Mark Justiniani per le Filippine

Ecco il progetto di Mark Justiniani per il Padiglione delle Filippine 

The Philippine Pavilion will present Island Weather curated by Tessa Maria Guazon at the 2019 Venice Art Biennale. The Pavilion features artist Mark Justiniani, who is known for his immersive large-scale installations and site-specific art. 

The announcement was made by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, the government agencies responsible for the Philippines’ participation in Venice. 

Island Weather explores the myriad ways by which the island can be perceived and imagined: by evoking its geophysical characteristics, reflecting on how humans regard it as a place of origin, refuge, respite, or a location that may refer to the nation itself. 

Three thematic approaches shape the exhibition: (1) Island Voyage alludes to travels and grand designs referencing lighthouses built during the colonial period and places that combine both fantasy and myth; (2) Local Forecast: Turbulent Weather gestures towards features of the lighthouse to construct an experience of viewing and being seen; and (3) Piers and Ports expands the artist’s investigation of vision and its role in the construction of truth.

Justiniani’s works to be presented at the Philippine Pavilion are informed by his long-standing interest in vision and optics, and the structures of space and time. Through these works, the artist is keen to redefine the aesthetic experience not only through form but by way of historical reference and reflections. 

This speaks to his work with activist groups and artist initiatives in the 1980s and 90s, including Abay (Artist ng Bayan) and the collective Sanggawa (1994). From social realist leanings to magical realist strains, his practice has evolved and grown into multi-media configurations that seek to explore the nature and reality of perception. 

Justiniani received the CCP Thirteen Artists grant in 1994. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Philippines and abroad. 

About the Curator

Tessa Maria Guazon is a curator and Assistant Professor at the Department of Art Studies, UP Diliman. Her research and curatorial interests span contemporary art and the public sphere, art production, and cultural programs in Asian cities, and developing a research-driven and art historically informed curatorial practice. She is the principal researcher for Manila of the Southeast Asia Neighborhoods project for the Urban Knowledge Network Asia and the International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden (2017-2020), as well as the coordinator for exhibitions and curatorial analysis of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network, University of the Philippines (UP) Vargas Museum.

Her recent curatorial projects include: Lawas,site-specific art projects in UP  Diliman, and Consonant Forms, Resonant Practice: Women Winners of the Philippine Art Awards and the ASEAN Art Awards at the Yuchengco Museum, both in 2018; and Plying the Seas, Divining the Skies at the Kuandu Museum of Art, Taipei in 2017. 

Open Call Deliberations 

A panel of jurors deliberated on the submitted curatorial proposals last July 20, 2018 at the NCCA Building in Intramuros, Manila. The open call for curatorial proposals was launched on January 17, 2018 with a deadline set on May 24, 2018. The Philippine Arts in Venice Biennale (PAVB) Coordinating Committee received a total of 12 proposals.

The jury was composed of NCCA Chairman Virgilio S. Almario, Dr. Apinan Poshyananda, Dr. June Yap, Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, and Senator Loren Legarda, the principal advocate of the project.

Almario, National Artist for Literature, is the Chairman of the NCCA and the Chairman of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) and is a prolific writer and critic. 

Poshyananda is the Artistic Director of the Bangkok Art Biennale.  He has curated in various international exhibitions including the Asia-Pacific Triennale, Istanbul Biennale, Johannesburg Biennale, Sao Paulo Biennale, Sydney Biennale, and Venice Biennale.

Yap is the Curatorial Director of Singapore Art Museum and the former Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia.

Endaya has gained recognition in contemporary art for her works focused on identity, gender, race, nation, migration, displacement, and globalization.

Legarda, a three-term senator who chairs the Senate Committees on Finance, Foreign Relations, and Climate Change, is a staunch advocate of the arts and culture. 

58^th Venice Art Biennale

For the 58th International Art Exhibition (2019), the Board of La Biennale di Venezia has appointed Ralph Rugoff as the curator. Rugoff has been the Director of the Hayward Gallery of London since 2006. Recently, La Biennale di Venezia announced that the58^th International Art Exhibition will be titled May You Live in Interesting Times, a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse that invokes periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; “interesting times”, exactly as the ones we live in today.

The Philippine Pavilion in Venice will open to the public on May 11, 2019 and will run until November 24, 2019.

Patrick Flore curatore del Padiglione delle Filippine

Il sito del Manila Times  annuncia che sarà Patrick Flores il curatore del Padiglione delle Filippine con una mostra dal titolo “Tie A String Around the World”

Press release

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), in partnership with the Office of Sen. Loren Legarda, announced the selection of Patrick Flores’s curatorial proposal titled “Tie A String Around the World” as the official Philippine participation at the 56th Venice Art Biennale in 2015.

