Incidental Pleasure
Various Artists
Juan Alcazaren, Eugene Jarque, Geraldine Javier, Michael Muñoz, Mac Valdezco, Ryan Villamael
Juan Alcazaren, Eugene Jarque, Geraldine Javier, Michael Muñoz, Mac Valdezco, Ryan Villamael
26 May – 24 June 2012
Curated by
Geraldine Javier
26 May – 24 June 2012
Normally when we are born, the first thing that happens is that we are slapped to make us breathe. Next, our umbilical cord will be snipped or bitten through. Thirdly, we have our first encounter with culture—we are wrapped in some sort of textile and given to our mother’s breast. Textiles, fabric, and thread are there at the beginning of life. They are also at the end, when our body is wrapped in a shroud or dressed in our best suit to be put in the earth or the flames. Special fabrics or clothes have always been used for special occasions: confirmation, marriage, and coronation. Special fabrics (banners, ribbons, cloaks) have always marked special or important people. Yet today, we take fabrics and clothes for granted. Clothes, unless we insist on haute couture, are cheap, plentiful, and easy to obtain. Probably none of us now wear clothes that were hand-made—sewn or embroidered with care and tenderness by a mother or lover.
Since the 1760s and the industrialisation of textile manufacture (the spinning jenny, Arkwright's mill, etc.), clothes and other fabrics have increasingly become a matter of design and mass production, not of craft and personal care. If there is a handmade element, it has been relegated to some assembly line in the “Third World.” It was not, of course, always so. When we look at most portrait paintings made before the early nineteenth century, we should remember that the clothes the people portrayed wore probably cost more than the painting. Few of us realise that until recently, tapestry, not painting, was the favoured high art form of kings. Henry VIII of England owned nearly 2500 and recorded each one—something he did not do with the paintings he bought.
We have lost something. This is an exhibition very much about the crafted and about our pleasure in viewing things made by skillful hands. “There’s an ulterior motive behind this show and that is my pleasure in seeing well-made works…” the curator Geraldine Javier writes. “As an artist who sees craftsmanship as an invaluable tool in my own art, I know that the process can be tedious, but there is also a sense of pleasure inherent in the making—more so when it’s successful—an aesthetically pleasing work with a good concept behind it.” But this exhibition can also be read as trying to regain something quite profoundly human: the poetics of fabric or soft things (Ryan Villamael uses paper that is like felt, soft and flexible—as is flesh).
We have lost the poetic images of sewing and weaving from our daily life, and we are impoverished by it. Think of how in Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope weaves her father’s shroud and then unweaves it every night. Think of how the Norns in Nordic mythology weave the threads of each individual life, deciding his or her fate. Think of everyday clichés: “our life hangs by a thread,” or “a stitch in time.” Along with this loss of the poetic or symbolic, we have lost the sense of textiles as communication: giving someone a T-shirt emblazoned with “I ♥ NY” does not have the same resonance as making them something. Even my mother darning my socks had a meaning.
Such communication is coupled with the pathos of the worn-out, hand-made object. When my mother died, my first wife wanted one thing as a memento: the knitted mouse that she used to prop, which opens the door. It was the most evocative, memory-heavy thing she could think of. Textiles are how we make things homely, a point made clearly by Mike Muñoz, who recreates the Velazquez painting of the Immaculate Conception but takes it away from the refined atmosphere of the Carmelite monastery it was made for, or the London National Gallery where it now hangs alongside its companion piece St. John on Patmos, to somewhere as small and intimate as a domestic shrine.
Fabric, in this exhibition, assumes many metaphors or similes. It is like skin in Geraldine Javier’s work, or like nerves or veins in Mac Valdezco’s, or like geographical contours in Eugene Jarque’s. But these works are polyvalent. The textiles could be flesh membranes in Jarque, brain synapses in Valdezco, or fungus in Javier. Fabric protects and hides, keeps warm and unblemished. It becomes a second skin.
And if craft, in England at least, is a double-edged word suggesting painfully clunky potted cups, kitsch embroideries, and wobbly wooden chairs—antiquated, anti-modern knick-knacks—it is well to be reminded by these artists that it can mean just craftsmanship: things satisfyingly well-made and also, as especially tweaked by Juan Alcazaren and his play on Scarborough shoals, “crafty.”
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About the Artist
About the Artists
Juan Alcazaren (b. 1960) is a sculptor, bricoleur, collagist and object maker who works with a wide variety of materials ranging from construction steel to industrial and household detritus to ubiquitous everyday things like plastic monoblock chairs, school supply materials and melaware plates. Everything is material to him. In the 90’s he learned steel welding from Napoleon Abueva, CCP National Artist for Sculpture and has since always come back to this medium attracted by the way steel only “knows” how it wants to be formed. He always maintains a patina of rust on his steel pieces to show earthly life’s steady march towards death.
