Bogie’s Spectacular Surprise

Just as we wondered how many more Kotillion ladies Jose Tence Ruiz can whip up from his imagination, he springs a major

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Dama de Noche"

surprise.  A majestic, larger-than-life, three-dimensional version stands at the center of Art Informal, dominating Spectaculation:  Only The Old Die Young, Bogie’s solo exhibit now on view at the gallery’s space in Greenhills.

Back detail, "Dama de Noche"

Perhaps it was inevitable, given how closely identified these corsetted ladies have been to him.  Sooner or later, Bogie, like Pygmalion, was bound to bring one to life— or as close to it as possible.  Working with Danilo Ilag-ilag, who has collaborated with him on his sculptures before, Bogie fabricated Dama de Noche from resin. The voluminous skirts of his Kotillion ladies have always been painted as accumulations of objects that signify their personalites:  slabs of meat, or cursive letters that form into words, or thickets of overgrown branches.  This lady here goes back to the first Kotillion, from the 2008 TutoK show at the Ateneo Art Gallery,  the original symbol of reveling in the midst of want, of excessive waste.  Dama de Noche’s skirts look like a heap of garbage, a mishmash of industrial waste that Bogie has cast from original objects (a steering wheel, a motorcycle’s side mirrors, drainpipes).  She has been constructed in 14 parts that come together like slices of an orange. Like a typical aristocrat, she is accompanied by a pet. She holds a leash that is attached to a fallen tree trunk  (“A log instead of a dog”), the same trunk that fell on the Ruiz driveway during a recent typhoon.

Another view, "Dama de Noche"

A new batch of Kotillion paintings hang on the gallery’s walls.  I thought the painted ladies paled in comparison; they faded into the background, seeming more like handmaidens to the lady we can view in the round.  Dama de Noche belongs in a museum, to a public space where she can always hold court.

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Dona Cielito Buena", oil on primed linen, 72x48 in.

Spectaculation:  Only The Old Die Young runs from 28 October to 22 November 2010 at Art Informal, 277 Connecticut St., East Greenhills, Mandaluyong City.  Phone (632) 725-8518 or visit http://www.artinformal.com

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Senora Diana Sebastian" and "Madame Hilda del Fierro", both oil on primed linen, 84x60in and 72x48in.

Jose Tence Ruiz, "The Dude Abides", oil on wood, 36x36 in.

Disco Bombs, Suspended Leaps, and Shadowplay Explode At UP Vargas Museum

The UP Vargas Museum seems to have become a pretty exciting space this past year.  While it had always housed an important

By Jose Tence Ruiz

collection of paintings and memorabilia, it has transformed into a significant venue for contemporary art. In the past few months, we have seen a series of  exhibits by artists represented by Manila’s leading commercial art galleries.  Consequently, university students have gained access to works by artists critical to the current art scene.  Credit must go to curator Patrick Flores. And this latest trio of shows that he put together, all three that opened simultaneously this week,  definitely underscores this  development .

In the main lobby, we find Bound, with Jose Tence Ruiz, Roberto Feleo, and Gaston Damag.  The show works with the idea of straddling two realities.  To quote the exhibit notes, “this project explores the feeling of being suspended, or the state of transition between past and future, or the thin line that divides the normal and the berserk, the gods and the erring.”

Roberto Feleo, "Agtayabun"

Gaston remounts a piece from Synthetic Reliquiaries,  his SLab show of earlier this year.  His resin bululs, arranged on a steel scaffolding, speak of his taking the traditional and indigenous into the industrial.  Bob Feleo brings out two creatures from Filipino mythology, part of his Tau Tao series of a few years ago.  The Agtayabun, the hawk-man or the winged god that either maintains peace and order or becomes the source of chaos, hangs beside a Bakunawa, the sea serpent-god of the underworld who has the power to cause eclipses.  I had only ever seen photographs of his Tau Tao pieces, so seeing two in the flesh?  What a treat!  His version of

"Agtayabun", detail

Agtayabun is super, both fascinating and menacing, full of multi-layered details. Please bring out more of them!

