All Stories

Everything we've published, newest first.

An aged three-eyed Cthulhu in plaid pajamas sits chin in hand like Rodin’s Thinker, volumes of Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus stacked at his side, while the TV announces the COVID-19 pandemic officially over

Art, The Day After

Written from inside the 2020 lockdown: what a random Tuesday will taste like again, and why art does not thrive in the bleakest of moments.

By Igan D'Bayan · April 6, 2020
Visitor in patterned clothes standing on a glass bridge looking down into the infinite mirrors and structures of Mark Justiniani’s Venice Biennale installation

A flood of words, water & wonder at the closing ceremony of the Venice Art Biennale

As the Biennale closes, Mark Justiniani’s mirrored “Island Weather” seems to ripple out of the Philippine Pavilion into the flooding lagoon city.

By Igan D'Bayan · January 20, 2020
Rows of vinyl bins under gold-foil walls in the cavernous Space Hall record store in Berlin

Houses of Wax and Other Hits

Vinyl resurgence, my ass. Digging through Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Budapest for the record you did not know you were looking for.

By Igan D'Bayan · January 4, 2020
Retro VHS-box artwork, “D’Videohaus presents”: Brando’s Godfather above a Taxi Driver sticker, a Scarface figure, jukebox, barber chair, family Polaroids and a flaming red sports car, ’80s Action Classics

The Art of War in the House of the Rising Sons

De Niro, Pacino, and a neighborhood video store ran by a balding guy we called the Caterpillar. Notes on a boyhood measured in VHS tape.

By Igan D'Bayan · November 11, 2019
Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro in dark suits at The Irishman premiere in Hollywood

‘The Irishman’ Cometh: Robert De Niro & Al Pacino star in the last great mob epic

Martin Scorsese’s latest film traces the rise and fall of wiseguys and made men in a subtler, more sober, and contemplative manner.

By Igan D'Bayan · November 10, 2019
Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in dark suits in a moody promotional still from The Irishman

Robert De Niro & Al Pacino: An afternoon with the kings of New York

First of two parts: an afternoon in New York with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, the kings of New York on Scorsese, mortality and the last great mob epic.

By Igan D'Bayan · October 13, 2019
Dr. Jaime Laya stands between a blue electric typewriter and a stack of art books, in a library of carved santos and floor-to-ceiling shelves

How a bullfrog keeps Jaime Laya awake when it rains

Dr. Jaime Laya on the frogs he had shipped in from the Candaba swamp, the somber santos and vintage narra indoors, and the first sentence he labors over.

By Igan D'Bayan · August 31, 2019
Dr. Jaime Laya sits in the carved narra doorway of his library, bookshelves and santos behind him, a brass gramophone horn and a caned chair beside him

If Filipiniana is a flower, then Jaime Laya is a gardener

A morning in Jaime Laya’s Quezon City compound: a bahay kubo built without nails, barandilyas off a demolished house, books stacked as a shelter.

By Igan D'Bayan · August 31, 2019
Jun and Menchu Lopez beside a home coffee bar built like a Starbucks counter, with a life-size Predator figure standing guard at the right

At home with Jun & Menchu Lopez: Where every wall is a door and the Force is always brewing

A house tour where every wall turns out to be a door, the coffee is always brewing, and the Force runs through a home in a galaxy not so far away.

By Igan D'Bayan · August 10, 2019
Martin Honasan and Barbie Almalbis on a sofa in a warm-lit room, he looking through a large sketchpad, she playing a semi-hollow electric guitar, guitars hanging on the wall behind

At home with Martin Honasan & Barbie Almalbis: Cradle of art, love & a cat named after Vernie Varga

A house tour with Martin Honasan and Barbie Almalbis: a cradle of art and love, boxes of keepsakes nobody throws out, and a cat named after Vernie Varga.

By Igan D'Bayan · July 13, 2019
Raul Francisco and Joanna Preysler-Francisco sit close on a mustard sofa holding their brown dachshund, a framed portrait and gilded lamp behind them

Raul Francisco & Joanna Preysler-Francisco: Dark, seductive art in the house of love

A Parisian dream in the middle of manic Metro Manila: the Franciscos’ art-filled flat, and the love story beneath the chiaroscuro.

By Igan D'Bayan · May 4, 2019
Top-down view of Mark Justiniani’s glass and steel installation Island Weather, featuring lighted infinite mirrors and geometric structural shapes resembling islands

Island of souls

Mark Justiniani and curator Tessa Maria Guazon on Island Weather, the glass-and-steel archipelago built for the 58th Venice Art Biennale.

By Igan D'Bayan · April 15, 2019