“What is to be done?”
Nilo Ilarde
29 September – 28 October 2018
Curated by
29 September – 28 October 2018

A gallery has become a space of sacred objects holding certain cultural sanctity. It has become a place where works of artists are consecrated and valued if deemed worthy of our veneration. In Nilo Ilarde’s “What is to be done?” he offers a counterpoint as he reconfigures the space, desecrates its walls, and allows it to become his accomplice.
In cutting four rectangular holes on the wall, essentially baring the gallery’s framework, he presents it for what it is: a hollow ground. Within each hole, inert objects fill up the spaces enframed inside a glass panel, allowing their materiality to be exposed and to be examined. Two excavated walls include piles of acquired empty paint tubes, paint tube caps, syringes and squeegees, dried-up paint, and other materials used for painting. Another panel encloses three decades’ worth of accumulated paint, stripped off from the walls of CCP’s Small Gallery. The final panel holds strata of various used art objects or remnants from previous exhibitions by other artists and by Ilarde himself. The entirety of the wall puts a spotlight on the overlooked process of exhibition-making by creating an artwork that speaks about artworks, and by installing the pieces inside the gallery’s own wall, it taunts a question about the very nature and history of the institution / system that houses them.
Ilarde’s text on the floor ONETHINGAFTERANOTHER is a direct nod to Donald Judd’s minimalist idea of an object. Imbuing the minimalist’s “object,” Ilarde commissioned several individuals to cast the letters using different materials to complete the phrase. In laying down these letters together to spell out the words that complete the text, their individuality is foregone and the “object-ness” becomes magnified. On the opposite side, the wooden panels taken from the excavated wall were used as a ground to engrave a proverbial saying often mentioned by Ilarde’s father. The text “IF THE MOUNTAIN WILL NOT COME TO MUHAMMAD, MUHAMMAD MUST GO TO THE MOUNTAIN” is deconstructed by omitting letters on each side to create an image of a mountain. Found at the centre of the space are ceiling-mounted texts resembling green EXIT signs and forms a circular pattern that reads, “Should I stay or should I go?”—a famous song title by the British punk band, The Clash. Young Leon Alcazaren’s text is written under a small oval hole that enables the audience to peep at the view outside the gallery. In trying to approximate a description to his work, Leon’s writing cleverly creates a self-referential description that renders the work’s simplicity and complexity of equal measure.
The self-referential nature of Nilo Ilarde’s works conveys the objects and ideas’ mutable nature and expresses the exponential possibility of viewing and absorbing them. Perhaps, the answer to the question “what is to be done?” is the act of asking the question itself?
Learn more about the work details here.
Exhibition Documentation
Works
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- WALL INTERVENTIONS 1
Glass, assorted artist materials, wall
28.5" x 4" x 104.5"
2018 - WALL INTERVENTIONS 2
Glass, paint flakes, wall
28" x 5.5" x 104.5"
2018 - WALL INTERVENTIONS 3
Glass, paint tubes, wall
35" x 5.5" x 104.5"
2018 - WALL INTERVENTIONS 4
Glass, assorted artist materials, wall
28.5" x 5.5" x 104.5"
2018 S - SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO
Exit signages, LED light (8 parts)
Variable dimensions
2018 - MUHAMMAD
Engraved letters on MO_Space wall
(3 parts)
92" x 96"
2018 - ONETHINGAFTERANOTHER
Cast letters (20 parts)
ONE: Nickel chromium, denture resin, chromium cobalt;
THING: Ceramic, bronze, stainless steel, clear resin, rusted steel;
AFTER: Construction sand resin, copper-plated lead, Crayola, dental stone, plaster of paris;
ANOTHER: Graphite powder and resin, brass, aluminum, cement, lead, silicon rubber, sand and resin.
3" x 50"
2018 - OIL ON THE WALL
Nilo Ilarde and Leon Alcazaren
Oil paint on wall, palette
Variable dimensions
2018
Exhibition View
360° View
Video Catalogue
About the Artist
About the Artists

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.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
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.
