Las Rimas opens

Prof. Benjie Cabangis, artist Seb Chua opens Las Rimas at Art Asia with artists in the background

More pictures here

“Katutubo” joint Fraternity and Sorority Exhibit at the Corredor opens Wednesday, June 17

KATUTUBO
Corredor Gallery – UP College of Fine Arts, UP Diliman, Quezon City
17-31 June 2009

Gino Bueza ‘05 “In/dependence” at Tala Gallery

To commemorate the annual celebration of Philippine independence this month, Tala Gallery presents “In/dependence”, a group exhibition featuring Iggy Rodriguez, Jucar Raquepo, Dave Lock, Art Sanchez, Anna Varona, Jessie Mondares, and Gino Bueza. The title of the show expresses an obvious paradox or self-contradiction, basically asking if the nation is indeed celebrating its independence, or if it continues to be “independence”….In this show, the artists explore both sides of the coin, delving into the creative independence that makes these works uniquely Filipino. At the same time the works in the show examine the various dependencies (cultural, religious, political and economic) that are at once self-defining yet self-denying of the Filipino spirit. Some of these works probe deeper still, into a metaphysical and philosophical question–is absolute freedom a real-world possibility, or a mere notional fantasy?

“In/dependence” opens at 6:00 p.m. on June 14, 2009 at Tala Gallery, 100 Scout De Guia Street, Kamuning, Quezon City, Philippines. For inquiries, please call Tala Gallery, at +632 441-1267 or +632 441-0337, e-mail info@talagallery.com.ph ; or visit www.talagallery.com.ph

Art Exhibit Recalls a Forgotten Literary Heritage

By Andy Medina

June 06, 2009

This Wednesday, June 24, 2009, Art Asia Gallery at the SM Megamall Art Walk will present an exhibit of young artists called Las Rimas. The exhibit deals with the relationship between the process of art making and art criticism and the recognition of meaning through a source text. As mainstream art becomes progressively more global the task of interpreting and considering art works changes with it as a great deal of a critical energy usually revolves around the facade or instrumentality of different ideologies and structures of power, Las Rimas takes a shot at employing how artists, critics and writers situate and interpret art across their boundaries.

Las Rimas is Flavio Zaragoza Cano’s winning piece, which won him among other accolades the Premio Zobel in 1929 and a fellowship at the Royal Academy of Spain. The exhibit artists took it upon themselves to translate the poem Las Rimas as part of their concept for gaining the attention of the public toward a forgotten heritage which is Philippine literature in Spanish.

The works in Las Rimas as expected became a mélange of interpretations and translations from the original text of Zaragoza Cano. Without glossing over the intended interpretation of the poem, the exhibit is also an attempt to render the image-repertoire of the artists and the viewer for which likeness or accuracy towards meaning in the text is not the point. The honesty of translation to image, as the artists would like to point out, demands a renegotiation of the relationship to representation of certain words and fragments. The focus is on the process of deriving meaning from text- whether the literal, contextual and the imaginative.

The American colonial poet’s adherence to Spanish poetry is also brought to the spotlight. The works were recently presented as part of a proposed show at the Instituto Cervantes, the non-profit cultural agency of Spain. Late in April, however, eager to realize the exhibit sooner, their artist-curator, Jun Cristobal brought the show to Art Asia Gallery in SM Megamall. The goal was to make more people access and take part on the exhibit. While it would be nothing if not imprudent to read this up-and-coming exhibition as some sort of indicator of renewed interest in Hispanismo and its formal and thematic concerns, it remains remarkable to imagine the possibilities of the desire to revisit the era of flowering and subsequent decline of literature genres. The 1920s saw the birthing and branching out of literary consciousness in the Philippines. In what is certainly to be a considerable period of intense historical and theoretical surveying, the exhibit might suggest an alternative, if partial, answer to the generally postmodernist demand for more intellectual contribution to art. Las Rimas signals, in particular, an enticement to re-examine forgotten literatures of resistance — literature as potentially touching as the repressive conditions it sought to combat during the time of its birth.

The artists have vowed to engage new riveting voice in the vibrant art community: that which calls for more commerce between the sister arts of poetry and the visual arts. Having exhibited previously in separate exhibitions, the artists are excited to have the opportunity to show their latest creations. Las Rimas is also about creating a fellowship with artists and discussing concept,” says Francis Bejar. The works in the show represent the wide range of technical and artistic possibilities of the artist-critic-writer collaboration.

