APT 6 Roundtable

Asia-Pacific Triennial 6 Roundtable organized by Gina Fairley and published by ARTERI, Interactions with Art, Life & Culture

Gina Fairley (GF), Clarissa “Lisa” Chikiamco (LC), Ho Tzu Nyen (HTN), Shooshie Sulaiman (SS)

Part 1

Part 2

New Directions in Art Studies and the Humanities: The Second Philippine Art Studies Conference

This is rather late for a post given that it's starting in a few hours but perhaps people may want to catch the second day of the conference. New Directions in Art Studies and the Humanities: The Second Philippine Art Studies Conference is taking place today and tomorrow, 18-19 February 2010, at the Tambunting Hall, National Art Gallery, National Museum of the Philippines. Starts bright and early at 9 am!

I'm giving a paper on selected works of Tad Ermitano on Friday morning. I'll post more on that next time.

A few updates on my end:

- Fractions of an Intangible Whole: Philippine Social Realism in the Ateneo Art Gallery, the exhibition I originally curated for the La Trobe University Museum of Art in July 2009, opened in Ateneo Art Gallery's new space on the second floor of the old Rizal Library this 22 January 2010. The show runs until 15 March. It has some added pieces from the permanent collection decided by the AAG team as the space allotted here in Manila was bigger. The works that were on loan - Poklong Anading's Anonymity light boxes and Yason Banal's videos Chop-chopped First Lady and Chop-chopped First Daughter, are still on show.

- I wrote on Ronald Ventura's work for the catalogue of his show in Singapore with Francis Ng. Co-curated by Artesan Gallery + Studio and the Institute of Contemporary Arts at the LASALLE College of the Arts, A Duad in Play opened on 3 February and runs until 3 March 2010. The title of my essay is 'Posthuman Monstrosities, Posthuman Toys.'

- Busy with Visual Pond projects. At the moment, I won't say what we're up to until it's more concrete.

That's it for now. More soon!

Multi Perspective Discussion on Philippine Art on 16 January

Posting this for those who may be interested in joining us this Saturday.



Multi Perspective Discussion
on Philippine Art



Panelist:
Alex Tan
Lito Zulueta
Lisa Ito
Louie Ojeda
Delan Robillos
Lisa Chikiamco
Rica Estrada
Wire Tuazon
Jose Tence Ruiz
plus more artists


Sambalikhaan Grounds, Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM)
275 E. Rodriguez Avenue, Quezon City
Saturday January 16, 2010, 2:00pm


For other inquiries, you can also contact Buen Calubayan at 0905.418.0156

'video Christmas tree'

Please click here to read my first 2010 column article for The Philippine Star in the actual Star website though I have copied and pasted it below.

Here is also a link to a photo of Nam June Paik's TV Garden.

Photo credit of 'video Christmas tree': Jenny Ng.

'video Christmas tree'
by Clarissa Chikiamco

Last week, I was running errands at the Cash & Carry mall in Makati when I found myself stumbling across an “accidental contemporary art.” I borrow the term from artist Mark Salvatus and his ongoing project of the same name. In this project, Salvatus photographs things he encounters in the everyday which are reminiscent of actual contemporary art pieces.

The Cash & Carry accidental contemporary art piece — not a part of Salvatus’ project yet though I have already recommended it to him — is a large Christmas tree bedecked with lights, balls, ribbons and LCD video screens — something that pioneering video artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006) would surely have appreciated. The “video Christmas tree” (as I shall call it) loosely connects to Paik’s “TV Garden” (1974), a large-scale installation which had television monitors scattered amidst live tropical plants. In TV Garden, the flickering monitors, playing Paik and John Godfrey’s video collaboration “Global Groove” (1974), are in seeming sync with its surrounding leafy vegetations. “What is growing here?” may be the main question the artwork asks, not simply of itself but in the then and now still growing culture of screen media and technology. A precursor of sorts, it has been remounted in versions throughout the years in different venues in a culture that is repeatedly finding resonance in its question.

