I’m a Willing Hostage of Christmas
Geraldine Javier
06 November – 05 December 2010
Curated by
06 November – 05 December 2010
Anticipating the yuletide rush of 2010, painter Geraldine Javier forays into textile art installation at The Project Room, MO_Space’s incubator and launch pad for experimental or new works.
Entitled I’m a Willing Hostage of Christmas, Javier’s work is comprised of a used sofa fenced in with Christmas lights covered in tatting lace. The enclosed subject and space twines both engagement and emotion: intersecting between the penal and the personal.
This space of captivity, as Javier asserts, is not about the commercialization of Christmas. While the title and the jail-like web of lights connotes being inextricably caught up in the season and the festivities, the sofa inside stands as a symbol of what endures or stays, long after the rush has passed. It is an intentional enclosure for the intangible and non-saleable aspects of the season: recapturing home, memories, and wonder at simple things.
This is a rarity when the season abounds with its diverse share of crass commercialism and senseless sparkle, cynics and naysayers, scrooges and grinches. Happiness may sometimes be contrived; the artist posits that it can also be created and protected. When was the last time you really sat down, whether in solitude or with loved ones, to think about what matters beyond the material? To be captive, or to be captivated? Javier bravely chooses hope.
About the Artist
About the Artists
Geraldine Javier (b. 1970 in Makati City, Philippines; lives and works in Batangas, Philippines) is one of the Philippines’ most important and collected contemporary artists. With a Nursing degree from the University of the Philippines that included a top rank in the licensure exams, she took a second university degree in Fine Arts, and pursued an art practice. Since 1995, she has held more than 30 solo exhibitions in the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, and China. From 1999 to 2003 she was a member of the Surrounded by Water collective.
Much of her early work was in collage form but it was with paintings that she established her reputation as an inventive artist. These were characterized by either melancholy or wit: death and childhood were frequent subject matters. By 2008, she was making fabric works with the paintings and combining them in installations; exhibitions were a mixture of paintings, installations, and objects. Paintings would often have collaged elements, notably preserved beetles and butterflies.
In 2013, she moved south from Manila to the countryside in the district of Batangas. Her work increasingly dealt with our relationship with nature. Current projects often involve the participation of the women in the community where she lives. She has exhibited at the Havana Biennial, in 2019, and the Helsinki Biennale in 2024
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Geraldine Javier (b. 1970 in Makati City, Philippines; lives and works in Batangas, Philippines) is one of the Philippines’ most important and collected contemporary artists. With a Nursing degree from the University of the Philippines that included a top rank in the licensure exams, she took a second university degree in Fine Arts, and pursued an art practice. Since 1995, she has held more than 30 solo exhibitions in the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, and China. From 1999 to 2003 she was a member of the Surrounded by Water collective.
Much of her early work was in collage form but it was with paintings that she established her reputation as an inventive artist. These were characterized by either melancholy or wit: death and childhood were frequent subject matters. By 2008, she was making fabric works with the paintings and combining them in installations; exhibitions were a mixture of paintings, installations, and objects. Paintings would often have collaged elements, notably preserved beetles and butterflies.
In 2013, she moved south from Manila to the countryside in the district of Batangas. Her work increasingly dealt with our relationship with nature. Current projects often involve the participation of the women in the community where she lives. She has exhibited at the Havana Biennial, in 2019, and the Helsinki Biennale in 2024
Related Exhibitions
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