Philippine Contemporary Art
47 stories
From Malabon to Venezia: Ronald Ventura mounts collateral show at 61st Venice Art Biennale
Four in the morning in Malabon in the Nineties, sopas at Connie’s, and a father who recognises his own town inside a drawing of Venice.
Malabon artist sets sail for Venice
Ronald Ventura transforms boat-body sculptures and lunar motifs into a meditation on water, survival, and the fragile ties between two cities.
‘Something sexy… happening in the Apocalypse’
Somatosonic’s performance wove together technology, sound, pole dance, audio-kinetic sculptures, live visuals, and a darkly brewing storm of sounds.
Pula ang Kulay ng Katapusan
Bakit pula? A foreword to Doktor Karayom’s book of raw, anatomical musings, drawn somewhere between bangungot and alaala.
Heart & soil
A thousand hand-made tiles of soil from Calatagan, Baybay and Tampakan, built to erode: the Philippine Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale.
A glazed rebellion: Scott Garceau’s hole-hearted art at The Crucible Gallery
The monolith on Who’s Next is now a donut, and so is the pulsar on Unknown Pleasures: Scott Garceau glazes rock’s most iconic sleeves.
Ronald Ventura’s ‘Kalupaan’: Appetite for reconstruction
Saints in hard hats and a bird nesting in a construction site: Ronald Ventura asks what progress costs, in the first show at Cloudgrey Gallery.
The SpY who loved graffiti
A four-metre mirrored sphere at Giza, a globe inflated until it burst in Bilbao: the Spanish artist SpY brings his interventions to Art Fair Philippines.
Tradition takes a selfie with disruption
Olan Ventura & Ronson Culibrina take us to the visual edge and back in Olan’s ‘Prismatic Petals’ and Ronson’s ‘Marahuyo’ exhibitions at Goldenberg Mansion.
In bloom: Filipino artist Ronald Ventura sets new record at Christie’s
The artist continues not just to break records at auction houses but also records how society blooms away from what it is originally.
Mia Herbosa: Still lifes, dead birds, figures in repose, a world learning to breathe again
Three dead mayas on a studio floor in 2021 turned Mia Herbosa toward abstraction. Her new show is a visual diary of the years since.
Junyee through time & space
From painting the faces of the dead in a Cebu funeral home to the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining: the long calvary of the father of Philippine installation art.
Philippine Pavilion’s ‘Structures of Mutual Support’: From the Biennale to Bulacan
From an old armory in Venice to a barangay in Angat, the award-winning community library goes home to the people who helped build it.
The empire state of Maria Angelica Tan’s art
A Filipina in her early twenties, a Hudson Square gallery, and leftover adobo before the bus: Maria Angelica Tan distills New York into paint.
Mountain song: PHL Pavilion brings the aura of Banahaw to the Biennale
In the Philippine Pavilion, visitors walk among fabric, fake stones and sound, following the light. Mark Salvatus brings Banahaw to Venice.
A raising of curtains: Senator Loren Legarda & the story of the PHL Pavilion in Venice
Over lunch in Venice, Senator Loren Legarda recounts how she willed the Philippines back to the Biennale after a 51-year absence.
Andreea Medar’s love letter to a lost village
Andreea Medar connects those drawn to the ghostly, the abandoned and the disappearing with all the lonely voids where love used to be.
Tropic of wonder
Kahlo and Rivera hung as part of a region rather than a greatest-hits parade: Tropical at the National Gallery Singapore, 200 works deep.
PHL Pavilion holds roundtable discussion: A journey through the arteries of cities & ideas
Manila was once called the Venice of the East. A roundtable on estuaries and esteros closes the Philippine Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale.
Somatosonic at The Crucible
Marco Ortiga, Tad Ermitaño and Christina Dy bring homemade instruments, pole dance and cheerful chaos to their “Pneumatic Synergetic” show at The Crucible.
Excess equals exuberance in Singapore show focusing on Philippine art
‘What makes Singaporeans respond remarkably well to artworks by Filipinos? I think it’s the sheer liveliness, the vigor, and the energy of Philippine art.’