Accidental contemporary art like the “video Christmas tree” also seems to ask some intriguing questions. Set amidst a mall space festooned with red ribbons and balls — red, orange and gold — glowing from a most generous swathing of lights, “video Christmas tree” hangs LCD screens playing cartoons. The questions it seems to beget are “What is Christmas?”, “What is our idea of Christmas?” or “How do we experience Christmas today?” This accidental contemporary art is oddly and aptly evocative of current screen culture. There is, for one, the consumerism involved conveyed to us through screens. Christmas ads are on websites, on television and on giant-screen moving-image billboards that are increasingly pecking the urban landscape. Coveted children’s presents are difficult to untwine from the screen — toys involve popular cartoon characters or are marketed to kids as they watch their favorite shows. Laptops, iPods, mobile phones and video game consoles are the dependable presents for the young that prevalently use technology to communicate, establish social networks, gain social status and engage in leisure activities. Though it isn’t difficult to imagine “video Christmas tree” in a museum against white walls and done on an even bigger scale — which would make quite an impressive installation and, if we are talking about consumerism, would confer it “ultimate value” as a legitimate art object — there is something particularly poignant in seeing “video Christmas tree” in a mall.

There is also to consider at how screens have transformed the holiday experience compared to 15 years ago. Most holiday greetings today are arguably received through the screen: texts sent throughout the holiday period, punching “answer” to pick up a loved one’s call, emailing acquaintances and friends, giving a general greeting as a status in Facebook, Twittering “Merry Christmas,” Skyping with family abroad or monitoring the countdown to the New Year via television coverage. Even meeting up with friends and relatives for the holidays is mediated by screens as emails, texts and calls are exchanged to coordinate the whens and wheres.

Though “video Christmas tree” wasn’t intended to be art — it was designed by the mall managing director Jenny Ng with her in-house team of designers — and it still isn’t art, I can’t help but think of the deeper meanings such an installation conveys. Certainly, the increasing amount of screens we are exposed to made the installation possible and perhaps “natural.” If restaurants decorate their interiors with screens, why not screens on a Christmas tree? Yet, there is a certain uncanniness here upon seeing this strange but marvelous sight. If I connect it to art, it is because art, and contemporary art in particular, allows one to more deeply consider such things. Things in the everyday can suddenly give way to becoming enigmatic and meaning-laden, connected to a broader and at times disparate set of ideas. “Video Christmas tree,” like other accidental contemporary art, may be accidental but this all the more enhances the wonder and delight derived from such surprises. While it may not be art, I have art to thank for trying to grasp sights such as these.

* * *

Cash & Carry is along South Luzon Expressway, Makati. Mark Salvatus’ Accidental Contemporary Art project may be viewed at http://accidentalcontemporaryart.blogspot.com. The author may be emailed at letterstolisa@gmail.com. Her blog of art writings is at http://writelisawrite.blogspot.com.

Fractions of an Intangible Whole in Manila - 22 January 2010 at the Ateneo Art Gallery

In my rush to post last July, I failed to mention that the exhibition I was inviting everyone to come to was an exhibit I curated. Fractions of an Intangible Whole: Philippine Social Realism at the Ateneo Art Gallery was held at the La Trobe University Art Museum in Melbourne, Australia in July 2009 but I am happy to inform everyone that it will be restaged in a part of the Ateneo Art Gallery's new space (the first floor of the old Rizal Library) this January. If I remember correctly, it's opening 22 January 2010 along with the exhibit of 2008 Ateneo Art Award winner Kawayan de Guia. I would probably post again to confirm but in case I don't, the date is probably right or you can (should) holler at me at my email letterstolisa@gmail.com to confirm.

I think I have at least 2-3 posts more to really get this blog up to date plus I need to post pictures. I'll get there!