Above the gallery’s stairway landing hangs a bright orange sculpture, another incarnation of Bogie Tence Ruiz’s adventurous Christ.  This one uses his cross as a surfboard,  with arms outstretched like UP’s Oblation, sporting a Unicorn’s horn.  This absurd amalgam somehow works, a beacon that compels you to come closer.

Kawayan de Guia Bomba installation

Look up and beyond Bogie’s surfer Christ hovers a glittering display that beckons you up the stairs.  Ascend to the museum’s third level and Kawayan de Guia transports you from the world of folk beliefs into his glitzy exhibit, Bomba.  An array of torpedo-shaped disco mirrors hang from the ceiling, at the center of which a chrome bomb houses speakers that blare out psychedelic music.  What a hip, fun, fantastic installation!  Ever wondered how Kawayan would top his jukeboxes?   Well, here we have the answer!  How does he dream of these things?  He creates a video that plays along with the flashing lights, an absorbing film that I actually viewed from start to finish.  To use Bogie’s description, Kawayan…”beautifully edits a combination of porno and violence without being gratuitous.”  He also assembles another jukebox, this time made to look futuristic, without the folk embellishments he used before.  This show alone makes the trek to

Kawayan de Guia's futuristic jukebox

Diliman worth the cost of gasoline.

Back on the ground floor, at the gallery adjacent to the main lobby, Anino Shadowplay and invited guest artists mount Yari.  Taking off from shadow puppets, the accoutrements of their craft, they developed pieces that viewers can interact with and manipulate.  You have kaleidoscopes and laser guns sharing space with clocks, a mix-and-match installation, and a huge crane reprised from UP’s Lantern Parade.  Patrick Flores challenged the artists to make use of the gallery’s glass windows instead of the white walls to display their pieces.  I thought this gave the show a different feel.  Don Salubayba, one of the founding members of Anino Shadowplay, shares that the exhibit comes even more alive when dusk falls and the light allows the pieces to cast their silhouettes on the floor.

Anino Shadowplay, "Anino Bodega"

Someone had commented that while the pieces in these shows worked individually, they didn’t seem to blend when put together.  Perhaps.  It didn’t feel that way to me.  Maybe I enjoy an affinity with the works of these artists.  Maybe because I do not work as an art professional, I simply let my instincts and gut lead the way.  Maybe the students and artists milling around gave Vargas a buzz of positive energy that I enjoyed.  Whatever it is, I certainly didn’t regret crawling through EDSA’s rush hour traffic to catch this set of shows.  I bet you won’t either.

Jose Tence Ruiz for Yari, "Diablo Ex-Machina"

Bound, Bomba, and Yari run from 19 June to18 October 2010 at the University of the Philippines Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Roxas Avenue, UP Diliman, Quezon City.  Phone (632) 928-1927 or (632) 981-8500 local 4024.

By Marc Cosico for Yari

By Robert Alejandro for Yari, "Tatang"

By Brendale Tadeo for Yari, "Makinarya"

Beth Parrocha for Yari, "Puppet Show"

For Yari

For Yari

For Yari

For Yari

Bernadette Wolf, "Yari ng Diyos"

By Anino Shadowplay for Yari, "Theocracy"

Utopia in the Age of You Tube

More than twenty years ago, writer and art critic Alice Guillermo defined social realism as “…a shared point of view which seeks

YOUTubia

to expose or lay bare the true conditions of Philippine society as well as to point out solutions by which these conditions are changed…”  Social Realism, or SR, has always had a strong presence in the Philippine art scene.  Artists don’t exist in a vacuum.  And just as in any community, some show more concern than others for politics and social justice.