The Art of Drowning in Visions
Glenn Bautista drew Rizal’s monument from a line by line transcription of his 39 poems, then vanished for 15 years. On the artist we forgot.
Beyond the veil: Carlos Quijon Jr. & Mark Salvatus to represent PH at the Venice Biennale
Curator Carlos Quijon Jr. and artist Mark Salvatus on taking the Philippines to Venice, and the curator’s shift from shaman to jack of all trades.
An invisible thread that binds us all
The Pavilion’s closing act reaches the Pinoys of Venice: the waiters, the healthcare workers, the household helpers, all one existential tapestry.
The art of Marco Ortiga: Through the looking glass, weirdly
The conceptual artist holds a mirror up to this ‘see-me world’, and instead of showing clarity and reflection, purveys cracks and malformation.
Nick Lizaso: 10,000 stories and one heart for the masses
After a life on stage and screen, the NCCA chairman calls himself simply an audience member now, watching people watch performances.
Backstage at the Biennale
Talking art with the curator and artists of the Philippine Pavilion over liters of Birra Moretti in the beautiful sinking city.
Aze Ong weaves a tale of pain & transcendence
Chronic pain in the hands of a fiber artist who crochets for a living: Aze Ong on making her largest work yet for Art Fair Philippines.
Philippines wins historic first award at Venice Architecture Biennale
Curators Khadka and Furunes take a Special Mention for “Structures of Mutual Support,” the Philippines’ first-ever Venice Biennale award.
Ronald Ventura’s hyper-realist Olympics
Two Tokyo shows timed to the Olympics: Ronald Ventura on anime eyes, emoji as language, and a reality we can no longer tell from the cartoon.
‘David Medalla has left us to enter the dream’
Trying to encapsulate David Medalla in one article is like reducing eternity to an hour. His partner and friends attempt it anyway.
Ronson Culibrina’s monsoon madness & rainbow spills
Talim Island boyhood, an outrigger’s balancing arm and a witch under a weather-map umbrella: Ronson Culibrina paints the temper of the times.
Galleria Pandemia: Art in the Time of COVID
Ruiz, Ocampo, Miel, Borlongan and Justiniani on what the lockdown did to their practice, and why art is the last thing out of Pandora’s jar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fr. Jason Dy: The Parable of Dead birds & The red umbrella
Jesuit priest and Ateneo professor Fr. Jason Dy discusses community art, walking Intramuros with a red umbrella, and his custom batik polo shirts.
Bigboy Cheng: At home with the crown prince of Fresh
A house tour with the crown prince of Secret Fresh, where sneakers, designer toys and Filipino contemporary art end up sharing the very same shelves.
Agents of Culture
Cecile Licad, Mark Justiniani and more Filipino culture-makers on the simplest hard questions: what makes you happy, and what is your hope for the country?
Inside the cube where art and healthcare meet
Cardiologist and collector Dr. William Chua once got Malang and Ang Kiukok into one room. Inside the clinic where medicine and Philippine art share a wall.
The sad, extraordinary tale of a general in the Revolución exiled as a ‘leper,’ as told by a Spanish artist
Spanish artist Ginés Serrán on sculpting a bronze monument in Iloilo for General Martín Delgado, the revolutionary hero exiled to Culion.
A shot of Basi with Bob Feleo
‘I don’t believe in inspiration,’ says master sculptor Bob Feleo, on the Basi Revolt of 1807 and why art should provoke thought.
Rodel Tapaya and Marina Cruz: Two for the road of art
Contemporary Filipino artists Rodel Tapaya and Marina Cruz on folklore, memory, and building an artistic life together in Bulacan.
Manuel Ocampo’s anarchy in the R.P.
The Manuel Ocampo conversation concludes: anarchy in the R.P., institutional critique, and hell according to Seinfeld’s Elaine.
An apocalyptic chat with Manuel Ocampo: Swastikating between art and death
Manuel Ocampo, between Bosch and Cracked magazine: an apocalyptic conversation on painting, death and the institutional critique of himself.
Sketching skinscapes and other epiphanies
A Saturday nude sketching session with Malang, Arturo Luz, BenCab and Anita Magsaysay Ho, and one starving non-artist with a mangled pencil.