In the meantime, I wish you all happy holidays! For those of you who have dropped me a line throughout the year, you have really made it special and I very much appreciate it. If I haven't gotten back to you, I will (you can also nudge in another email to remind me if you like!).

BOXED: The Start of a Conversation

I am posting here first the PR blurb I wrote for the Boxed exhibit which Rica Estrada and I curated followed by the exhibition notes I wrote for the show.

The exhibit opened last 12 December, Saturday, at the Blanc compound off Shaw Boulevard. If you're planning to catch the show and you haven't been to the Blanc compound before, I suggest you go to the Blanc website and download the map. A lot of people got lost trying to find it amidst the holiday traffic. It may be better to catch it the week after Christmas. The show runs until 2 January 2010.

Boxed: The Start of a Conversation

In 2006, Boxed was conceptualized by artists J. Pacena and Buen Calubayen as a series of exhibitions for artists and the artistically inclined. Each exhibition would gather together those from a wide variety of ages, backgrounds and creative training, showing their art—loosely bounded by dimensions—and prompting reminders on the presence and significance of the artistic community. From the initial exhibition in Big Sky Mind to the hallways of the Cultural Center of the Philippines to the Cubicle Art Gallery show themed with erotica, Boxed is, in the words of Pacena, `the idea, that we can be boxed, in one time and one space in order to connect and create a larger box, the idea of creating a universe and a dialogue in between.'

In the fourth installment of Boxed at Blanc compound curated by Clarissa Chikiamco and Rica Estrada, over forty women artists think, converse and relate their practice with one another. Within a set chain over four groups and starting from thoughts of the curators, each artist must reflect and respond to ideas of the previous artist in the line, documented through dialogue and then enacted in actual production. The dialogue, done through email, SMS, phone or in-person chats, is exhibited along with the art, putting primacy on the stages of art's conceptual development and the ability of artists to discuss and negotiate their practice.

Subtitled The Start of a Conversation, the show begins a dialogue but anticipates its extension beyond the exhibition. Believing that all different kinds of dialogue—direct or indirect, formal or informal—impresses upon and subsequently shifts artistic identities, however subtle, the exhibition challenges the idea that art is made in isolation. Highlighting the importance of artistic networks, the exercise of the show attempts to encourage networks in a system in which artists are able to both verbally and visually communicate their ideas with flexibility to others' artistic practices. Boxed: The Start of a Conversation discloses a normally concealed process as it commences it, acting as an index for the future dialogues it trusts to instigate.

Boxed: The Start of a Conversation opens on Saturday 4PM, December 12, 2009 at Blanc Compound Mandaluyong. Blanc is located at 359 Shaw Boulevard Interior, Addition Hills, Mandaluyong City. For more information, please call or sms 752-0032 / 0920-9276436, email info@blanc.ph or visit www.blanc.ph and www.blancartspace. multiply. com. Boxed will run until January 2, 2010.

______________________________

A few comments before you read the exhibition notes.

The write-up for this show was for me very important for this particular exhibit. The show did not turn out as Rica and I had envisioned and I felt it was important to convey our disappointment. And, in what I think is also a change from my usual writing, I wrote the notes in the first person and I'm more straightforward than I usually am and less formal. With a lot to say, I thought it best to just say it straight up.

Despite the show not turning out as I had wanted, what was interesting was that the dialogue that I had wanted to happen did happen between me and a few artists that night and post-opening via email in the egroup we created for the show.

And just to insert a little something on pictures of the exhibit: My pictures of the show at the moment are quite inadequate but I should be getting suitable pictures soon and I will post some here. In the meantime, Trickie Lopa of manilaartblogger.wordpress.com has posted some of the pics she took of the show as well as some of her comments, one of which I responded to in the comments section.

