Picture Imperfect
Various Artists
Catalina Africa, Poklong Anading, Yason Banal, Ringo Bunoan, Roberto Chabet, Mariano Ching, Kiri Dalena, Jed Escueta, Nona Garcia, Katya Guerrero, Nilo Ilarde, Sam Kiyoumarsi, Cocoy Lumbao, At Maculangan, Lani Maestro, Jet Melencio, Paul Mondok, Mawen Ong, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Soler Santos, Yasmin Sison, Gerardo Tan, Weather Bureau, MM Yu
Catalina Africa, Poklong Anading, Yason Banal, Ringo Bunoan, Roberto Chabet, Mariano Ching, Kiri Dalena, Jed Escueta, Nona Garcia, Katya Guerrero, Nilo Ilarde, Sam Kiyoumarsi, Cocoy Lumbao, At Maculangan, Lani Maestro, Jet Melencio, Paul Mondok, Mawen Ong, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Soler Santos, Yasmin Sison, Gerardo Tan, Weather Bureau, MM Yu
23 March – 28 April 2013
Curated by
Roberto Chabet, MM Yu
23 March – 28 April 2013
Has it ever occurred to you that in any event that I stand, sit, or am scattered in a position that you can only comprehend as fortuitously formed or tactfully arranged, it is you whom I have always tried to picture? It is your movement that I have always tried to inconsolably capture. From the forebears of your humdrum equipment, you have grown the ability to take pleasure in the instantaneous reproduction of my image, encoded in a system no longer dense that it can penetrate the very air which you breathe, pass on like a germ, share like a dialect, and transport within a matter of seconds. I cannot help thinking that through your hands I have evolved from mere depiction into a proclamation that you can send. You are my messenger now as you have once been my witness.
And while I did start aimlessly as a substance of this world, given shape through my creator’s hands, I have seen how you have exceeded his design and how you have gone as far as to construct, re-fashion, or obliterate me for the sole purpose of existing within your frame. I have seen your struggles invalidating yourself apart from the same stigma that hounded your pioneers, who were reduced to the cold mechanism of the apparatus which merely captures, knowing it could never possibly create. In the same light, I have seen how you were celebrated for it, like a stern judge who knows only truth, and yet again scorned, in finding out that what you held in your hand was the tool for lies.
I have heard other people say that other objects which do not share my predicament are “picture perfect.” It is, paradoxically, a phrase uttered whenever you and I are absent. It is the unusual formation of clouds, the silhouette of a sailboat against a sparkling lake, the child who has wrapped a pet in a gentle embrace—these, when no finger is set to pull the trigger. All may never exist through Polaroid prints or reproduction plates except in their actualities, framed only by the viewfinder in our minds. The shutter snaps through the sound of our thoughts—picture perfect.
But what really disturbs me is how it implies that our partnership is only meant for such a state. I, who can no longer understand how to behave in front of you and who is always apprehensive of what kind of treatment I shall get: underexposed, burnt, scanned, scratched, undressed, or concealed, I understand how technology has given you more agents to utilize as messages. And I understand how much time has changed, that even the eye that commands the trigger is found looking at the same lens. And as the moment draws nearer to when your finger pulls the trigger, I increasingly feel that I have nothing more to recommend.
Yours truly,
Subject
Dear Subject,
I am hard-pressed to say that the only thing that is real for me right now is the product that will come at the other end of this procedure: the image, which is neither you nor this condition that we’re in. It is I who is frozen in time, contrary to what you might have heard critics say about you. It is I who is being stopped dead in her tracks. I, who is even reluctant to call you my subject; I, who believes that you are instead a component within an expression I am trying to make. And although I can never proclaim you as my own creation, it is the story that can be found within you which I am trying to create. The story found in your face, in your appearance, in your arrangement against the story of your foreground or background, as well as the story to be found within what the attitude of my viewers will be towards you. Most of the time, I have totally abandoned the notion of what is photographic and what is non-photographic. And you were right about how technology has changed my view about these things. If it is a picture of an existing picture, then so be it. If it is a loaf of bread I should scan instead of photographing, then so be it. If it is a sentence playing in my head to print, then so be it. In essence, I have tried to capture them in the way I have tried to capture an accidental scene or a new species, unrecognizable, which I am only hoping I can comprehend after I have placed them neatly inside the frame.
And although it is true that mine will always be second-rate depictions of your actuality in this world, I will never rest from arranging and casting the objects around you; from building you from scratch if necessary just to pacify the desire to see an image that has long been lodged in my head. And that image, incidentally, has been perceived as a photograph and nothing else; like the way I have dreamt about dreaming, which how, during that moment, it is the only way it can make sense. Because without the brushstrokes evident in paintings, taking pictures has become an act in itself worth exploring. And by taking into account that the act itself serves as the defining state of photography nowadays, I am able to finally put to rest all my apprehensions about being a mere recorder.
Faithfully,
Image taker
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About the Artist
About the Artists
Catalina Africa (b. 1988) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines. She has participated in several residency programs including those by 1335MABINI, AiRPManila, the Skowhagen School of Painting and Sculpture in the U.S. in 2014, and at Baler Artist Village in Aurora. She is also a mentor for the Artery Mentorship Program in 2014 by Artery Art Space. In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards for her solo exhibition, Reverse Boomerangs and Other Exercises for Pleasure (Warm Up/Cool Down) at 1335MABINI. Africa has shown at various galleries like West Gallery, Silverlens, 1335Mabini, Finale Art File, and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts Gallery.
