ManilArt 10 Winners! // July 25, 2010

Was supposed to post the winners yesterday, but I had server issues, so apologies for that!

Anyway, because my parents are amazing people, I have drawn 5 names, instead of 2! So, I’m giving away 5 pairs of tickets to the ManilArt 10. I used http://random.org to draw the names.

1. #2 Mara
2. #8 Krinessa
3. #23 Jeric Rustia
4. #25 Nante
5. #29 Tim

Because I drew Tim’s and Krinessa’s names first (so they are, technically, the original winners), they will be the only people I can probably LBC/mail the tickets to. Please send me an e-mail to yankee@nothingspaces.com. To the rest of the winners, let me know if you can pick up the tickets from West Gallery, 48 West Avenue, Quezon City. Gallery hours are 10am – 5pm, Monday to Saturday. If not, send me an e-mail so we can arrange something.

Yay, congratulations!

For other ticket concerns, please send an e-mail to jonsy@manilart.com. I’ll ask about the tickets (if they will sell onsite, etc) and make an update for everyone else interested.

 

ManilArt 2010 Ticket Give-Away! // July 21, 2010

I’ve got four extra tickets to ManilArt 2010 that I’d like to give away to 2 lucky art-lovers. (2 tickets for each winner, so you can bring a date, or go on two different days, if it turns out that you have no friends.)

What is ManilArt anyway? MANILART10 is the second international art fair hosted in the Philippines, featuring the country’s leading art galleries. This is a place where art collectors and enthusiasts can view some of the finest examples of Philippine Contemporary Art today. (Here is a confirmed list of exhibitors.) There are also lectures and talks held over the duration of the art fair.

MANILART10 will be open to the public from 11 am to 8 pm, from July 30 to August 1, 2010. Admission tickets are priced at Php200 or approx. US$4.50 each. (You can buy tickets by e-mailing jonsy@manilart.com.) It will be held in SMX Convention Center.

Well, what’s so great about this? Well, my cynic-friend, the excellent thing about this is that you will be able to see some of the best works of art made by some of the best Filipino artists, curated by the some of the best galleries in the country today. That’s what’s so great about it, man-friend¹. You don’t even have to buy anything (but buying art is good for the soul—both yours and the artists’, since they get to eat and live another day); you can just go there to see all the pretty things!

SOME IMPORTANT NOTES:

• You can use the tickets on any day of the exhibit duration, but they will only be valid once.
• They are complimentary tickets and cannot be sold. (Don’t be a douche!)
• You must be in Manila at the time of the exhibit, or else we are just wasting time.
• You have a valid mailing address. Gon’ ship these tickets to you, if you win, is why.

So, just leave a comment, and I’ll use an Internet randomizer to pick the winner. Since the event is going to be in a few days, I’m going to leave this post up until the weekend (July 24th, 3pm Philippine time!) and announce the winner then.

Yay for art!

Click to visit their Facebook page, where there is a gallery of some of the featured art. Here’s a few:

Kapitbisig” by Elmer Borlongan, 60″x48″ , oil on canvas, 2010 from 1/of Gallery

“After Yves Klein” by Annie Kabigting, 48″ x 72″, Oil on Canvas, 2010, courtesy of Finale Art File

“Growing A Peach Tree” by Amy Aragon, 36″ x 60″, Oil on Canvas, 2010, courtesy of Manila Contemporary

Please comment if you have questions, etc. I’ll be glad to answer them if I can. For basic information about the event, visit their official website.

———
¹ If you get where this is from, then you are automatically cool in my book. Unless you are an asshat.

 

Nilo Ilarde, Paulo Vinluan & Jonathan Ching // Finale. // July 12, 2010

Last Friday, we have discovered the wonder that is Friday Night Traffic. My family and I don’t really like going out, unless we absolutely need to, or if we are suffering from too much hermity behavior. Usually, these excursions don’t fall on Friday nights. So, when we went on our merry way to Makati for these shows, we had no idea what kind of traffic we were in for. But the shows and the late dinner made it worth the two-hour travel time.

Entering Warehouse 17 of the La Fuerza Compound along the Pasong Tamo Ext., which is where Finale’s base of operations is located, you are first greeted by a massive diamond suspended from the ceiling. This is the moment that you know that you are about to experience something really massive.

Not just in terms of scale, either. Nilo Ilarde’s show, Painting as Something and as the Opposite of Something, seems to be a commentary on art and how it is made. I don’t really want to put any meaning on something that might have other meanings that have nothing to do with my interpretation, or none at all. All I know is that there is a lot of thought put into his pieces. There’s a little bit of humor, wordplay, and I suppose it’s really hard to think of anything else when you’re faced with works as enormous as Ilarde’s pieces.

Mounted in Finale’s Tall Gallery are the following, among other pieces: a Hulked-up Beetle, an actual boxing ring and a wall of used up paint tubes.

I think that the question of what art is is still brought up by his show. At least, that’s what it made me ask, in the end.

(Click here for some detail of the middle painting.)

In the Upstairs Gallery is Paulo Vinluan’s Heads Will Roll, featuring works that have adopted an amalgam of very distinct styles. I haven’t been to any of Vinluan’s other shows, so I can’t really assess this show in terms of his style (i.e. how it’s progressed, how it hasn’t, etc.) but I see that his style is very uniquely his, and the overall effect of his works, to me, is that: “Yes, these parts belong where they are.”

I can’t explain it quite so articulately, but I just felt like his pieces, together and individually, worked. No idea what the message of the pieces are, unfortunately… I liked them a lot, though.

This particular stretch of works, I liked. From the left, I went, in my head: “Oh, this is really nice,” and then I moved to the one beside it, “Oh, wow, I want this in my house,” and then I moved on to the next one and went, “Oh, this is really, really nice, too.” Turns out my brother went through the same thought process. (Pictures of the individual works after the jump.)

Inside the Video Room is Jonathan Ching’s Where in the World is Botero’s Leg. According to a write-up on the Finale website, this exhibit toys with the idea of the fallibility of human memory, and how perspective touches a memory’s meaning and truth. Ching is very liberal with the use of symbolism, using a lot of seemingly random imagery to convey his message.

I admire Ching’s work because his strokes are so bold, and so heavy. It adds a feeling of depth and tension to the work, and not just aesthetically. I really feel frakking hopeless, at times, when I look at his work. The palette is a little Stygian, the strokes, bold; the imagery, dark.

I’m pretty glad I went to this exhibit (even though I missed my nightly viewing of Magkaribal). Gave my mind a lot to chew on.

More photos under the cut. Continue reading Nilo Ilarde, Paulo Vinluan & Jonathan Ching // Finale….

 

 

follow me on Twitter