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is about you and me, culture and nation, desire and disappearance. please go see it.
because i saw Jackielou Blanco in some trailer for some soap today, and i thought: damnit i haven’t written about In The Heights Manila. and then Nyoy Volante was singing on TV, and i thought, damnit i haven’t written about In The Heights Manila.
which is not to say i don’t enjoy it, these small exhibits that are premised on the creative process of artists, where their artmaking is what’s pushed to the fore, and used as / become the objects of art. in Felix Bacolor’s Leavings one of the smaller West Gallery spaces is turned into an art studio of sorts, with no dirt on the floor or walls, no semblance of work being done, other than well, in the work that’s installed: on the… Continue reading »
was it fun? yes. was it funny? absolutely. but also it banks on layer upon layer of intertextuality. you need to know some Shakespeare to have a sense of how absurd it is that these two actors Leo and Jack are in Amish country performing two-man-excerpts. you need to have a sense of the context that is York, as old and rich and conservative suburban community so you’d know how while Meg is a woman who knows of a bigger world,… Continue reading »
two sadnesses must be invoked: one that this talented sound | installation artist has been in a coma since the end of 2011, when he fell victim to a hit-and-run incident. the other is that this short review will not do justice to his work, soundless as this is, strange as it seemed to me to have to take videos of work that required i strum my fingers through string and touch balls. yes, it’s as fun and strange as… Continue reading »
it was the start of the year and after this boycott of Manila Contemporary i welcomed the chance to go back. but of course i did just in time for another non-exhibit, i.e., it’s that time of year when the works from the stockroom / backroom, the ones waiting to be sold, are hung on gallery walls. at least this time it was clear. and this time there were works worth talking about. well one work that i can’t pass up.
It’s easy to dismiss “Next Fall” by Geoffrey Nauffts as another gay play, as another one of those that romanticize the narrative of love that is different, because it’s not heterosexual. But that would be to miss out entirely on what else is unfolding in front of you as spectator, it would be to miss out on the nuances that’s in the rest of this narrative’s necessary transformation of the ways in which we might view homosexuality on the one… Continue reading »
What might not have occurred to anyone who saw the call for submissions for the project “Nothing to Declare” was how big it could be. And when I say big, I mean huge; I mean in terms of the kind of space it would require, in terms of the kind of curatorial agency it would be premised on. Across the two museums and one gallery that carried the exhibit, the one that’s still running is at Yuchengco Museum—a good thing… Continue reading »
It is this rendering of the visceral as questionable that happens on the level of spectatorship with the series entitled the “Battle of Love” made up of etchings all entitled “Violación” (“Rape”). Here it is the Picasso’s hand that falls heavier or lighter as it renders the act of sex, presumed to be at its most violent, across a set of five images that look the same. But are different.
Because there are no words, none worth using to talk about the Ampatuan Massacre, no words worthy of lives lost to such violence, to such power. What we should’ve been was out on the streets, angry, fearless, pointing a finger at (giving the finger to) the system that has been feeding private armies. But none of that happened. Instead we were quiet and enraged, watching the news at home, receiving word about the rumored real reason behind the encounter, which… Continue reading »
White is what greets you when you enter the gallery that’s been transformed into a playground by Manolo Sicat’s Matayataya. The first reaction is one of joy: the kind that play allows, no matter how old we get, especially because it is reminiscent of the kids that we were when the streets were safe to play in. But it sinks in soon enough: play here is everything and violent, because the streets have changed, because the streets are now testament to… Continue reading »
TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here. Fernando Sena: How to draw an eye with all due respect to someone who “needs… Continue reading »
Because objects tie us to home, the things we carry are about the self we want to keep. Where there is no packing lightly when objects come to represent who we are, where we’ve been, where we hope to go. Where the usefulness of objects becomes secondary to the task of keeping, if not holding tight, lest self and memory and meaning are lost in the act of leaving. But notions of migration – not just movement – are carried by the… Continue reading »
TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here. Glecy Atienza on Buhay: Theater for Life what Ma’am Glecy had going for her TEDx… Continue reading »
and on Next To Normal: Which brings me to Pangan, who’s the best that I’ve seen him here. Without the trappings of a more complex because highly fictionalized or fantastic role, with only the seeming simplicity of a father and husband character, what’s here is pure unadulterated Pangan, and a voice that can move from optimism to helplessness to nostalgic in equal turns. But it’s in that breakdown scene that Pangan proves himself theater actor, with anguish that echoes with… Continue reading »
TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here. Aureus Solito and his search for magic what struck me about Aureus Solito’s TEDx talk… Continue reading »
TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here. Roby Alampay on freedom is our competitive advantage the thing with saying… Continue reading »
and how art criticism fails in this country. stop talking to the artists! start looking at their work! The endless gaze in Digging In The Dirt In literature we always say the author is dead, a convenient and highly questionable concept really that allows the reader a pretense of reading only the text, ignoring as much as possible the notion of the writer as center of truth. In reviewing art, it still seems like a contradiction to do an interview with… Continue reading »
In the age of doing Manila runs of foreign plays versus doing the more creative task of adapting these for local audiences, Dulaang UP’s Titus Andronicus: Tinarantadong Asintado can only be valuable. Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio and adapted into Filipino by Layeta Bucoy, what’s remarkable about this work is that it does justice to the Shakespeare original while delivering a contemporary narrative that by all counts is a success. The moment pop/street music filled the theater, the moment the clown… Continue reading »
On August 7, 2011, the History Channel premiered its 48-minute documentary on the bus hostage drama that happened in Manila a year ago on August 23, 2010. For a full week after the premier, this same documentary would be replayed every day, sometimes three times a day, on cable TV. There was no noise about it, barely any media mileage other than what looked like press releases from the History Channel itself, where the documentary is sold along with the rest of… Continue reading »
there is no excuse — no excuse — for a President who not only presumes that 85% of this country are the same kind of Catholic; he also then thinks that this is a valid enough reason to gauge public anger. no excuse for a President who is as bad as Vic de Leon Lima. let me not begin with the fact that his own father died for democracy and freedom, the same things that this President has sacrificed here.… Continue reading »
I’ve got faith in Soxy Topacio. Always have. Especially after that wonderful comedy that was Ded Na Si Lolo (2009) that could only rock the world of anyone who follows local movies – local comedies in particular. Topacio brilliantly captured the tragicomedy that is death and the family in a lower class setting without making it seem like a judgment, or an apologia for that matter. Ah, but maybe that was a movie that was by most counts about being an indie,… Continue reading »