Poklong Anading’s (b. 1975, Manila, Philippines) practice utilizes a wide range of media from drawing, painting, video, installation, photography and object-making. Taking a more process-oriented and conceptual approach, his continuing inquiry takes off from issues on self-reflexivity, both of himself and others, and site-specificity in an ongoing discussion about society, time and territory.
He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in painting from the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines (1999). He completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila, Philippines (2003 to 2004), Common Room, Bandung, Indonesia (2008), Bangkok University Gallery, Thailand (2013), Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2013), Philippine Art Residency Program - Alliance Francaise de Manille in Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle in France (2014) and das weisse haus, Vienna Austria (2018). He had solo exhibitions in Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz, Austria (2010, 2012 and 2020), Taro Nasu in Japan and Athr Gallery in Jeddah (2016), 1335MABINI in Manila, Philippines (2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019). He has been included in notable group exhibitions such as: Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2002 and 2012), No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, the first exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore (2013 to 2014), 5th Asian Art Biennial: Artist Making Movement, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2015), The Shadow Never Lies, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, Afterwork, Para Site, Hong Kong, China and in the Architecture Biennale for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Philippine Pavilion: Muhon: Traces of an Adolescent City at Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy (2016), disco nap, ‘We Didn’t Mean To Break It (But It’s Ok, We Can Fix It), Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal (2019), Far Away But Strangely Familiar’, Danubiana Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia (2019), Normal scheduling will resume shortly, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila (2019) and Arts in Common Artjog MMXIX, Jogya Nationa Museum, Jogyakarta, Indonesia (2019),
Anading lives and works in Manila.
Yason Banal (b. 1972, Philippines) is an artist whose work moves between photography, video, installation, text and performance, exploring myriad forms and conceptual strategies in order to research and experiment with associations and refractions among seemingly divergent systems. He obtained a BA in Film at the University of the Philippines, an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths-University of London, residencies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and AIT in Tokyo, and visiting lectureships at London Metropolitan University and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts.
Banal’s work-in-progress is inspired by a conceptual astronomy around abstraction and document, ranging from Jose Rizal’s transglobal coordination and Isabelo Delos Reyes’ experimental archive amidst 19th century politics and anti-imperialist imagination, to possible contemporary coordinates in supernatural reality TV, lo-fi internet culture, geomarket forces and neo-migrant formalism. His work attempts to explore hidden meanings and associations through action led interventions. His works often place viewers and participants in vulnerable situations in order to trigger psychological experiences or memories. One such project, The Legend of the Sleepwalking Tricks, involved a group of young men who listened to death metal music while sipping milk laced with sleeping pills. Banal treads a thin line between illusion and reality, and a more serious threshold between passive consumption of art and violation of ethical taboos.
His works have been shown at the Tate, Frieze Art Fair, IFA Berlin, Oslo Kunsthall, Singapore Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Queens Museum of Art and Cultural Center of the Philippines. Upcoming projects include Bangkok Art and Culture Center (Bangkok), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (Manila), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow) and Queensland Museum of Art (Brisbane).
Ringo Bunoan (b. 1974) is an artist, writer, researcher, and curator whose work explores material and conceptual histories and issues of visibility and representation. Through common and found objects, installations, site-specific projects, photographs, and videos, she examines and reflects on the transient conditions of contemporary art and everyday life.
Bunoan received her BFA in Art History from the University of the Philippines in 1997 and has exhibited widely in Manila, Asia and the United States. Her works have been featured in several international exhibitions and biennales, including the recent Time of Others at the Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery and Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia at the Mori Art Museum. She is the recipient of the Thirteen Artist award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.
She taught at the UP College in Arts and worked as the Researcher for the Philippines for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of Big Sky Mind (1999–2005), King Kong Art Projects Unlimited (2010–present), and artbooks.ph (2014–present). She was the lead curator of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and the inaugural Manila Biennale: Open City in 2018.
Roberto Chabet (1937–2013) was a pioneering Filipino conceptual artist, curator, and teacher. Known for his experimental works, ranging from paintings, drawings, collages, sculptures, and installations made out of mostly ordinary and found material, Chabet insists on a more inclusive approach to art. In his works, abstraction and the everyday collide, creating spaces for new meanings.
Chabet was the founding Museum Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) where he initiated the Thirteen Artists Awards in 1970 to support young artists whose works show “recentness and a turning away from the past.” After his brief tenure at the CCP, he led the alternative artist group Shop 6, and taught for over thirty years at the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts and at key artist-run spaces in Manila. Since the 70s until his death in 2013, he supported and curated exhibitions of young Filipino artists.
Chabet is the recipient of the JD Rockefeller III Fund Grant (1967–1968), the Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1972), the Araw ng Maynila Award for the Visual Arts (1972), and the CCP Centennial Award of Honours for the Arts (1998). He was posthumously awarded the Gawad CCP Para Sa Sining in 2015.
Mariano Ching (b. 1971) graduated from the Fine Arts Program of University of the Philippines (UP) and studied at the Kyoto Arts University, Japan as a Research Student, Major in Printmaking. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various galleries and institutions worldwide, such as the Singapore Art Museum, Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur, Art Taipei, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Owen James Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the Voice Gallery, Kyoto, Silverlens Manila and Singapore, as well as Finale Art File, among others.
