each of them, replacing visages with painted human hearts.  Wooden frames that have been carved with wings complete each piece.  “Because these people have long passed on,” Maxine explains, “I use the wings to set them free.” Could one also say that they have been transformed into angels?

Maxine Syjuco, "Sans The Seven Dwarves"

A sculpture of a small house atop an open book sits at the center of the room.  Fabricated from wood and concrete, the doors and windows of the house stand wide open, ready to welcome Maxine’s liberated souls.

"A Propensity For Pain" installation view

Maxine Syjuco, "Prayers, Poems, Promises"

Norberto Roldan:  The Beginning of History and Fatal Strategies and Maxine Syjuco:  A Propensity for Pain run together with Pow Martinez:  Nature Paintings from 12 August to 7 September 2011 at Now Gallery & Consulting, Unit M05, Mezzanine, Eco Plaza Bldg., 2305 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City.  Phone (632) 555-0683 or visit
http://www.nowgallery.net

An edited version of the write-up on Peewee’s show has been published in the August 2011 issue of Town and Country Philippines.  Visit
http://www.facebook.com/townandcountry.ph

Norberto Roldan, "What Is The Color of Faith 2", detail

Norberto Roldan, "Remembering My Mother's Long Forgotten Scent"

Norberto Roldan, "The Beginning Of History and Fatal Strategies"

Norberto Roldan, "Something To Remember Me By"

 

Maxine Syjuco Reconstructs Constructions

When cross-disciplinary artist Maxine Syjuco started conceptualizing her piece, She May After Drinking You Sink Quickly Or

Maxine Syjuco, performance photo collage and papier mache dress from her installation, " She May After Drinking You Sink Quickly And Drown"

Drown, she shuttled between two construction sites.  Outside her bedroom window she would track the progress, and hear the inevitable noises, that came with building a small structure, one that would eventually house a studio for her parents, artists Cesare and Jean Marie Syjuco.  At the same time, the space that had been earmarked for her work, what had just been designated as the new gallery space of The Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences, was also in the process of being refitted.  It would open just in time for the Syjuco family’s exhibit at the hotel.

By Maxine Syjuco

Maxine’s installation recreates the construction site of her parents’ studio inside the newly opened gallery.  She uses it as remembrance to both what the gallery space had just gone through, and what had been a constant presence in the vicinity of her personal space.  She recycles materials salvaged from the site in her home and transforms them, thereby reflecting and continuing the creative process that went on before in both places.

Waste materials have been given new life:  the coco-timber used for the studio’s scaffolding has been reused here; they form

By Maxine Syjuco

the structure that anchors the entire piece.  Maxine fabricated long and flowy dresses from the paper sacks that had contained gravel and cement.  She finishes these dresses by scribbling lines from her poems that she had previously

By Maxine Syjuco

rejected as not being good enough.

Maxine hangs several photographs within her interactive piece.  She describes these black and white pieces as recycled artworks.  To put them together, she started off with old photographs of her performance pieces salvaged from albums that had been damaged by flood.  She took new photos of these damaged photos, and then superimposed them on new photographs taken of the construction site.  It is from these images of herself that the patterns of the papier mache dresses have been taken from.

Photo collage from Maxine Syjuco

The title of this installation echoes the process that these photographs had gone through. Previously drowned photos have been drowned again in the process of redeveloping them.

Maxine’s artist statement injects a tribute to the overseas worker within the piece.  I thought that added  unnecessary complexity to a piece that already contains so much food for thought.  On its own, it already delivers a visual punch.

Inside Maxine Syjuco's installation

The Syjuco family exhibit, Left of Center, is spread out over all the public areas of the hotel.  The photo collages of patriarch Cesare, with its hilarious lines and witty images, grace the hotel’s entrance and lobby, as well as the elevator lobbies of all floors.  Jean Marie has an installation piece at the lounge area. Also at the main lobby, by the elevators, Michelline Syjuco resurrects her embellished wooden horse from the 2009 Sungduan exhibit at the National Museum. It is her commentary on globalization as a Trojan horse for developing countries.  Trixie’s (Beatrix) video plays on the second floor lobby’s main wall.

Maxine and Michelline Syjuco

While Maxine’s piece is undoubtedly the major work in this exhibit, you can’t help but imbibe the creative energy of this talented family. They often work together, and it shows in how their pieces gel.  Their household must be so much fun!

At the main lobby, Cesare AX Syjuco, "Weird Birds"

Left Of Center with Cesare A.X. Syjuco, Jean Marie Syjuco, Michelline Syjuco, Maxine Syjuco, and Beatrix Syjuco  runs from 24 September to 24 October 2010 at The Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences, 119 LP Leviste St., Makati City, Philippines.  Phone (632) 828-4774 or visit
http://www.picassomakati.com
or
http://www.artcabinetphilippines.com

Michelline Syjuco, "Globalization: A Trojan Horse"

Maxine Syjuco, "Self Portraits"