I have always looked forward to the group exhibits by the Social Realism stalwarts:  Antipas Delotavo, Jose Tence Ruiz, Renato Habulan, and Pablo Baensantos.  They come together on an almost annual basis, mounting shows of mostly large-scale paintings. I have seen some pretty important pieces come out of these SM Art Center displays.  Among them, Biboy Delotavo’s unforgettable Diaspora, his 2007 mural on departing Filipino overseas workers, and Bogie Tence Ruiz’s first forays with the Kotillion in 2008.

Renato Habulan, detail, "Liwanag 1"

YOUTubia continues this tradition of the SR barkada.  The show’s title plays on the word utopia, the ideal social, political, and moral state.  In this age of the internet and global interconnections, one’s concept of utopia has broadened to embrace technological advances.  Social realism must also keep up with the times.  Thus,  aside from the Fab Four, this show includes work by Neil Doloricon,  younger activist-artists Mideo Cruz, Iggy Rodriguez, and Buen Calubayan, as well as less militant contemporary art practitioners Tatong Recheta Torres, Constantino Zicarelli, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, and Jay Pacena.

Renato Habulan, "Liwanag 1" and "Liwanag 2"

Bogie Tence Ruiz on curating the show:  “I gave them no other brief other than think about the present, where  You Tube has infected UTOPIA. It is not Dystopia, just YOUTubia, which is not a failure or a disappointment, but an eye-opener to a new reality, unfolding, mutating, intimidating, still untested and unqualified, but true and undeniably pervasive and contemporary,  about as contemporary as all the Internet, Facebook, Twitter etcetera etcetra.”

Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, "Karaoke Art Project"

This unusual combination of artists actually works for me.  It is perhaps a testament to the respect accorded to Bogie that the artists produced significant pieces.  Not many group shows can boast that achievement.  I especially enjoyed Ling Quisumbing Ramilo’s Karaoke Art Project.  She altered the background images of karaoke songs to that of Philippine art pieces, uploading more than 4,000 photos from her colleagues.  Through this project, she brings art to a new audience, those unable to visit galleries and art spaces.

Tatong Recheta Torres, "Untitled"

For Ling’s other piece, her Static Series, she spent hours in front of the t.v., waiting to photograph faces distorted by static.  She arranged her photos to form a life-sized frame of an empty computer screen, a comment on today’s sensory and information overload.

I also loved Tatong Recheta Torres’ untitled portrait of a disintegrated face.  Frankly, I’m not sure how this relates to You Tube and Utopia, but it is a beautiful painting nevertheless.  He pays tribute to a beloved father figure who passed away last year.  Tatong also reveals that with this piece, he went back to his original process, painting without photo references or grids.

At foreground, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, "Static Series"

Bogie introduces his caballeros, solo paintings of FPJ and Erap borne by steeds.  They flank a diptych of a mob of movie villains, contravidas slain by the two movie idols in the course of their cinematic careers.  Unfortunately, their prowess could not extend to life beyond the big screen.  Both of them have been browbeaten by a petite adversary, the head of state who takes pride in her resemblance to Nora Aunor. No description can do justice to Bogie’s wonderful use of colors for these three pieces.

By Jose Tence Ruiz

A protest cannot be complete without a burning effigy, and sure enough, EfPIDGEE, burns close by.

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Kabalyero Sa Dalampasigan Sa Tabing Na Bughaw"

There’s a good reason why we’re missing Biboy Delotavo’s murals for this show.  At the end of April, he brings a show of large-scale paintings to the National University of Singapore (NUS).  What we see here are two pieces from his 2008 Artesan show, also in Singapore.  I had only seen photos of these before, and enjoyed this chance to see them in the flesh.

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Kabalyero Sa Puwang ng Gabi't Takipsilim"

Jay Pacena mounts an impressive assemblage of his painted digital prints of subjects on a freefall. Neil Doloricon also uses digital prints painted over with acrylic for U.S. Diplomacy and Na-Edsahan Tayo.  Unlike Jay’s monochromatic grays, he has chosen neon colors to give his pieces a pop, graphic feel.