Kiri Lluch Dalena (b. 1975) is a Filipino filmmaker and visual artist. Dalena graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños with a Bachelors in Human Ecology. She then pursued further studies in 16mm documentary film making at the Mowelfund Film Institute. She is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2012) and the Ateneo Art Awards (2009). Dalena’s films have been screened in various international film festivals such as the Tromsø International Film Festival (2015), Visions du Reel (2014), Naqsh Short Film Festival (2014), and in the Sharjah Biennale 11 Film Program (2013). She has represented the Philippines in different international art events such as the Singapore Biennale (2013), the Yokohama Triennale (2014), the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2014), the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia (2015), and Busan Biennale (2016). Dalena’s works are currently in the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, and the Ateneo Art Gallery. She has various solo and group exhibitions in local and international galleries, such as Mag:net, Vargas Museum at UP, Finale Art File, 1335Mabini, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill in Graz, Austria, Ateneo Art Gallery, Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Now Gallery, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila Contemporary, the Lopez Memorial Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum.
Jed Escueta graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines. He was part of the Green Papaya Art Projects Residency Program Wednesdays Open Platform funded by Arts Network Asia Singapore in 2009. Escueta has participated in both solo and group exhibitions at Silverlens Gallery, Light and Space Contemporary, Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, Green Papaya Art Projects, Post Gallery, Photo Bangkok, Vinyl on Vinyl, and Art Dubai.
Nona Garcia (b. 1978) received a BFA in Painting at the University of the Philippines (UP). Her work has been shown and collected extensively throughout the region. She was the recipient of the Grand Prize for the Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Award (2000), the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists Award (2003), and the residency program at Cross Currents, Bangkok (2004). Her work has been featured in numerous publications such as Post-Tsunami Art published by Damiani, Without Walls: A tour of Philippine Paintings at the Turn of the Millenium, and Phaidon’s Painting Today.
Garcia has shown at Finale Art File, West Gallery, the Prague Biennale (2009), G23 in Bangkok, the Primo Marella Milano, Valentine Willie Fine Art Singapore, Osage Gallery Singapore, the Bencab Museum in Baguio City, ARNDT Berlin, and Blanc Gallery, to name a few.
Katya Guerrero (b. 1970) is a Filipino artist and curator. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Anthropology at the New School of Social Research in New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts. She is co-founder of Pioneer Studios with photographer and artist At Maculangan, and artbooks.ph, an artist-run bookstore in Metro Manila with artist, curator, and writer Ringo Bunoan. Guerrero and Bunoan were also the founders of artist-run space Big Sky Mind (1999–2001). Guerrero has shown in solo and group exhibitions both locally and internationally such as Finale Art File, the First International Triennale for Contemporary Art in Yokohama, Japan, the Singapore Art Museum, Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, among others.
Nilo Ilarde (b. 1960) is a conceptual artist and curator whose works navigate the intersections between image and word, drawing and writing, and surface and painting. Using both found and constructed objects, he assembles amalgams of image and text that comment on both the formal and conceptual conditions of art and language. He strips and mines his subjects to reveal their history and materiality and in the process creates forms of both declaration and negation.
Ilarde studied Painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. Since the 80s, he has been exhibiting his works and curating exhibitions at various galleries and alternative spaces in Manila, including the Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Pinaglabanan Galleries, Finale Art File, West Gallery, Mag;net, MO_Space, Art Informal, and Underground. His works have also been featured in several international exhibitions and art fairs including solo presentations at Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Stage Singapore, both in 2015 and at Art Fair Philippines in 2018. He is also the co-founder of King Kong Art Projects Unlimited and was one of the lead curators of ‘Chabet: 50 Years’ in various venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Manila from 2011–2012.
Sam Kiyoumarsi (b. 1980, Quezon City) is a Filipino-Iranian photographer. He works for different local publications and multimedia outfits. Kiyoumarsi was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2011). He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including Lost Projects, West Gallery, Silverlens Gallery, Light and Space Contemporary, VOLTA 6 in Basel, Osage Hong Kong, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Cocoy Lumbao (b. 1977) works and lives in Manila. He has been using videos to explore time-based art since his days as a student under the Film and Audiovisual Communication program of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. From experimental narratives, his works have then evolved into more gallery-based works from the time he graduated in 2002. Since then, his video, which are done in both single-channel and installation pieces, have been shown in local and international galleries and video festivals such as the travelling show Move on Asia of Loop Gallery in Korea, Futura Manila in Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, and has been included in the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design’s exhibition of international video artists, The Surface of the World.
Lumbao has also been shortlisted for the 13th Gawad CCP Para sa Sining, short film category, and the 2014 Purita Kalaw Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism.
At Maculangan (b. 1965) is among the most sought-after photographers in the Philippines. He graduated with a degree in Painting from the Fine Arts Program of the University of Santo Tomas. He began exploring mixed media work and working with found objects. After graduation, he decided to study film. At 20, he moved to Italy and lived there for 15 years before returning to the Philippines. Maculangan is the founder of Lomomanila, a group for amateur and professional photographers who share an interest in lomography (a photography art movement).
He has mounted several solo and two-man exhibitions featuring his photography in galleries like Finale Art File (2013) and Silverlens (2012) in Makati, Philippines; Valentine Willie in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2011); Novara in Italy (2002). He has also been part of several group exhibitions like The Philippine International Visual Art Fest, Shangri-La Mall (2010); Without a Murmur, Museum of Contemporary Design, Manila (2012); and Adobo Country, Taksu, Singapore (2013). His work was also exhibited at Art Fair Philippines in 2016.
Maculangan has been involved with the documentation of art shows and art projects by several artists, and has garnered the distinction as one of the most seasoned photographers of paintings and other works of fine art. He has continued to remain active with the documentation of artworks and other cultural events through a photography and print gallery he co-founded, the Pioneer Studios in Mandaluyong.
