Feb 28 2018

Highlights From Art Fair Philippines 2018

by Julee WJ Chung

As part of “ArtFairPH/Projects,” filmmaker and pioneer of the Filipino New Wave KIDLAT TAHIMIK created an installation titled WW3 – the Protracted Kulture War (2018). Made together with wood carvers in Baguio, the installation is a mishmash of icons—the Ifugao goddess of the wind is juxtaposed with Marilyn Monroe—questioning the idea of beauty within the colonial imagination, and explores notions of cultural heritage and neocolonial identity. All photos by Julee WJ Chung for ArtAsiaPacific.

In balmy Manila, the sixth edition of Art Fair Philippines (AFP) opened on February 27, transforming multistory car park The Link into a one-stop cultural cache at the heart of the city’s financial district. Showcasing modern and contemporary art from the Philippines brought by 51 galleries—36 of which operate spaces within the country—the fair gave prominence to the medium of photography through its new section “ArtFairPH/Photo,” presented in partnership with the Swiss private banking group Julius Baer. Works in this segment, such as those by Philippine photographers Jake Verzosa and Neal Oshima, shine a light on indigenous traditions and the changing Philippine environment. Meanwhile, large-scale solo installations and dedicated booths created under the segment “ArtFairPH/Projects” were centerpieces that gave artists the freedom to move past the white-cube format.

Despite the country’s ongoing cultural budget cuts, several highly anticipated annual visual culture events—including the Manila Biennale, Art in the Park and Metro Manila Film Festival—have made the city a hotspot for art collectors and art lovers worldwide, with AFP becoming one of the most well attended art events in the Philippines. Visitors have steadily increased year upon year since the fair’s launch in 2013.

To accommodate this growing audience, AFP introduced “10 Days of Art,” an auxiliary event to happen beyond the main function in neighboring institutions and galleries. Those who have a keen eye for contemporary Southeast Asian art can find Natee Utarit’s exhibition “Optimism is Ridiculous: The Altarpieces” at the Ayala Museum, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Serenity of Madness” at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Carlos Amorales’s “Prelude” at the Bellas Artes Outpost, a public art installation of Martha Atienza’s Our Islands 11°16’58.4”N 123°45’07.0”E (2016) at Tower One and Exchange Plaza Fountain, to name just a few.

Art Fair Philippines will be held from March 1 to 4 at The Link, Ayala Center. Here are some of the fair’s highlights.

Mind Set Art Center’s (Taipei) presentation included Tactile Pink and Turquoise Laces and Yellow and White on Deep Blue (both 2018) by Filipino painter MARINA CRUZ, which show detailed representations of two hand-me-down dresses. The paintings are two great examples of the artist’s ongoing explorations of inherited fabrics as a means of preserving memory, and exploring themes of family and parenthood.

Detail of Tactile Pink and Turquoise Laces (2018) by MARINA CRUZ.

Detail of Yellow and White on Deep Blue (2018) by MARINA CRUZ.

Shown together with BERNARDO PACQUING’s The King’s Bloody Crown #2 (2018) (front), MARTHA ATIENZA’s single-channel video work Migration N 50°42’31.08” W 028° 54’57.65” (2017) (back) encourages viewers to ponder upon the power of the sea, and its influence on shaping human societies. The video is presented by Silverlens (Manila) in its booth, and runs concurrent to Atienza’s Our Islands 11°16’58.4”N 123°45’07.0”E (2016), installed off-site at Tower One and Exchange Plaza Fountain.

Also at Silverlens (Manila), multidisciplinary artist GARY-ROSS PASTRANA explores the transformative process of images and objects through his collage work A2 (2018), which deconstructs and rearranges elements from an existing painting.

Deck (Singapore) brought the works by the winning artists of Steidl Book Award Asia 2017, including black-and-white prints by Filipino photographer JAKE VERZOSA. His portrait series “The Last Tattooed Women of Kalinga” (2009–13) memorializes the dying tradition of tattooing in villages throughout the Cordillera mountains in the northern Philippines.

Mabini Projects, part of local gallery 1335Mabini, presented an array of photographs by emerging and mid-career artists. MARTA LOVINA’s digital collage prints from her project “Objects of Delayed Relevance” (2018) delved into the personal archives of a Sama Dilaut family on the island of Sitangkai. Sifting through these objects—notebooks, maps, fishing hooks, broken shells, and more—the artist tries to reconstruct a narrative of their lives through their mementos.

In the same booth, RJ FERNANDEZ documents the site of the Philippines’ gold mines in “Moving Mountains” (2012), which has had a long history in the community of traditional miners: Ibaloy and Kankana-ey tribes. Since 1995, mining investments and concessions such as land rights have been increasingly handed over to foreign companies, leading to the displacement of indigenous people. The photographs are a visual protest against the social and environmental effects caused by the industry.

Befitting to the location of the fair, multimedia Filipino artist NILO ILARDE brings a colorful installation of Hot Wheels toy cars that fills an entire booth. The installation is titled The Art Fair is Full of Objects, More or Less Interesting; I Wish to Add 24,124 More (2018), and Ilarde attempts to present the fair as “a site of excess and a space for free play.”

Another large-scale work at the fair in “ArtFairPH/Projects” was ALVIN ZAFRA’s film Revolver (2018) presented in the Karen H. Montinola Selection booth. Featuring the artist’s performance of skinning a gun on a grinder, the work aims to reverse the violence inherent to a gun by taking charge of the power given to machines by man.

LEONARD AGUINALDO’s bright neon colors stood out among the booths in his exhibition “Side Effect.” Known for his rubber cut works that are influenced by folk and traditional arts in Ilocos and Cordillera, the artist carves a tapestry of disparate narratives that permeate the country’s market, politics, and religious beliefs, demonstrating the diverse systems that are at play in Philippine contemporary society.

Julee WJ Chung is the assistant editor of ArtAsiaPacific.

Art Fair Philippines runs in Makati City’s The Link, Ayala Center from March 1 to 4, 2018.

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