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Miting De Atrazo"

Mideo Cruz paints!  His Laissez-Faire shows mirror images of the iconic Eddie Adams photograph of a South Vietnamese general executing his Vietcong prisoner.  Portraying a horrific act twice makes it ubiquitous, and consigns it to the commonplace.  We viewers becomes inured to such despicable deeds.

Antipas Delotavo, "P2Pass" and "White Edifice"

My only complaint about the Pablo Baensantos piece, Labor and Monkey Business, on monkeys as politicians (or are the politicians monkeys?) swinging from an LRT station is that it was mounted  high on the wall;  too high to get a good view of its details.  Fortunately, you do not encounter the same problem with Renato Habulan’s Liwanag 1.  You can relish every tattoo on his skinhead’s sinewy arm .

By Jay Pacena

Cos Zicarelli’s two works on paper seem like movie stills to me.  From Bogie: “Iggy Rodriguez’s painting is about the powerful moloch lording over the destruction of the small and weak. Buen Calubayan presents a cycle of death, consumption, and tribute with his images of dead laboratory mice, wakes,  and a video of a boa constrictor devouring another mouse.”

Neil Doloricon, "US Diplomacy" and "Na-Edsahan Ka"

In YouTubia, you get a blend of the traditional and the more contemporary, various interpretations that somehow gel into a satisfying mix.  SR moves on.

Mideo Cruz, "Laissez Faire"

YOUTubia New Works, Effigies, and Videoke runs from 8 April to 2 May 2010 at the Finale Art File, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo (Chino Roces Ave.), Makati.  Phone (632) 813-2310 or visit http://www.finaleartfile.com

Pablo Baens Santos, "Labor Monkey Business"

Buen Calubayan, "Unrehearsed Jazz"

Constantino Zicarelli, "After White Zombie" and "After (After White Zombie)"

Iggy Rodriguez, "Dante's Rest Day"

Rodel Spins Folk Tales in China, Bogie Dances the Kotillion in Singapore, and Annie Takes Us Through Art History in Manila

Rodel Tapaya, "Aponitolau and The Great Flood"

Rodel Tapaya, "Bringing Fire to the Earthworld"

Two of my favorite artists, Rodel Tapaya Garcia and Jose Tence Ruiz, take their art to Beijing

Rodel Tapaya, "Origin of the Mountains"

and Singapore respectively, with solo shows of mainly works on canvas opening seven days from each other.  Meanwhile, back home, Annie Cabigting opens her first major exhibit in almost two years. For fans of Filipino paintings who happen to be traveling around Asia these next few weeks, here are three good shows to catch:

Rodel Tapaya, "Aran the First Woman", diorama detail

MYTHICAL ROOTS, RODEL TAPAYA

Once again, Rodel plays the raconteur of forgotten Philippine

Rodel Tapaya, "Guardian of Heaven"

myths and legends.  Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights, he hasn’t run out of stories to tell.  Through

Rodel Tapaya, "Sun, Sky, Moon, and Stars Myth"

his signature devices of exaggerated and grotesque figures set against fantastic landscapes, he

Rodel Tapaya, "Transformation of Feathers"

brings us visual narratives, an alternative avenue for appreciating our folk tales.  In this Beijing show, he weaves his fables via large scale acrylic on canvas  pieces (76 x 60 in) and his dioramas from found objects and hammered metal sheets, decorated and embellished both within and without.

Even if  Rodel continuously mines local Filipino material for his chronicles on canvas, his works retain their appeal to an international audience.  I know, I’ve said that many times before. I just find it pretty amazing.

Mythical Roots runs from 26 June to 26 July 2009 at SOKA Art Center in Beijing.  For more information, visit http://www.rodeltapaya.com or http://soka-art.com

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Madonna Bellumbella"

BLUSKREEN BALLROOM, JOSE TENCE RUIZ

Just like popular depictions of  Marie Antoinette, Bogie’s Kotillion ladies  have  become caricatures for the indifferent elite who scoff at suffering that does not directly interfere with their excesses.  This time he takes them global, to Singapore,  a city which he called home in the early 1990s.  Once again, he imbues his voluminously-clad females and their pouf a la reine hairdos with features of today’s celebrities, the better to drive across his views on the correlation between the adoration of beauty with the penchant for over consumption (think of the Imeldific!)