Lani Maestro (b. 1957) is a Filipino artist based in Manila, Canada and France. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines, and then pursued art studies at the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada. She received her Masters of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax where she taught. Maestro was also an instructor at Concordia University in Montreal. She was co-founder and designer of HARBOUR Magazine of Art and Everyday Life from 1990–1994. Maestro is an artist laureate of the prestigious NSCAD University’s honorary doctorate in Fine Arts (honoris causa) in Halifax, Canada, 2018. She is also a recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards for outstanding achievement (2012), and the Canada Council residency at THE SPACE, London (2008). She participated in the Beppu Project (2013), the Sharjah Biennal (2009), Busan Biennale (2004), the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane (1999), and the 11th International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1998), and the Segunda Bienal dela Habana in Cuba, where she received the Bienal Prize (1986). She has also had solo exhibitions at the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), MCAD Manila, the Vargas Musuem at UP, and two commissioned site-specific works in Lorraine and l’Ardeche in France (2013). In 2017, she was one of the Philippine representatives at the 45th Venice Biennale with Manuel Ocampo. In the same year, she had a solo exhibit at MO_Space entitled “her rain”(slaughter) wherein she also showed her video art last 2011 from her show at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg and Centre A in Vancouver.
Jet Melencio is based between Manila and Toronto. He graduated from the University of the The Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, La Salle College of the Arts, Manila Contempory, Silverlens Gallery, the Department of Avant Garde Cliches, Manila, the Art Center of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Paul Mondok (b. 1978) graduated with a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He has been exhibiting since 1998 in alternative art spaces such as in Big Sky Mind, Future Prospects, and Green Papaya Art Projects, and other exhibition spaces that ponder contemporary art practice and formats. He has also participated in both solo and group shows at various galleries and institutions, such as the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the National Museum, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, the Philippine Center in New York, among others. He was the Philippine representative for the Jakarta Biennale (2013) and 98B COLLABoratory’s representative to the Koganecho Bazaar (2014) in Japan.
Mawen Ong (b. 1964) is an artist and gallery director in Manila. She is a member of King Kong Art Projects Unlimited, an initiative dedicated to archiving and preserving the works of Roberto Chabet. She obtained 2 business degrees at St. Scholastica’s College and eventually studied Painting at the University of the Philippines - College of Fine Arts. She has been exhibiting since 2005 in both solo and group exhibitions at Future Prospects, Green Papaya Art Projects, West Gallery, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Blanc Gallery, and Silverlens Manila, among others.
Gary-Ross Pastrana (b. 1977, Manila) received his Bachelor’s Degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines where he was a recipient of the Dominador Castañeda Award for Best Thesis. He was granted residency programs in Japan and Bangkok. Pastrana was awarded residencies in Japan and Bangkok, and received the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (2006). He is one of the co-founders of Future Prospects Art Space (2005–2007), and has exhibited his work and curated shows both in his hometown and abroad, at galleries like Silverlens Singapore, Finale Art File, the Singapore Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines, the Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines, and has participated in Art Basel Hong Kong (2013), the New Museum Triennale in New York, USA (2012), the Aichi Triennale in Japan (2010) and the Busan Biennale in Korea (2008). Pastrana has also authored publications such as New Museum Triennial: The Ungovernables (USA) and Tomorrow, Today: Contemporary Art from the Singapore Art Museum 2009–2011, both published in 2012.
Soler Santos (b. 1960) attended the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts from 1978-82. He is a painter and photographer. Santos founded West Gallery with his wife and fellow artist, Mona Santos, in 1989.
Santos has represented the Philippines in international events such as the 1st ASEAN Youth Painting and Workshop in Thailand (1983), the 2nd Asian Art Show in Japan (1985), and the 11th International Biennial Print and Drawing Exhibition at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2004). He is the recipient of the First Prize from the ASEAN Painting Competition (1983) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (1992).
Santos has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at spaces including the Luz Gallery, Blanc Gallery, Silverlens Galleries, Finale Art File, MO_Space, Artinformal, the Hong Kong Arts Centre, the ICA La Salle College of the Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Yasmin Sison (b. 1972) graduated from the University of the Philippines, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities and then in the Fine Arts, Major in Painting. She was a member of the collective Surrounded by Water, and is the recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2006). She was also shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2007).
Sison has shown in both solo and group exhibitions locally and abroad since 1996, in spaces such as West Gallery, Valentine Willie Fine Arts in Malaysia, Artesan Gallery in Singapore, Artinformal, Manila Contemporary, Silverlens Gallery, Blanc Gallery, and the Owen James Gallery in New York, to name a few. She has participated in international group exhibitions in Belgium (2000), Singapore (2002), and Italy (2009).
MM Yu (b. 1978) lives and works in Manila, Philippines. Her photographs evoke the ever-changing cultural texture and topology of Manila as seen through its inhabitants, the city’s infrastructure and its waste product as it archives not only the economy but also the ecology of life in the myriad forms it takes in the city.
These recorded static scenarios show through their thematic variety the artist’s interest in discovering and valuing the fleeting moment present even in its simplest components. The diverse elements in her works not only underscore the inability of photography to account for fractured temporality. Through her ongoing interest in deciphering the enigma of the unseen landscape of ordinary things, they also force us to rethink what our minds already know and rediscover what our eyes have already seen.
The impact lies in how photography is employed to investigate another subject namely that of memory. By consolidating a series of routine snapshots traversing the streets of Manila. The hybrid and density of MM Yu’s subjects remind us of how objects and signs are not necessarily self-contained but take part in larger systems of interaction.
