Manila’Bang Show 2024: New Wave and Artists Showcase

The Manila’Bang Show 2024 happened between November 14 to 17 at SPACE at OneAyala. Galleries and other art institutions congregated to the fair to showcase the best contemporary art the Philippines currently has to offer, right at the heart of Makati’s Central Business District. 

For the rest of the Manila’Bang Show 2024, individual artists were highlighted in different ways within the art fair. More than the galleries who participated in the art fair, many artists sequestered their own individual spaces across Space at OneAyala to ensure their art gets an audience.  

It’s the most unique thing about the Manila’Bang Show 2024 over the other art fairs in the past year. While other art fairs focused on galleries and institutions, these ones appear more free to allow artists to showcase their own works, independent of the galleries surrounding them. With that in mind, BluPrint broadened its coverage of the art fair to specially showcase the singular vision of some of the artists who participated.

Personalizing Artistry

The biggest singular showcase for an artist in Manila’Bang 2024 is Endless Pursuits: The Anatomy of Existence by Otto Neri. There, the artist crafts murals of almost Biblical proportions, exploring themes of mythology and history that also showed up at some of his more recent exhibitions. He also combines them with some great, hazy landscape paintings of forests that feel like extensions of the bigger mural explored by Neri for this exhibition.

Bryan Teves’ The Legacy of the Past, meanwhile, has that artist work through cropped hyperrealistic repaintings of some famous paintings in history. The Mona Lisa or self-portraits of Dali and Van Gogh, cropped to only show the eyes of the art, move towards a commentary towards defining beauty as a whole. 

Jef Albea’s own self-exhibit shows off different mixed media paintings and sculptures of ballerinas in different poses. Their dresses appear to flutter in the direction of the wind as they do a pointe, pirouette, or plié. It provides viewers with the limitless potential of dance, the way it explodes outwards beyond any stage or framing.

Smaller Artist Showcases

Smaller showcases appear for other artists in the venue. For example, Ernest Concepcion has this absolutely gigantic painting called “The Grip of Salvation” which mixes abstract graffiti styles and a cunning use of lighting to give it a strange, three-dimensional look for the viewers. 

Nara Marin puts forward paintings as well as a moving visual novel Warm Rain in their corner of the exhibition. Mark Czar Espenilla created string art on canvas that exudes the tactility of trees and nature. And artists like Dex Fernandez, Binong Javier, and Bembol Dela Cruz also got their own small space to showcase their own artworks.

New Wave

Just outside the main hall, one can find the New Wave section of the art fair. It features up and coming artists, their paintings put together in a long white wall together, a celebration of multiple styles and artistic focuses at the same time. 

Over forty artists contributed artworks for the New Wave section, allowing it to work as a summary of the unique micromovements happening in the Philippines today. Many of the artists appear obviously influenced by Japanese manga art. Others lean more towards abstraction with their impressionist styles that cater towards an emotional rendering of a place than realism. 

These variety of movements lead to artworks that are very unique from some of the others shown inside the main hall. The stylistic variations are broad. One artist would paint in a simplistic cartoony style or utilize different pop art influences. Others would attempt more realistic approaches in their depiction of their subjects. And still others would craft their pieces with uniquely unconventional approaches, like pointillist or abstract styles to bring their point across. 

Bang! Designer Toys

Shown alongside the New Wave artists are designer toys from different groups and companies. For these artworks, their uniqueness shines from the unconventional subject matter and design which differentiates it from sculptures from other artists. 

Participating artists for these include Markdwin, who utilizes unconventional materials for their monkey toy sculptures. There’s also Jed Madela and the strange ragdoll-like toys he featured in Manila’Bang Show 2024 that looked akin to the characters in the animated movie 9 (2009). DTC Studios and Mankeeboi also participated with their own showcase of character figures.

Some of these toys are large and heavy, almost like statues. Others appear to mimic the conventional size and look of action figures in the market today. They all utilize a broad spectrum of influences from animals to anime to folklore and mythology.

Beyond the specific space for designer toys, Arte Bettina also had their own showcase of toy artists within the main hall. Odyssey of Five: Masters of Toy Artistry gives specific space to the unique figurine designs of artists Arman Kendrick, Yoii, Happy Garaje, Klaris, and Wetworks. It works to position toys not just as consumer products, but also as potential venues of imagination and artistry that go beyond its commercial uses.

Reimagining Culture

With a bevy of artistic evolution happening within the local art scene, the Manila’Bang Show 2024 encompasses a whole range of different visuals and ideas. It presents a restless vision of Philippine artistry, one constantly innovating and changing with the times to craft something that stands out. These artists and their oeuvre appear to light a look at the future of art, carving out their place in the local and international scene. 

Photos by Elle Yap.

Related reading: ManilART 2024 Celebrates the Collective Imagination of Filipino Artistry

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Elle Yap

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