He tries to coax profundity out the ephemeral and overlooked in the world of the permanent and covetable. Alcazaren’s faith informed sensibilities make him see humble material as a metaphor for our own material nature, being creatures created by the Uncreated one. Juan Alcazaren has a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and studied sculpture the University of the Philippines where he also was a lecturer in 1995 at the College of Fine Arts. He was conferred the CCP Thirteen Artists Award in 2000. He lives and works in Pasig City, Philippines and continues to actively exhibit in major galleries and art fairs in his home country and around the region.
Eugene Jarque is a Cavite-based artist. He graduated from the Technological University of the Philippines and is a faculty member of its Fine Arts Department. He was recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Awards (2006), and twice recognised in the Top 50 artists of the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards (2002, 2005). He was among the Philippine artists involved in the third leg of the Wahana series, The Wahana Project (2005) held at the Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines. He has shown in solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including Blanc Gallery, Avellana Art Gallery, West Gallery, Mag:net Gallery, Finale Art File, and Republikha Art Gallery.
Geraldine Javier (b. 1970, Philippines) lives and work in the Philippines. Javier has held many solo and group exhibitions in her home country since 1995, and since 2004, she has been exhibiting her works internationally. She is recognized as one of the most celebrated Southeast Asian artists both in the academic and art fields. Her works revolve around the universal world of spirituality rather than concentrating on a specific religion. Javier’s interests root from the artist’s personal history of having lived her whole life struggling with the catholic culture in the Philippines, and are manifested through the unique region-specificity of Southeast Asia, in which the influx of Western culture has been naturalized. In other words, Javier goes beyond the logic behind religion, to pursue fundamental values that can be collectively embraced.
Javier was one of the artists who received the Thirteen Artists Award of Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.
Michael Muñoz (b. 1973) lives and works in Cainta, Rizal, Philippines. He studied painting at the UP College of Fine Arts in 1993 and pursued a career with the artist-run space and artists collective Surrounded by Water in 1999 and by then, he had exhibited his works in various venues in the country such as Primus Pronuncio at West Gallery, Christiadum at Blanc Peninsula, and In Remembrance at Surrounded by Water. He also participated in exhibitions abroad including Over the Waters at Equator Art Projects in Singapore, Under Construction at The Japan Foundation Forum/Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery Tokyo, Japan, and City Transformers Project at Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland.
In 2003, Muñoz worked as an exhibition consultant and designer for the Museo ng Kalinangang Pilipino at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, setting- up exhibitions on the indigenous collections of the museum and local craft traditions in the country. In 2005, he helped found MANLILIKHA Artisans’ Support Network (www.manlilikha.org) and since then, he was involved in various heritage advocacy projects through exhibitions, documentation, and promotion of local traditions, craftworks and artisans.
Muñoz was a recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award for 2012. Presently, he is active in his advocacy org, MANLILIKHA – doing fieldwork, documentation and collaborations with traditional artisans, and producing works for my contemporary art exhibitions.
Mac Valdezco is a recipient of the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 56th Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2006). She was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2005, 2007, 2008), and was a featured artist in the Karen H. Montinola Selection (2016), where her work was shown at a special exhibition space at Art Fair Philippines. She has participated in both solo and group exhibitions at galleries including Finale Art File, the Pasig City Museum, West Gallery, Manila Contemporary, and Osage Hong Kong to name a few.
Ryan Villamiel (b. 1987, Laguna) is one of the few artists of his generation to have abstained from the more liberal modes of art expression to ultimately resort to the more deliberate handiwork found in cut paper. While his method follows the decorative nature innate to his medium of choice, from the intricately latticed constructions emerge images that defy the ornamental patchwork found in the tradition of paper cutting, and instead becomes a treatise of a unique vision that encompasses both the inner and outer conditions that occupy the psyche—which range from the oblique complexity of imagined organisms to the outright effects of living in a convoluted city.
Villamael was included in several group shows while still pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines up to the time of his graduation in 2009. His works have been shown in Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, Australia, and Paris. Although his persistence in sustaining a discipline more often subjected to handicraft has been evident from his works, Villamael maintains that his primary interest lies rather on the conceptual significance of craft in the process of creating contemporary art, and continues to recognize the possibility of how his works can still evolve under this light.
He is a recipient of the Ateneo Art Award in 2015 and the three international residency grants funded by the Ateneo Art Gallery and its partner institutions: La Trobe University Visual Arts Center in Bendigo, Australia; Artesan Gallery in Singapore and Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, UK. He participated in the 2016 Singapore Biennale.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Juan Alcazaren (b. 1960) is a sculptor, bricoleur, collagist and object maker who works with a wide variety of materials ranging from construction steel to industrial and household detritus to ubiquitous everyday things like plastic monoblock chairs, school supply materials and melaware plates. Everything is material to him. In the 90’s he learned steel welding from Napoleon Abueva, CCP National Artist for Sculpture and has since always come back to this medium attracted by the way steel only “knows” how it wants to be formed. He always maintains a patina of rust on his steel pieces to show earthly life’s steady march towards death.