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Signorina Marina"

Jose Tence Ruiz, "BluSkreen Dona Guerrerra"

Angelina Jolie lends her features to Blu-skreen Ballroom:  Dona Guerrerra. She brandishes war’s destructive results.  Look closely at her curlicue gown, and see the word “War”

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Mlle Bec Sucre"

repeated several times.  Signorina Marina‘s face is Nicole Scherzinger of the singing group Pussycat Dolls.  Her gown, made of blasted jeepney parts, reflects Bogie’s recurring fascination with his jeepney car bombs.  Chinese superstar Xang Xiyi, aka Mademoiselle Bec Sucre, wears a gown made up of parts for sawing wood and felling trees, ultimate symbols of how our demands denude our natural resources.  And finally, what I think would be my favorite of all the Kotillion ladies I have encountered thus far, Madonna Bellumbella, named for who else?  None other than the Material Girl, the utmost purveyor of the bilmoko mentality of the 1980s.  The folds of her skirt camouflage the words belllum (war) and bella (beauty).

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Katedral/Tubig at Langis"

In the show, Bogie includes two pieces with his trademark Katedral, his allegory for deluded glory in a faith practiced amidst squalor.  In his painting Katedral/Tubig at Langis, he transforms the katedral into an oil rig,

Jose Tence Ruiz, "Semper Fi"

a commentary perhaps on our continued dependence on oil imports, a never-ending cycle that holds our industries hostage to those that control this commodity.

BluSkreen Ballroom is on view at the Artesan Gallery +Studio, 793 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 269765 from 19 June to 10 July 2009.  For more information, please call (65)984-7817  or contact network@theartesan.net.

Annie Cabigting's "Splitting 32 (After Gordon Matta-Clark)" beside Karen Montinola

PICTURES OF PICTURES, ANNIE CABIGTING

Annie Cabigting’s works make those of us interested in contemporary art history want to head back home to our computers and google

Annie Cabigting, "Destroyed Painting (After Francis Bacon)

the artists she uses as references.  She views her pieces as a way of continuing the work of artists whose works she loves, bringing them to light, putting her stamp on them, making them relevant to our present time.

This current show continues where she last left off  from her 2007 solo show, Something To Do With Art, at Finale’s old space at the Lao Center in Pasay Road.

Then as now, she uses one of the works of “anarchitect” Gordon Matta-Clark.  This time, she paints from a photocollage that documents Matta-Clark’s Splitting 1974, showing the cross-section of a house he had opened up and sliced through.  Her piece, Splitting 32 (After Gordon Matta-Clark), comes together from four separate shaped canvases, angled just as the original image.

In this show’s version of Destroyed Painting (After Francis Bacon), she mourns the loss of yet another piece consigned to the garbage heap by the artist. Again, she paints from an image she came across while doing research on Bacon’s work, bringing back to life what did not meet his exacting standards.  She

Annie Cabigting, "Barnett Newman and unidentified woman who's afraid of red, yellow, and blue"

paints the piece in its destructed state, honoring Bacon by keeping his work as he left it, yet paying him  tribute through this resurrection.  In Barnett Newman and an unidentified woman who’s afraid of red, yellow, and blue she imagines how Newman and his female gallery owner would have surveyed his work after it had been vandalized, an act of desecration not done until after the artist’s death.

She also paints an untitled piece by conceptual artist, Giulio Paolini. Thanks to Annie’s show, I am now a total fan of his installations, and can’t read enough on him.

Annie Cabigting, "Giulio Paolini, Senzo Titulo (Untitled)"

As a touch of whimsy, she includes a painting of a note left by art thieves.