Dialogue doesn't happen in a straight line
by Lisa Chikiamco

When the organizer and cofounder of Boxed, J. Pacena, asked Rica and I to curate this year’s exhibition, I saw it as a good opportunity for artists to practice dialogue, something which I thought was sorely lacking in the Philippine art scene having compared it to my experience studying and working abroad. Modifying J’s original idea, Boxed: The Start of a Conversation had over forty women artists think, converse and relate their practice with one another. Within a set chain over four groups and starting from some thoughts I had emailed, each artist had to reflect and respond to ideas of the previous artist in the line, documented through dialogue and then enacted in actual production. The dialogue, done through email, SMS, phone or in-person chats, is to be exhibited along with the art, putting primacy on the stages of art’s conceptual development and the ability of artists to discuss and negotiate their practice.

Initially, we had wanted there to be only one big chain yet the number of those included in the show—which we had thought would be less or a little over 20—and the time there was to dialogue made this impossible. Due to the number of artists which grew monstrously to over 50 and later whittled to 42 in the day before the exhibition’s opening, we had to divide this into four groups and subdivide them in the case of Group 3 in order for the dialogue to be finished in time. Only a handful in this show are of my and Rica’s selection and due to the lengthy process involved for this show, I will say from the outset that we would have preferred a more intimate number. Yet, admittedly, I also thought it was an interesting exercise as well for us as curators to work beyond our comfort zone and beyond the artists we normally work with.

On the 2nd of September this year, I emailed the following thoughts:

I’ll start off this dialogue by throwing in a few questions on the state of dialogue in the Philippine art scene. Does dialogue between artists, between artists and curators, between artists and the public occur? And how does this dialogue occur?—what are the communication channels by which dialogue is rendered and how is it translated? What are the ways by which the flow and exchange of ideas happen and are evidenced? What are the translations of dialogue—as a seed what does it flower? Ideas, artworks, essays, exhibits, projects? Moreover, do translations ever come to a full stop or like an unending whirl does it continue over time with dialogue having imprinted its trace? And how does a discussion, more often than not a mere wade in the pool, connect to a system of streams that empty out into the ocean?

Also intriguing as well is the connections between dialogue and women. The idea that women converse more, are more inclined to gossip, chit chat and communication, is verified clearly in television programming and popular culture. Yet, in contemporary art, where dialogue and discourse are hot bywords, the close association dialogue has with women cools for women working in the visual arts. Dialogue, which in the arts field is thrown in a very positive and constructive light, suddenly does not have a crossover in being identified with a particular gender which can benefit from it. Perhaps it’s a case of all being equal—where everyone is meant to dialogue whatever their sex without judgment of which of the two has the stronger affinity for discussion.

Reading it recently, I would certainly now like to modify certain words and the delivery though the thoughts would have essentially remained the same. Yet, the dialogue which happened after I sent off these thoughts quite frankly surprised me.

Very few artists overall were able to respond to these thoughts appropriately. Though only the first artists in the groups were supposed to directly respond to this, I had hoped that all the artists might keep what I had said in mind. Disappointingly, some seemed to completely ignore these thoughts at all and the direction I had thought the dialogue would lead to completely changed course. I had introduced the connection between dialogue and women since we had retained J’s original idea of having all women artists in the show. However, as I had written above, my thoughts which they were to respond to were on women dialoguing in the field of contemporary art. By this, and which I would think would certainly not need to be spelled out, I meant women talking about their artistic practice, their artistic identities or issues in the Philippine art scene. My mentioning the stereotype of women conversing was only an introduction to this larger issue on the state of dialogue in the Philippine art scene. If the artists chose to respond to the ‘women’ part, I had thought it would be remarks towards an art institutional setting, like issues of representation. Certainly, I did not intend or foresee it into artists dwelling about love, relationships, sisterhood and stereotypes (which together on display seem to affirm stereotypes rather than negate them) and into some sort of feminist ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ exhibition. As a curator who happens to be female rather than a female who ‘happens’ to be a curator, I will say I am very uncomfortable with this idea and it is certainly not something which I can say I am happy about.