MM Yu received her BFA Painting from the University of the Philippines and completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila (2003), Common Room Bandung Residency Grant and Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France (2013). She is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artist Award (2009), the Goethe Institute Workshop Grant (2014), and the Ateneo Art Awards (winner in 2007, shortlisted in 2011). She was also a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2010).
Gerardo Tan (b. 1960) works across various media from painting, collage, artist books to video, found objects, and installation to deal with conceptual plays and issues of representation. He recreates images culled from the world of art and mass media in order to subvert hierarchies and give way to new itinerant meanings.
Tan took his BFA at the University of the Philippines and his MFA at the State University of New York in Buffalo, USA. He has participated in several international exhibitions including Pause (4th Gwangju Biennial, 2002), Signs of Life (First Melbourne Biennial, 1999), The 3rd Asian Art Biennial Bangladesh (Osmani Memorial Hall, Dhaka, 1986), and The 2nd Asian Art Show (Fukuoka Art Museum, 1982). His recent solo exhibitions are Points of Departure (Noestudio, 2013 Madrid, Spain), Hablon Redux and Other Transcriptions (Random Parts, Oakland, USA, 2016) and Visualizing Sound (Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Philippines, 2019).
He was conferred the 13 Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1988. His other distinctions include the Fulbright-Hays Grant at SUNY Buffalo (1990-92), the Barbara Schuller’s Art Associates Award in Buffalo, NY (1992) and the Juror’s Choice at the Art Association of the Philippines Annual Competition in 1997.
The Weather Bureau is a social architecture and engineering conglomerate that designs propositionary structures and conditions in the idealized state of utopia. They build from seemingly failed plans of defunct totalitarian states and re-adapts and rehabilitates them in their ideal settings or rather in nowherelands in timeless stasis.
Founded in 2010 by Lena Cobangbang and Mike Crisostomo, who started collaborating as production designers and product stylists for ad virals, print, packaging designs and stage sceneries. Their vision as The Weather Bureau is to picture essences of the ideal as inherently dictated by the constraints of the form, illustrating perhaps an ideology in plasticity.
The Weather Bureau’s initial project “Experiments in Degree Zero” had been exhibited in the previous space of Blanc at Makati and at Manila Contemporary. They had also been part of The Complete and Unabridged Part 2, one of such exhibits organized by King Kong Art Projects to commemorate Roberto
Chabet’s 50 years of his art practice. This was held at Osage Gallery in Hong Kong in 2011.
The Weather Bureau had also been featured in the July / August issue of Pipeline magazine, a HK-based art magazine. In November 2013, they were selected for an art residency under San Art in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Catalina Africa (b. 1988) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines. She has participated in several residency programs including those by 1335MABINI, AiRPManila, the Skowhagen School of Painting and Sculpture in the U.S. in 2014, and at Baler Artist Village in Aurora. She is also a mentor for the Artery Mentorship Program in 2014 by Artery Art Space. In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards for her solo exhibition, Reverse Boomerangs and Other Exercises for Pleasure (Warm Up/Cool Down) at 1335MABINI. Africa has shown at various galleries like West Gallery, Silverlens, 1335Mabini, Finale Art File, and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts Gallery.
Poklong Anading’s (b. 1975, Manila, Philippines) practice utilizes a wide range of media from drawing, painting, video, installation, photography and object-making. Taking a more process-oriented and conceptual approach, his continuing inquiry takes off from issues on self-reflexivity, both of himself and others, and site-specificity in an ongoing discussion about society, time and territory.
He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in painting from the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines (1999). He completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila, Philippines (2003 to 2004), Common Room, Bandung, Indonesia (2008), Bangkok University Gallery, Thailand (2013), Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2013), Philippine Art Residency Program - Alliance Francaise de Manille in Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle in France (2014) and das weisse haus, Vienna Austria (2018). He had solo exhibitions in Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz, Austria (2010, 2012 and 2020), Taro Nasu in Japan and Athr Gallery in Jeddah (2016), 1335MABINI in Manila, Philippines (2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019). He has been included in notable group exhibitions such as: Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2002 and 2012), No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, the first exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore (2013 to 2014), 5th Asian Art Biennial: Artist Making Movement, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2015), The Shadow Never Lies, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, Afterwork, Para Site, Hong Kong, China and in the Architecture Biennale for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Philippine Pavilion: Muhon: Traces of an Adolescent City at Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy (2016), disco nap, ‘We Didn’t Mean To Break It (But It’s Ok, We Can Fix It), Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal (2019), Far Away But Strangely Familiar’, Danubiana Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia (2019), Normal scheduling will resume shortly, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila (2019) and Arts in Common Artjog MMXIX, Jogya Nationa Museum, Jogyakarta, Indonesia (2019),
Anading lives and works in Manila.
Yason Banal (b. 1972, Philippines) is an artist whose work moves between photography, video, installation, text and performance, exploring myriad forms and conceptual strategies in order to research and experiment with associations and refractions among seemingly divergent systems. He obtained a BA in Film at the University of the Philippines, an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths-University of London, residencies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and AIT in Tokyo, and visiting lectureships at London Metropolitan University and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts.
Banal’s work-in-progress is inspired by a conceptual astronomy around abstraction and document, ranging from Jose Rizal’s transglobal coordination and Isabelo Delos Reyes’ experimental archive amidst 19th century politics and anti-imperialist imagination, to possible contemporary coordinates in supernatural reality TV, lo-fi internet culture, geomarket forces and neo-migrant formalism. His work attempts to explore hidden meanings and associations through action led interventions. His works often place viewers and participants in vulnerable situations in order to trigger psychological experiences or memories. One such project, The Legend of the Sleepwalking Tricks, involved a group of young men who listened to death metal music while sipping milk laced with sleeping pills. Banal treads a thin line between illusion and reality, and a more serious threshold between passive consumption of art and violation of ethical taboos.
