Juni Salvador is not an artist.
These pages somehow evoked an arbitrary approach to his ideas and sensibilities: delicate, brutal, and ironic. His work responded to the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the first Gulf War, yet the symbolic use of medium and material was overpassed as if the cultural and artistic stands of fashion state consumer norms and general belief; as if the work stimulated a psychological conception of inappropriateness in exhibition-making.
Of the same year (1991), his teacher, Roberto Chabet, talked about the exhibition in an interview, “I think Juni himself was very pleased about the discussion and reactions to his work. I think he was very happy about it. He even gathered the reactions [from the guest logbook] which he could use later, for some artwork maybe.”
True enough, 20 years later, for the exhibition To Be Continued at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, Salvador framed copies of these pages and presented them as a work titled, “Juni Salvador is not an artist… he’s just a naughty boy!”, somehow showing that the weightlessness of cultural forms combined with the realization that actual, material products can be unnecessary. In this instance, he used the exhibition platform to discuss the intellectual and political aspects of social and cultural practices, such as debates of audience / viewers in an exhibition, in a manner where it can be transformed.
For this exhibition, Salvador reflects upon the contemporary economy of the object, the exhibition value and how it partook in the critique of autonomy and originality, a kind of pun to a predominant opinion of what constitutes seriousness and importance.
What constitutes seriousness and importance? Most of the time, it has become too easy to read critical content off the surfaces of certain kinds of works. How does one depart from such conceptions of seriousness and critical intelligence without appearing to endorse an apparent anti-intellectualism? Salvador becomes a manipulator of signs more than a producer of objects, and the active viewer teases off a message rather than becoming a passive contemplator of the aesthetic consumer spectacle
Juni Salvador is not an artist!
About the Artist
About the Artists
Juni Salvador (b. 1962) is a Filipino artist based in Sydney, Australia. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising from the Philippine Women’s University College of Fine Arts. He taught at Maria Montessori Children’s School and at International School-Manila. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including the Institute of Contemporary Art, La Salle Singapore, Manila Contemporary, SLOT space in Sydney, Mag:net Gallery, the Yuchengco Museum, Finale Art File, and West Gallery.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Juni Salvador (b. 1962) is a Filipino artist based in Sydney, Australia. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising from the Philippine Women’s University College of Fine Arts. He taught at Maria Montessori Children’s School and at International School-Manila. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including the Institute of Contemporary Art, La Salle Singapore, Manila Contemporary, SLOT space in Sydney, Mag:net Gallery, the Yuchengco Museum, Finale Art File, and West Gallery.
Related Exhibitions
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