In a sense, Rica and I share some responsibility in this. We should have steered the dialogue back to course when we saw the dialogue evolving that way. We, however, did not always see it evolving that way per se. Despite clear instructions to keep the curators in the loop of their discussion—as simple as cc-ing us in their emails which is how most communicated—many did not do this immediately. Most simply forgot. Yet, this led us for months constantly and frantically trying to find where the dialogue was, who currently held the ‘ball’, what did the others who had already talked discussed and who did we need to follow-up with and give a heads up to. Because of the large number of artists involved and that those last in line could not commence conceptualizing and making their work until the dialogue reached them, ensuring that the chain kept moving along became our first priority rather than us being able to focus on the dialogue that was happening and interjecting in it. Our second priority was in trying to get a copy of the dialogues since this was essential to the exhibition. We wanted not only to put artists through this exercise but to reveal this process to the viewers by exhibiting the said dialogue. This way, people would be able to trace the connections between the artworks and see how ideas are translated into the ‘final product’ placed onto exhibition.

I would like to note, however, that as can be seen in the ‘gaps’ of dialogue in the exhibition, some did not send us the transcript of their dialogue or their thoughts at all. Some sent it after following up and, in what I had originally envisioned as being a ‘straight’ line of dialogue, some wound up backtracking as others went forward and others diverged and others participated then dropped out and others were not sure what was happening. In perhaps what is the strongest message that Rica and I learned from curating this exhibition, dialogue doesn’t happen in a straight line.

Yet, the gaps and the dialogue itself clearly illustrate that most of the artists involved are not used to dialoguing about their practice and I would argue this extends largely into the Philippine art scene as well. If I seem a little harsh on this exhibition, it is because I believe there are lessons to be learned here—for artists and curators and not just those who are a part of the exhibition. For everyone’s benefit, we need to dialogue more. This exhibit has a lot of personal stories involved and, having worked in a collection dealing with works of an extremely sensitive and personal nature, I do firmly believe these certainly have their own worth. These stories and strong responses to womanhood were just not what Rica and I had in mind for this show (which also makes me reflect on curators trying to control artists in structure and outcome among other things).

I do believe it is quite important to develop a discipline of conversing about artistic identities and observations on the Philippine art scene that go beyond simply saying that our local art scene is rapidly growing. Before we are able to properly enact this however, we need to actually pause from the frenzy of doing, doing, doing and really think about it. The point is not to come up with final answers as indeed there are none. We need to ask ourselves and each other questions of serious thought and respond to it with some serious thought. We need to ask, read, research, think, probe, respond, compare, revise and not necessarily in that order (straight lines be damned). It is going to be difficult, complicated and sometimes unpleasant. Yet, the dialogue is completely necessary for artists and curators to grow not with more projects but more in depth with their practice. I may have voiced disappointment with the exhibition but I will also state that I am still glad for the artists and for Rica and I to have undergone this process. I am also delighted in the friendships which seem to have sparked from it and the conversations wherein indeed the artists talked about their artistic identities and tried to find the relationship of these to each other. Perhaps more will come of it. In many ways, the conversation is only just beginning.

Dust Masks and White Ice Cream

In May of this year, I wrote the exhibition text for Hanna Pettyjohn's exhibition 'The American Sweet' at SLab, Silverlens' gallery for contemporary art.

I was quite happy with how the text came out and Hanna was as well. I wrote about her two years ago for Preview's December 2007 issue ('Full Circle') but I first saw her work in 2006 in her exhibition for the Mag:net ABS gallery (which no longer is running though there are still a number of Mag:net galleries doing extremely well). It made excellent use of the small space and I loved her contemporary use of stoneware clay. It was great to work with her again for this piece and I would love to work with her again for her future endeavors.

No pictures for now, I still need to get permission to post pictures and I have none of my own as the writing and communication for this piece was just done via email while I was abroad. If you want to see pictures of the show, go to the SLab website, click gallery, click view by artist and then click Hanna Pettyjohn.