His works have been shown at the Tate, Frieze Art Fair, IFA Berlin, Oslo Kunsthall, Singapore Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Queens Museum of Art and Cultural Center of the Philippines. Upcoming projects include Bangkok Art and Culture Center (Bangkok), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (Manila), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow) and Queensland Museum of Art (Brisbane).
Ringo Bunoan (b. 1974) is an artist, writer, researcher, and curator whose work explores material and conceptual histories and issues of visibility and representation. Through common and found objects, installations, site-specific projects, photographs, and videos, she examines and reflects on the transient conditions of contemporary art and everyday life.
Bunoan received her BFA in Art History from the University of the Philippines in 1997 and has exhibited widely in Manila, Asia and the United States. Her works have been featured in several international exhibitions and biennales, including the recent Time of Others at the Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery and Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia at the Mori Art Museum. She is the recipient of the Thirteen Artist award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.
She taught at the UP College in Arts and worked as the Researcher for the Philippines for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of Big Sky Mind (1999–2005), King Kong Art Projects Unlimited (2010–present), and artbooks.ph (2014–present). She was the lead curator of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and the inaugural Manila Biennale: Open City in 2018.
Roberto Chabet (1937–2013) was a pioneering Filipino conceptual artist, curator, and teacher. Known for his experimental works, ranging from paintings, drawings, collages, sculptures, and installations made out of mostly ordinary and found material, Chabet insists on a more inclusive approach to art. In his works, abstraction and the everyday collide, creating spaces for new meanings.
Chabet was the founding Museum Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) where he initiated the Thirteen Artists Awards in 1970 to support young artists whose works show “recentness and a turning away from the past.” After his brief tenure at the CCP, he led the alternative artist group Shop 6, and taught for over thirty years at the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts and at key artist-run spaces in Manila. Since the 70s until his death in 2013, he supported and curated exhibitions of young Filipino artists.
Chabet is the recipient of the JD Rockefeller III Fund Grant (1967–1968), the Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1972), the Araw ng Maynila Award for the Visual Arts (1972), and the CCP Centennial Award of Honours for the Arts (1998). He was posthumously awarded the Gawad CCP Para Sa Sining in 2015.
Mariano Ching (b. 1971) graduated from the Fine Arts Program of University of the Philippines (UP) and studied at the Kyoto Arts University, Japan as a Research Student, Major in Printmaking. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various galleries and institutions worldwide, such as the Singapore Art Museum, Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur, Art Taipei, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Owen James Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the Voice Gallery, Kyoto, Silverlens Manila and Singapore, as well as Finale Art File, among others.
Kiri Lluch Dalena (b. 1975) is a Filipino filmmaker and visual artist. Dalena graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños with a Bachelors in Human Ecology. She then pursued further studies in 16mm documentary film making at the Mowelfund Film Institute. She is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2012) and the Ateneo Art Awards (2009). Dalena’s films have been screened in various international film festivals such as the Tromsø International Film Festival (2015), Visions du Reel (2014), Naqsh Short Film Festival (2014), and in the Sharjah Biennale 11 Film Program (2013). She has represented the Philippines in different international art events such as the Singapore Biennale (2013), the Yokohama Triennale (2014), the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2014), the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia (2015), and Busan Biennale (2016). Dalena’s works are currently in the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, and the Ateneo Art Gallery. She has various solo and group exhibitions in local and international galleries, such as Mag:net, Vargas Museum at UP, Finale Art File, 1335Mabini, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill in Graz, Austria, Ateneo Art Gallery, Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Now Gallery, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila Contemporary, the Lopez Memorial Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum.
Jed Escueta graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines. He was part of the Green Papaya Art Projects Residency Program Wednesdays Open Platform funded by Arts Network Asia Singapore in 2009. Escueta has participated in both solo and group exhibitions at Silverlens Gallery, Light and Space Contemporary, Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, Green Papaya Art Projects, Post Gallery, Photo Bangkok, Vinyl on Vinyl, and Art Dubai.
Nona Garcia (b. 1978) received a BFA in Painting at the University of the Philippines (UP). Her work has been shown and collected extensively throughout the region. She was the recipient of the Grand Prize for the Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Award (2000), the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists Award (2003), and the residency program at Cross Currents, Bangkok (2004). Her work has been featured in numerous publications such as Post-Tsunami Art published by Damiani, Without Walls: A tour of Philippine Paintings at the Turn of the Millenium, and Phaidon’s Painting Today.
Garcia has shown at Finale Art File, West Gallery, the Prague Biennale (2009), G23 in Bangkok, the Primo Marella Milano, Valentine Willie Fine Art Singapore, Osage Gallery Singapore, the Bencab Museum in Baguio City, ARNDT Berlin, and Blanc Gallery, to name a few.
Katya Guerrero (b. 1970) is a Filipino artist and curator. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Anthropology at the New School of Social Research in New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts. She is co-founder of Pioneer Studios with photographer and artist At Maculangan, and artbooks.ph, an artist-run bookstore in Metro Manila with artist, curator, and writer Ringo Bunoan. Guerrero and Bunoan were also the founders of artist-run space Big Sky Mind (1999–2001). Guerrero has shown in solo and group exhibitions both locally and internationally such as Finale Art File, the First International Triennale for Contemporary Art in Yokohama, Japan, the Singapore Art Museum, Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, among others.
