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The winners of the 2018 Ateneo Art Awards were announced on August 26. Pictured here are (from left): Victoria T. Herrera, director and chief curator of Ateneo Art Gallery; Millet Mananquil, lifestyle editor of the The Philippine Star; the winners of the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art: Ronson Culibrina, Johanna Helmut, and a member of KoloWn; and Maria Luz Vilches, vice president for the Loyola Schools. Image courtesy Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon City.
On August 26, Quezon City’s Ateneo Art Gallery announced the winners of the 2018 Ateneo Art Awards.
Named in honor of Ateneo Art Gallery’s first benefactor, the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art recognize the outstanding works of artists under the age of 36, exhibited within the past year. The three 2018 awardees are Ronson Culibrina, Johanna Helmuth, and the KoloWn collective. Culibrina, who won for the charcoal and resin pieces exploring everyday life in his hometown, displayed at his solo exhibition “Talim” at Blanc Gallery, will receive a residency grant from Liverpool Hope University – Creative Campus. Helmuth, awarded for her solo exhibition “Makeshift,” which probed the temporary measures people adopt when facing scarcity, also held at Blanc Gallery, will be artist-in-residence at Artesan Gallery + Studio in Singapore. Critiquing how people view spaces was KoloWn’s solo exhibition “Low Pressured Areas” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, which won the collective a residency grant from La Trobe Art Institute in Bendigo. The winners were chosen from a list of 89 nominees put forward by galleries, curators, museum directors, art educators and artists.
This year, Ateneo also launched two new awards. The inaugural Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize went to Jel Suarez, who was selected by ambassador Giorgio Guglielmino for her exhibition “Traces By Which We Remember” at West Gallery. Mars Bugaon bagged the inaugural People’s Choice poll, receiving over 13 percent of the total votes for his exhibition “Becoming” at Artinformal, which comprised artworks fashioned from plastic waste. He will be given art supplies from Artline, Pebeo and Derwent valued up to PHP 15,000 (USD 280).
The Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism – ArtAsiaPacific and The Philippine Star went to Alec Madelene Abarro and Mary Jessel Duque, respectively. Abarro’s winning entry was an essay titled “An Organized Chaos: Navigating the Looban.” She will contribute six articles to ArtAsiaPacific. Duque’s submission was called “Pacita Abad: A Million Times a Woman, an Artist.” She will write 24 articles for the arts and culture section in The Philippine Star.
Phoebe Tam is an editorial intern of ArtAsiaPacific.
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