Annie Cabigting, "A note found with painting stolen from the Whitworth Art Gallery"

In a sense, this exhibit brings us the third incarnation of these works of art. From their original state as installations and paintings, they have been transformed into photographs for documentation.  And now,  we see them here as wall-bound paintings on canvas. Can Annie now claim them as her own?  That would be an interesting debate!

In the intervening years since that last solo show, Annie has done a series of works depicting viewers viewing masterpieces.  By doing so, she turns the tables on spectators like us, transforming them from mere onlookers into the work themselves.  In this show, we go back to our role as spectators, an audience to Annie’s kind of art.

Pictures of Pictures is on view from 16 June to 6 July at the Tall Gallery,  Finale Art File,  Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo, Makati.  Ph (632)813-2310 or visit http://www.finaleartfile.com

Bogie’s Loony Uncle

 

Jose Tence Ruiz Pila Baldessari and Blu Skreen Pila

On the surface, Jose Tence Ruiz seems the most unlikely of guys to do a show on National Artist Fernando Amorsolo.  Although the 53-year–old multimedia artist studied art at a time when schools taught the Amorsolo template, Tence Ruiz, aka Bogie, cut his artistic teeth in the 70s, the decade of protests and revolutionary art.  His exaggerated, oftentimes grotesque, figures set in an explosion of junk or mired in muck, give harsh depictions of the underside of life in Manila.  He also did time as an editorial cartoonist, politics and governance serving sustenance to his art. To this day, Bogie remains a pillar of Social Realism, the opposite end of the spectrum from Amorsolo’s benign sunsets and fragile beauties.  

Once Isa Lorenzo had convinced Bogie to visit SLab, this exhibit  had metamorphosed from a one-piece show into

Paraisado Florida de Don Romantico

Bukod Tanging Pag-Ibig: A Don Fernando Register.  The exhibit’s title a literal and lyrical translation of the name amor solo from Spanish to Filipino. Not just my only love but the pinnacle of all loves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 “I see Amorsolo as a loony uncle you might snicker at, but cannot ignore.  He is part of my DNA”, declares Bogie.  After almost thirty years, Bogie can take a step back and react to his differences with Amorsolo’s visions of reality in a relaxed, even humorous, manner.  “His works haunted me, mahirap ipinta.” He labels Don Fernando a retinal genius, a cinematographer who can capture light like no other.  In this suite of twelve works, he dexterously puts together Don Fernando’s iconic images with his own signature tongue-in-cheek devices, bringing Amorsolo into the world of 21^st century Philippines.

In three oil on canvas pieces, Mga Dalagang Bukid , Dalagang Bukid 1, and Prinsesang Bukid, he integrates Don Fernando’s most famous ladies with today’s realities: of bukids and rice fields transformed into golf courses and low-cost housing projects. The graceful damsels today burn from the rays of

Jose Tence Ruiz Mga Dalagang Bukid

a sun that penetrate a thinning ozone layer as they find employment as caddies, their parasols converted into golf umbrellas. In Takipsilim:  Dinadaga and Monumento sa Dalagang Bukid, Bogie takes Amorsolo Light into the evening, rendering two of Don Fernando’s most recognizable scenes under a cover of darkness, as if viewing with night vision goggles the images of a Manila ruined by war and a nipa hut on the edge of farmlands.

Jose Tence Ruiz Prinsesang Bukid

Bogie will not be Bogie without his social commentary. He conveys the common tao’s daily plight of never ending queues: for passports, for visas, for buses and jeepneys, even to get into variety shows like Wowowee.  The title Pila Baldessari is taken from both American conceptual artist John Baldessari’s wont to conceal his subject’s faces with colored shapes, and also from the colloquial term pilang balde. For that dose of relevance, Bogie uses forms that mimic Bayani Fernando’s MMDA Art as face covers.  