Nilo Ilarde (b. 1960) is a conceptual artist and curator whose works navigate the intersections between image and word, drawing and writing, and surface and painting. Using both found and constructed objects, he assembles amalgams of image and text that comment on both the formal and conceptual conditions of art and language. He strips and mines his subjects to reveal their history and materiality and in the process creates forms of both declaration and negation.
Ilarde studied Painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. Since the 80s, he has been exhibiting his works and curating exhibitions at various galleries and alternative spaces in Manila, including the Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Pinaglabanan Galleries, Finale Art File, West Gallery, Mag;net, MO_Space, Art Informal, and Underground. His works have also been featured in several international exhibitions and art fairs including solo presentations at Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Stage Singapore, both in 2015 and at Art Fair Philippines in 2018. He is also the co-founder of King Kong Art Projects Unlimited and was one of the lead curators of ‘Chabet: 50 Years’ in various venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Manila from 2011–2012.
Sam Kiyoumarsi (b. 1980, Quezon City) is a Filipino-Iranian photographer. He works for different local publications and multimedia outfits. Kiyoumarsi was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2011). He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including Lost Projects, West Gallery, Silverlens Gallery, Light and Space Contemporary, VOLTA 6 in Basel, Osage Hong Kong, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Cocoy Lumbao (b. 1977) works and lives in Manila. He has been using videos to explore time-based art since his days as a student under the Film and Audiovisual Communication program of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. From experimental narratives, his works have then evolved into more gallery-based works from the time he graduated in 2002. Since then, his video, which are done in both single-channel and installation pieces, have been shown in local and international galleries and video festivals such as the travelling show Move on Asia of Loop Gallery in Korea, Futura Manila in Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, and has been included in the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design’s exhibition of international video artists, The Surface of the World.
Lumbao has also been shortlisted for the 13th Gawad CCP Para sa Sining, short film category, and the 2014 Purita Kalaw Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism.
At Maculangan (b. 1965) is among the most sought-after photographers in the Philippines. He graduated with a degree in Painting from the Fine Arts Program of the University of Santo Tomas. He began exploring mixed media work and working with found objects. After graduation, he decided to study film. At 20, he moved to Italy and lived there for 15 years before returning to the Philippines. Maculangan is the founder of Lomomanila, a group for amateur and professional photographers who share an interest in lomography (a photography art movement).
He has mounted several solo and two-man exhibitions featuring his photography in galleries like Finale Art File (2013) and Silverlens (2012) in Makati, Philippines; Valentine Willie in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2011); Novara in Italy (2002). He has also been part of several group exhibitions like The Philippine International Visual Art Fest, Shangri-La Mall (2010); Without a Murmur, Museum of Contemporary Design, Manila (2012); and Adobo Country, Taksu, Singapore (2013). His work was also exhibited at Art Fair Philippines in 2016.
Maculangan has been involved with the documentation of art shows and art projects by several artists, and has garnered the distinction as one of the most seasoned photographers of paintings and other works of fine art. He has continued to remain active with the documentation of artworks and other cultural events through a photography and print gallery he co-founded, the Pioneer Studios in Mandaluyong.
Lani Maestro (b. 1957) is a Filipino artist based in Manila, Canada and France. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines, and then pursued art studies at the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada. She received her Masters of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax where she taught. Maestro was also an instructor at Concordia University in Montreal. She was co-founder and designer of HARBOUR Magazine of Art and Everyday Life from 1990–1994. Maestro is an artist laureate of the prestigious NSCAD University’s honorary doctorate in Fine Arts (honoris causa) in Halifax, Canada, 2018. She is also a recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards for outstanding achievement (2012), and the Canada Council residency at THE SPACE, London (2008). She participated in the Beppu Project (2013), the Sharjah Biennal (2009), Busan Biennale (2004), the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane (1999), and the 11th International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1998), and the Segunda Bienal dela Habana in Cuba, where she received the Bienal Prize (1986). She has also had solo exhibitions at the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), MCAD Manila, the Vargas Musuem at UP, and two commissioned site-specific works in Lorraine and l’Ardeche in France (2013). In 2017, she was one of the Philippine representatives at the 45th Venice Biennale with Manuel Ocampo. In the same year, she had a solo exhibit at MO_Space entitled “her rain”(slaughter) wherein she also showed her video art last 2011 from her show at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg and Centre A in Vancouver.
Jet Melencio is based between Manila and Toronto. He graduated from the University of the The Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, La Salle College of the Arts, Manila Contempory, Silverlens Gallery, the Department of Avant Garde Cliches, Manila, the Art Center of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Paul Mondok (b. 1978) graduated with a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He has been exhibiting since 1998 in alternative art spaces such as in Big Sky Mind, Future Prospects, and Green Papaya Art Projects, and other exhibition spaces that ponder contemporary art practice and formats. He has also participated in both solo and group shows at various galleries and institutions, such as the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the National Museum, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, the Philippine Center in New York, among others. He was the Philippine representative for the Jakarta Biennale (2013) and 98B COLLABoratory’s representative to the Koganecho Bazaar (2014) in Japan.
Mawen Ong (b. 1964) is an artist and gallery director in Manila. She is a member of King Kong Art Projects Unlimited, an initiative dedicated to archiving and preserving the works of Roberto Chabet. She obtained 2 business degrees at St. Scholastica’s College and eventually studied Painting at the University of the Philippines - College of Fine Arts. She has been exhibiting since 2005 in both solo and group exhibitions at Future Prospects, Green Papaya Art Projects, West Gallery, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Blanc Gallery, and Silverlens Manila, among others.