Dust Masks and White Ice Cream

12 Dec 2006, 14:35. Now this is now. The ground is driest, light and chalky; houses sprawled across this patchy geology, cloned and cold as a fucking ice cream. A large real estate of white paper, whiter than paper. The urban sprawl of unfinished thoughts and unborn ideas.

On endless blue. Endless white, endless consumption. An endless row of cars across a paved flat land, sketching faded outlines of infinitely dense and shifting worlds too huge for words, where higher standards of breathing shield entry of bodily harm, inadvertently filtering your clumsy intimacy. Describing eyes, describing lives.

"What exactly do you think you are? The millions and trillions of thoughts and memories, juxtapositions- even crazy ones like this, you're thinking- that flash through your head and disappear? A sum or remainder of these? Your history?"¹

15 Apr 2007, 15:48. Who knows what lost loves? One second per second.

- Hanna Pettyjohn

Not unlike other Filipino-Americans who journey to the Philippines to learn more about their roots, Hanna Pettyjohn undertook such a passage in reverse. Spending four months in Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas from December 2006 to April 2007, Manila-born and based Pettyjohn got acquainted with America.

With her excursion framed by work at a geotechnical engineering laboratory that she embarked on to support her stay there, Pettyjohn uses the laboratory’s essential accessory as a parallel of her perception and experience of American suburbia. She depicts not only coworkers in dust masks but even her grandfather and cousin, both of whom she had met for the first time, donning these aseptic vizards as well. The concealment of a key area of facial expression ensues into a perceptible blankness of emotion and Pettyjohn places it under a magnifying lens through extremely close headshots painted to large-scale. Like labels in which one would mark slides of samples, Pettyjohn abbreviates the subjects’ names into clinical initials for the titles.

This practice of abbreviation was picked up from the writings of the late David Foster Wallace, whose stories about small-town America accompanied Pettyjohn’s own American journey. His prose mirrored her own impressions and, fittingly, his initials even had equivocal meaning as the town’s airport code. Pettyjohn’s paintings of the town are named simultaneously representing her memories of it and paying tribute to the author she associates with those memories. The scientific, documentary feel to Wallace’s writings spurred Pettyjohn to meticulously record her experiences of America through extensive writing and photographs. Isolating certain fragments from the written collection, Pettyjohn rewrote them and the result—the artist statement and introductory quote—sparked the ideas for the images of the show.

The writing-and-rewriting process which the exhibition sprang from carries the thread of Pettyjohn’s practice. She constructs, deconstructs and reconstructs—in past shows quite literally, smashing old works to pieces to generate new ones. While materially less evident here, the construction-deconstruction-reconstruction practice manifests itself through her writing. The process this time, ostensibly subtler due to the product (text vs. something physical) and not an artwork per se, actually is, as writers know, quite harrowing, mentally taxing and even downright brutal. The artistic regenerative progression is, while unseen, no less difficult nor less demanding.

In what may have been a smoother process, a birdcage from an installation Pettyjohn did for a 2008 group show, where she also did a dust mask-portrait, is carried into this new setting and reworked into a new installation. The previous installation had a small house painted in clouds, conveying the American dream of an unspoiled life, which then rested atop a chicken pillow entrapped in the cage. In its current incarnation, the cage dangles freely from the ceiling with neon text of ‘now this is now’. It hovers above naked white plaster casts of homes forming their own little residential area. Each house the same as the last, the installation edifies the flatness and monotony of everyday America, where everything—and even everyone—seems to be a clone.

For many, this may not be a representation of their own perception and experience of the USA. For Pettyjohn though, there is something more to and about these idyllic dreams. Mundane, repetitive, sanitized, incessant and, ultimately, impossible, The American Sweet is a land where everyone gets to have some ice cream. But the only flavor is vanilla.

Notes

1. Quotation is from David Foster Wallace’s book Oblivion.