He tries to coax profundity out the ephemeral and overlooked in the world of the permanent and covetable. Alcazaren’s faith informed sensibilities make him see humble material as a metaphor for our own material nature, being creatures created by the Uncreated one. Juan Alcazaren has a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and studied sculpture the University of the Philippines where he also was a lecturer in 1995 at the College of Fine Arts. He was conferred the CCP Thirteen Artists Award in 2000. He lives and works in Pasig City, Philippines and continues to actively exhibit in major galleries and art fairs in his home country and around the region.
Eugene Jarque is a Cavite-based artist. He graduated from the Technological University of the Philippines and is a faculty member of its Fine Arts Department. He was recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Awards (2006), and twice recognised in the Top 50 artists of the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards (2002, 2005). He was among the Philippine artists involved in the third leg of the Wahana series, The Wahana Project (2005) held at the Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines. He has shown in solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including Blanc Gallery, Avellana Art Gallery, West Gallery, Mag:net Gallery, Finale Art File, and Republikha Art Gallery.
Geraldine Javier (b. 1970, Philippines) lives and work in the Philippines. Javier has held many solo and group exhibitions in her home country since 1995, and since 2004, she has been exhibiting her works internationally. She is recognized as one of the most celebrated Southeast Asian artists both in the academic and art fields. Her works revolve around the universal world of spirituality rather than concentrating on a specific religion. Javier’s interests root from the artist’s personal history of having lived her whole life struggling with the catholic culture in the Philippines, and are manifested through the unique region-specificity of Southeast Asia, in which the influx of Western culture has been naturalized. In other words, Javier goes beyond the logic behind religion, to pursue fundamental values that can be collectively embraced.
Javier was one of the artists who received the Thirteen Artists Award of Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.
Michael Muñoz (b. 1973) lives and works in Cainta, Rizal, Philippines. He studied painting at the UP College of Fine Arts in 1993 and pursued a career with the artist-run space and artists collective Surrounded by Water in 1999 and by then, he had exhibited his works in various venues in the country such as Primus Pronuncio at West Gallery, Christiadum at Blanc Peninsula, and In Remembrance at Surrounded by Water. He also participated in exhibitions abroad including Over the Waters at Equator Art Projects in Singapore, Under Construction at The Japan Foundation Forum/Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery Tokyo, Japan, and City Transformers Project at Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland.
In 2003, Muñoz worked as an exhibition consultant and designer for the Museo ng Kalinangang Pilipino at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, setting- up exhibitions on the indigenous collections of the museum and local craft traditions in the country. In 2005, he helped found MANLILIKHA Artisans’ Support Network (www.manlilikha.org) and since then, he was involved in various heritage advocacy projects through exhibitions, documentation, and promotion of local traditions, craftworks and artisans.
Muñoz was a recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award for 2012. Presently, he is active in his advocacy org, MANLILIKHA – doing fieldwork, documentation and collaborations with traditional artisans, and producing works for my contemporary art exhibitions.
Mac Valdezco is a recipient of the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 56th Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2006). She was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2005, 2007, 2008), and was a featured artist in the Karen H. Montinola Selection (2016), where her work was shown at a special exhibition space at Art Fair Philippines. She has participated in both solo and group exhibitions at galleries including Finale Art File, the Pasig City Museum, West Gallery, Manila Contemporary, and Osage Hong Kong to name a few.
Ryan Villamiel (b. 1987, Laguna) is one of the few artists of his generation to have abstained from the more liberal modes of art expression to ultimately resort to the more deliberate handiwork found in cut paper. While his method follows the decorative nature innate to his medium of choice, from the intricately latticed constructions emerge images that defy the ornamental patchwork found in the tradition of paper cutting, and instead becomes a treatise of a unique vision that encompasses both the inner and outer conditions that occupy the psyche—which range from the oblique complexity of imagined organisms to the outright effects of living in a convoluted city.
Villamael was included in several group shows while still pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines up to the time of his graduation in 2009. His works have been shown in Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, Australia, and Paris. Although his persistence in sustaining a discipline more often subjected to handicraft has been evident from his works, Villamael maintains that his primary interest lies rather on the conceptual significance of craft in the process of creating contemporary art, and continues to recognize the possibility of how his works can still evolve under this light.
He is a recipient of the Ateneo Art Award in 2015 and the three international residency grants funded by the Ateneo Art Gallery and its partner institutions: La Trobe University Visual Arts Center in Bendigo, Australia; Artesan Gallery in Singapore and Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, UK. He participated in the 2016 Singapore Biennale.
Related Exhibitions
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