While some of the artists in this show have previous knowledge of the theory pertaining to translation and semiotics, for others it was a first opportunity to work with a hands-on curator to create a show that expands and enhances their body of work. Whether they are primarily painters, sculptors or photographers the artists created pieces that reflect the translation of their artistic processes and ideas to artistic works with a life apart from the original text. They sought not to replicate an existing artwork in utilizing literature, but create a new piece through the collaborative pairing of artist with immediate critique, in which the critic provides the theoretical expertise in facilitating further experimentation and creativity.

The show will include paintings by Clarence Alvear, Paul Acena, Gino Bueza, Francis Bejar, Geronimo Cristobal, Jr., Francis Commeyne, Lex Marcos and Caroline Ongpin, sculptures by Kylo Chua and Manolo Sicat and photographs by Ryan Tizon. From the beginning the group has banked upon the strong intellectual resource and experiences offered by the academia. Most of them are student-artists or recent graduates with different concentrations from studio arts to information design. Manolo Sicat was a recently appointed fine arts professor at UP Baguio.

The show will run from June 24 to July 14, with an exhibit reception on Friday, June 26 at 6pm. As part of their collaboration with Ateneo Professor, Oscar Campomanes, the UP Artists Circle will hold an art talk about Las Rimas on June 23, 2009, Tuesday at the Corredor Gallery of the UP College of Fine Arts in UP Diliman.

For inquiries contact Jun Cristobal through mobile phone 09274412884 or email juncristobal@gmail.com. You can also visit www.artasiaphilippines.com to view the online exhibit catalog.

Art Talk by Oscar Campomanes: The Text-Image as Sign in Verbal and Visual Art: Semiology and Iconology in the Las Rimas Art Exhibit

1pm June 23, Tuesday, UP College of Fine Arts. Free and Open to all

Prof. Oscar V. Campomanes, Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University

ABSTRACT | Part-lecture and part-conversation with the UP Artists’ Circle members and audience, this presentation revisits some key critical and theoretical ideas about the text-image nexus in modern verbal art (poetry) and visual art (painting). Drawing from Jacques Rancière’s philosophy of art, sign/semiotic theory, and what is now called iconology, and using the Las Rimas exhibition at the Asia Gallery and its Curator’s Notes as pretexts, this lecture/conversation aims to interrogate the critical and creative assumptions, as well theoretical traditions, that inform an ambitious attempt by collaborating young artists of UP to foreground the question of translation and tradition between the two sister-arts of versification and visualization. Arguing that this attempt is salutary for seeking to initiate a rethinking of formal and cultural translation in the context of tradition’s transmission in Philippine artmaking and historical consciousness (with its unusual gestures toward conceptual art and conceptual writing), this presentation concludes with a preliminary estimate of the Las Rimas Project’s distinctive contributions both to culture and critical theory in general and the revitalization of Philippine artmaking in particular.

THE SPEAKER | Professor Oscar V. Campomanes teaches literary and cultural studies fulltime in the Department of English at the Ateneo de Manila and, occasionally, in the UST Graduate School as Associate Professorial Lecturer in Cultural Studies Theory, Postcolonialism, Semiotics, Media Criticism, and Visuality. An American Studies expert and literary scholar/cultural critic, Prof. Campomanes’ works have appeared in various learned journals and critical anthologies published locally and abroad. He is also contributor to such now-standard reference texts in the USA as the Encyclopedia of the American Left (1990), the Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States (1994), the Cambridge Inter-Ethnic Companion to Asian American Literature (1997), and the Blackwell Companion to Asian American Literature (2004). With twoedited volumes to his name (Historical Reflections on US Governance & Civil Society, De La Salle University Press, 2001; Culture and Governance, Development Academy of the Philippines, 2004) and a third one forthcoming from another local university press, he is currently working on a retrospective anthology of his various essays in postcolonial, Americanist, cultural, and literary critique. As a founding and core member of ARTERY-Manila, a Malate-based art advocacy and management organization, he has also published essays in art and media criticism in such venues as the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Washington Square Gallery (USA); he hopes to reprint and co-publish his essays in art criticism with those of a fellow writer, in a single anthology, within the next two years.