Gary-Ross Pastrana (b. 1977, Manila) received his Bachelor’s Degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines where he was a recipient of the Dominador Castañeda Award for Best Thesis. He was granted residency programs in Japan and Bangkok. Pastrana was awarded residencies in Japan and Bangkok, and received the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (2006). He is one of the co-founders of Future Prospects Art Space (2005–2007), and has exhibited his work and curated shows both in his hometown and abroad, at galleries like Silverlens Singapore, Finale Art File, the Singapore Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines, the Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines, and has participated in Art Basel Hong Kong (2013), the New Museum Triennale in New York, USA (2012), the Aichi Triennale in Japan (2010) and the Busan Biennale in Korea (2008). Pastrana has also authored publications such as New Museum Triennial: The Ungovernables (USA) and Tomorrow, Today: Contemporary Art from the Singapore Art Museum 2009–2011, both published in 2012.
Soler Santos (b. 1960) attended the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts from 1978-82. He is a painter and photographer. Santos founded West Gallery with his wife and fellow artist, Mona Santos, in 1989.
Santos has represented the Philippines in international events such as the 1st ASEAN Youth Painting and Workshop in Thailand (1983), the 2nd Asian Art Show in Japan (1985), and the 11th International Biennial Print and Drawing Exhibition at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2004). He is the recipient of the First Prize from the ASEAN Painting Competition (1983) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (1992).
Santos has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at spaces including the Luz Gallery, Blanc Gallery, Silverlens Galleries, Finale Art File, MO_Space, Artinformal, the Hong Kong Arts Centre, the ICA La Salle College of the Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Yasmin Sison (b. 1972) graduated from the University of the Philippines, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities and then in the Fine Arts, Major in Painting. She was a member of the collective Surrounded by Water, and is the recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2006). She was also shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2007).
Sison has shown in both solo and group exhibitions locally and abroad since 1996, in spaces such as West Gallery, Valentine Willie Fine Arts in Malaysia, Artesan Gallery in Singapore, Artinformal, Manila Contemporary, Silverlens Gallery, Blanc Gallery, and the Owen James Gallery in New York, to name a few. She has participated in international group exhibitions in Belgium (2000), Singapore (2002), and Italy (2009).
MM Yu (b. 1978) lives and works in Manila, Philippines. Her photographs evoke the ever-changing cultural texture and topology of Manila as seen through its inhabitants, the city’s infrastructure and its waste product as it archives not only the economy but also the ecology of life in the myriad forms it takes in the city.
These recorded static scenarios show through their thematic variety the artist’s interest in discovering and valuing the fleeting moment present even in its simplest components. The diverse elements in her works not only underscore the inability of photography to account for fractured temporality. Through her ongoing interest in deciphering the enigma of the unseen landscape of ordinary things, they also force us to rethink what our minds already know and rediscover what our eyes have already seen.
The impact lies in how photography is employed to investigate another subject namely that of memory. By consolidating a series of routine snapshots traversing the streets of Manila. The hybrid and density of MM Yu’s subjects remind us of how objects and signs are not necessarily self-contained but take part in larger systems of interaction.
MM Yu received her BFA Painting from the University of the Philippines and completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila (2003), Common Room Bandung Residency Grant and Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France (2013). She is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artist Award (2009), the Goethe Institute Workshop Grant (2014), and the Ateneo Art Awards (winner in 2007, shortlisted in 2011). She was also a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2010).
Gerardo Tan (b. 1960) works across various media from painting, collage, artist books to video, found objects, and installation to deal with conceptual plays and issues of representation. He recreates images culled from the world of art and mass media in order to subvert hierarchies and give way to new itinerant meanings.
Tan took his BFA at the University of the Philippines and his MFA at the State University of New York in Buffalo, USA. He has participated in several international exhibitions including Pause (4th Gwangju Biennial, 2002), Signs of Life (First Melbourne Biennial, 1999), The 3rd Asian Art Biennial Bangladesh (Osmani Memorial Hall, Dhaka, 1986), and The 2nd Asian Art Show (Fukuoka Art Museum, 1982). His recent solo exhibitions are Points of Departure (Noestudio, 2013 Madrid, Spain), Hablon Redux and Other Transcriptions (Random Parts, Oakland, USA, 2016) and Visualizing Sound (Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Philippines, 2019).
He was conferred the 13 Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1988. His other distinctions include the Fulbright-Hays Grant at SUNY Buffalo (1990-92), the Barbara Schuller’s Art Associates Award in Buffalo, NY (1992) and the Juror’s Choice at the Art Association of the Philippines Annual Competition in 1997.
The Weather Bureau is a social architecture and engineering conglomerate that designs propositionary structures and conditions in the idealized state of utopia. They build from seemingly failed plans of defunct totalitarian states and re-adapts and rehabilitates them in their ideal settings or rather in nowherelands in timeless stasis.
Founded in 2010 by Lena Cobangbang and Mike Crisostomo, who started collaborating as production designers and product stylists for ad virals, print, packaging designs and stage sceneries. Their vision as The Weather Bureau is to picture essences of the ideal as inherently dictated by the constraints of the form, illustrating perhaps an ideology in plasticity.
The Weather Bureau’s initial project “Experiments in Degree Zero” had been exhibited in the previous space of Blanc at Makati and at Manila Contemporary. They had also been part of The Complete and Unabridged Part 2, one of such exhibits organized by King Kong Art Projects to commemorate Roberto
Chabet’s 50 years of his art practice. This was held at Osage Gallery in Hong Kong in 2011.
The Weather Bureau had also been featured in the July / August issue of Pipeline magazine, a HK-based art magazine. In November 2013, they were selected for an art residency under San Art in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
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