...the exibitionists

Filipino artists strut stuff in Singapore

INQUIRER.net
01/20/2011

SINGAPORE—A palette of art events featuring top Filipino artists got Philippine Art in Singapore off to a good start this 2011.

Within a week, two prominent art galleries in Singapore mounted solo exhibitions of a pair of luminaries of Philippine Art, who are marking their golden jubilee as artists, while the works of several other Filipino artists were showcased at the debut of Art Stage Singapore.

On January 13, “To Be Continued,” the first exhibition outside of the Philippines of the works of Roberto Chabet, arguably the most influential Filipino conceptual artist, opened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (ICAS), LASALLE College of the Arts.

Organized by ICAS and Osage Art Foundation with the support of the Philippine embassy in Singapore and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the exhibit featured the plywood paintings and installations of Chabet from 1984 to the present, including his groundbreaking trilogy from the 1980s: “Russian Paintings,” “House Paintings,” and “Cargo and Decoy.” Focusing on process and the provisional aspect of the material, it underscored the fugitive and contingent nature of art, a central theme of Chabet’s body of work.

“To Be Continued” will be followed in February by “Complete & Unabridged I,” also at ICAS, which will showcase the works of more than 30 Filipino artists mentored and influenced by Chabet. The two events are part of 15 exhibits to be staged from 2011 to 2012 in commemoration of 50 years of Chabet’s practice as an artist, teacher and curator, which will likewise include two shows in Hong Kong, “Complete & Unabridged II” and “Intermediate Geography.”

On January 14, the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) unveiled four sets of edition prints, 36 unique prints and 19 paper pulp paintings of National Artist Benedicto Cabrera, better known as BenCab. Entitled “Glimpses,” these were produced by BenCab over a period of four weeks during an unprecedented second residency at STPI, where he was also a resident artist in 2005.

His works explored the notions of evolution and continuity in the context of the cultural, social, and historical diversity of the Philippines. They featured the recurring image of Sabel, an itinerant scavenger, whom the artist photographed and sketched in the 1960s, and who has become “the artist’s vehicle for the transmission of intensely emotional moods.”