 

Jose Tence Ruiz Oil/Painting

The pieces, though, that have Bogie’s hallmark through and through are the work on canvas of an oil rig that blights Manila Bay’s famous sunset, amusingly entitled Oil/Painting, and the show’s two sculptures, Paraisado Florida de Don Romantico and Ube.  The kariton as both cathedral and conveyance has been used by Bogie before.  This time he amorsolo-fies this, covering the wooden piece under layers of silk flowers set in resin, beautifying an otherwise bleak structure.  

 

Ube, a free-standing piece made of resin, pays tribute to the deliciousness

Jose Tence Ruiz Ube

of Don Fernando’s nudes, rosy-complexioned creatures, delectable as ice cream.  He turns once again to the MMDA for inspiration, coming up with the dull violet shade by combining the bright pink and blue strewn by the MMDA all over the metropolis.

 

Jose Tence Ruiz finds that responding to Fernando Amorsolo’s body of work does not detract from the understanding of his own.   Just as it is with that loony uncle that hovers in the sidelines of family gatherings, in the end, he discovers that they can sit down and grab a beer together.  And it sure tastes good.

 

Bukod Tanging Pag-ibig:  A Don Fernando Register is on exhibit from February 18 to March 21, 2009 at Slab, 2f YMC Building 2, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City, Phone 816-0044. There will also be two artist talks by Jose Tence Ruiz on March 7 and 21, 2009 from 3 to 5 pm.  Visit www.slab.silverlensphoto.com.  

My Christmas Wish List

With apologies to Madonna…..

Santa Baby, first on my list

Would have to be

Kareton Katedral

By  Bogie

Kareton KatedralKambal Dos by Jose Tence Ruiz

Santa Baby, you could also get me

Ghe’s Arrangement in

Black and Gray

That would make my Christmas Day

Arrangement in Gray and Black by Geraldine Javier

Santa Baby, at spot number three

Butcher’s Blossoms,

The piece by Patty

Butcher's Blosssoms by Patty Eustaquio

Anything else that should be on this list?

TutoK Tackles Crisis; Mike Goes Eclectic

Detail: Neil Pasilan Installation

TUTOKKK:  KRISIS, KALUNASAN…ANONG K MO? AT BLANC COMPOUND

Three years ago, a core group of concerned artists came together to make a stand against the spate of extra-judicial killings that hit unrecognized, anonymous, mostly rural, Filipinos.  Since then, this loosely-organized band of artists, headed by Manny Garibay and Karen Flores, have made it

Manny Garibay and Racquel de Loyola

tradition to put together an exhibit on or around December 1, Human Rights Day.  To quote core member Noel Soler Cuizon, “Tutok employs art as medium, message, and motivation” to call attention to important issues affecting our daily lives, collaborating with NGOs like KARAPATAN and educational institutions such as the University of Sto. Tomas, St. Scholastica’s College, and Ateneo de Manila University.

For this, their anniversary show with an array of over a hundred 18 x 24 inch works, TutoK challenges both artists and the community at large:  what do you make of a nation, and a world, in financial crisis?

The show is on view from 30 November to 10 December 2008 at Blanc Compound, 359 Shaw Blvd, Mandaluyong, Ph: (632)752-0080 www.blanc.ph

Mark Andy Garcia and Lynyrd Paras

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entrance Installation by Don Salubayba

By Bogie Ruiz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detail: Mimi Tecson Collage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Jay Pacena

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ECLECTIC BY MICHAEL CACNIO

Michael Cacnio’s brass sculptures, with their decorative, often humorous, take on everyday Philippine life may seem poles apart from TutoK’s more

Detail: Subok

thought-provoking pieces.  Mike’s works are easy and whimsical and popular; his shows quickly sell out.  But the underlying viewpoint perhaps falls within the same spectrum: that of celebrating one’s Pinoyness with aplomb, no matter what life hands you.

Buking!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eclectic by Michael Cacnio, 24 November to 7 December 2008  at 1/0f Gallery, The Shops at Serendra, Bonifacio Global City, Ph (632)901-3152 Email:  1of.gallery@gmail.com