Art Fair Philippines, which happened on February 21 to 23 at a retrofitted Ayala Triangle in Makati City, provided art lovers and connoisseurs everywhere with a glimpse of the best and most popular contemporary art in the country today.
A platform for great, ambitious ideas, both artists and galleries went all in towards displaying their most bold visions for the public to enjoy. With that in mind, BluPrint takes you to some of the more standout exhibitions during the three days.
For Art Fair Philippines, many local galleries came out full force with interesting curatorial choices that vividly implanted itself in one’s mind with their memorability. White Walls Gallery, for example, featured artworks by Ariana Bongato, who turned their booth into a rosy pink of beauty standards and ideas.
Art Underground Manila had multiple interesting exhibitions for their featured artists, like “Menagerie” by Rachelle Cu which featured painted versions of animals that she crocheted, or Cath Salazar’s “In this World, Concrete Flowers Grow” where she utilizes rope and concrete block imagery to craft some expressive paintings.
For interesting or innovative presentations of art, the Lopez Museum utilized an interesting approach that centered around using the phone app Artivive to bring some of the paintings in their exhibition to life. It lets you point your phone at a painting, giving a small, moving clip of the artwork that functions akin to a gif.
Art Verite had an exhibit from Winna Go that mixes her signature silk robe imagery with a puzzle motif that adds a layer to her discussion of her heritage. Pinto Art Museum’s Art Fair exhibit featured works from Emman Acasio and Maria Pureza Escaño that provided an angle of realism to images of provincial bliss.
Some of the galleries and groups utilized their space at Art Fair Philippines to provide commentary on contemporary art, seeking to define or deconstruct some of its ideas in the platforms that they were given.
Modeka Art’s group exhibition comes off as unique due to how the artworks seemed to critique the idea of contemporary art as a whole with their showcase—including a unique artwork that has the words ‘conceptual art’ in them, with a magnifying glass put on the words ‘con’ and ‘art.’
Mono8 Gallery’s exhibition for Art Fair Philippines included one by Allan Balisi, Luis Antonio Santos, and Contantino Zicarelli called “Potential Histories.” The works featured here use paintings of buildings, plant life, GI sheets, and graffiti as commentary on our current environmental landscape and urban development.
Cartellino Art’s group exhibition featured forward-thinking artists Luis Antonio Santos, Zean Cabangis, Celine Lee, Nice Buenaventure, and Christina Lopez. Their works there discussed the way we disseminate information through artworks, leaning towards abstraction of ideas to bring it to life.
Parallel+ Gallery, meanwhile, crafted a deconstructive group exhibition that included critiques of pop art and traditional art—all while maintaining a playful atmosphere throughout. Joshua Limon Palisoc’s sculpture, especially, was an eye-catching symphony of light and steel that agilely mimicked a body at work.
Some of the most interesting exhibitions came from galleries outside the country. Gajah Gallery, based in Singapore and Indonesia, had some imaginatively tactile works that functioned as a three-dimensional vision of abstraction. Vin Gallery from Vietnam set up works by Yohei Yama and Một Quả Tắc whose straightforward technique created some interestingly complicated imagery that dazzles the mind.
Kobayashi Gallery from Japan provided us a glimpse into some nice, provincial artworks from artists like Shiori Saito and Tamao Murakami. Another Japanese gallery, YOD, had some striking, somewhat-dramatic sculptures and paintings from artists Michihiro Matsuoka, Chikuwamiel, and Haruka Makita.
For the Art Fair-specific, the biggest standout is Chia Amisola’s interactive exhibition KAKAKOMPYUTER MO YAN. The exhibit, with its recreation of a late-2000s Internet cafe atmosphere, provided visitors with games and bursts of nostalgia with some of its choices. The exhibit even featured a working karaoke machine in a CRT television that many visitors gladly took advantage of.
Goldie Poblador’s exhibition, meanwhile, gave visitors an absorbing look into the fauna and flora of aquatic life that glowed translucently in the dark room it was put in. The works were transfixing in their simplicity.
Manuel Ocampo and Manny Garibay’s mixed-media collages and paintings, respectively, provided ample social commentary on Philippine society as a whole. Garibay, in particular, deconstructed both religious and movie-star imagery with some of his works, while Ocampo’s massive collages provided us with the breadth and scope of interest in the flow of history.
Jezzel Wee’s exhibition of her many tiny ceramic works were fun. Wee’s works looked cute, like miniature gnomes with blank expressions and colorful design ideas. The set-up mimicked that of a ceramics workshop with its bare wooden tables and the unfurnished concrete backdrop, and visitors were allowed to touch and take photographs with the works themselves.
Art Fair Philippines provides casual viewers and art lovers alike with a good primer of where contemporary art is today. Beyond showcasing some of the ambitions of artists and galleries alike, it also gives the public a good sampler of works from some of the best artists working today.
While it’s difficult to capture the entire scope of contemporary art today, the fair does provide a summary of the important things happening, and that can be instructive, especially in inspiring the next batch of artists working in the country today.
Photos by Ed Simon.
Related reading: Art Fair 2024: Highlighting Noteworthy Exhibitors for the Events
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