The esteemed panel of jurors, noted names in the field of modern and contemporary art and culture, was composed of Mami Kataoka, chief curator, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo; Paul Pfeiffer, New York-based multi-media artist; Renaud Proch, executive director, Independent Curators International; Cid Reyes, respected critic, artist and writer; Felipe de Leon Jr. NCCA chairman; and Sen. Loren Legarda, principal advocate and visionary behind the Philippine participation at the Venice Biennale.

The panel deliberated on 16 proposals for two days on September 4 and 5 at the NCCA Boardroom in Intramuros, Manila.

Flores’s curatorial concept is a poetic and political reflection on the history of world making, the links between geography and politics, and the notions of nation, territory, and archipelago. It foregrounds the extensities of the Philippines, a foil perhaps to the more aggressive instincts of expansion around us—in the past and in “present passing.”

“Tie A String Around the World” revolves around Manuel Conde’s 1950 film Genghis Khan, co-written and designed by National Artist Carlos Francisco, screened at the Museum of Modern Art and at the Venice Film Festival in 1952, where it competed with the films of Chaplin, Clement, Fellini, Bergman, and Mizoguchi.

The said film tells the story of the young Genghis Khan, his passage into the life of a warrior. It ends with the conqueror, perched on a mountain, casting his magisterial gaze over his dominion and promising his woman to “tie a string around the world” and lay it at her feet.

This is a tale of the “king of kings” and the formation of empires that have strung the islands of the world. Genghis Khan’s empire stretched from the Pacific to Europe, the largest contiguous realm ever.

The newly restored film Genghis Khan will be exhibited at the Pavilion and will be positioned in conversation with the contemporary art projects of intermedia artist Jose Tence Ruiz and filmmaker Mariano Montelibano 3rd.

The Pavilion seeks to initiate discussion on the history of the sea and its relationship with the current world, claims to patrimony, and the struggle of nation-states over vast and intensely contested nature.

It locates the Philippines in the world through its deep ties to ancient cultures, its precocious modern art, and the critical responses of contemporary art to present predicaments. Through the work of artists across generations, this history is told as a history of art and a history of the world.

The panel of jurors was impressed with the quality of most of the 16 submissions. They thought that most of the proposals were intellectually remarkable. After a two-day deliberation, the discussions came down to three strong proposals. Ultimately, the jury deemed Flores’s proposal the most fitting for the country’s return to contemporary art world’s first and oldest biennale after a 50-year hiatus.

Flores is professor at the University of the Philippines Department of Art Studies and curator of the Vargas Museum. He is adjunct curator of the National Art Gallery, Singapore; a member of the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Council; and a guest scholar of the Getty Research Institute in 2014.

The Venice Art Biennale will open on May 9 and will run until November 22, 2015.

Tornano le Filippine alla Biennale di Venezia del 2015.

Dopo cinquant’anni torneranno le Filippine alla prossima Biennale di Venezia nel 2015, ne da notizia il sito artradarjournal, da cui riportiamo l’articolo.

Il Dipartimento filippino degli Affari Esteri ha annunciato il 4 marzo 2014, che le Filippine avrà un padiglione alla Biennale di Venezia 56esima nel 2015, dopo una pausa di 50 anni.

Il 4 marzo 2014, il Dipartimento degli affari esteri (DFAE), la Commissione Nazionale per la Cultura e le Arti e il Dipartimento del Turismo, in collaborazione con l'Ufficio del senatore Loren Legarda, ha annunciato che le Filippine parteciperà ufficialmente alla 56ma edizione della Biennale di Venezia nel 2015, con un padiglione nazionale.

La 56a Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Biennale di Venezia si svolgerà dal 9 maggio al 22 novembre 2015 e verrà curata dal curatore, critico d'arte, editore e scrittore Okwui Enwezor, nonchè direttore della Haus der Kunst di Monaco di Baviera dal 2011.

Le Filippine hanno avuto un padiglione nazionale alla Biennale di Venezia solo nella loro prima e unica partecipazione, nella 32esima edizione della Biennale, nel 1964.

L'annuncio ha suscitato interesse in tutto il mondo e domande sul perché le Filippine siano pronte per un evento internazionale.

La curatela del padiglione delle Filippine e Progetto sarà dello storico dell'arte contemporanea Dr Pearlie Rose S. Baluyut , che vive negli Stati Uniti. Dr Baluyut è stato un Fulbright Scholar e Ford Foundation Fellow, detiene un BA , MA e PhD in Storia dell'Arte ( Moderna e Contemporanea) presso la University of California , Los Angeles ( UCLA ).

Dr Baluyut ha ampiamente studiato e ricercato sull'arte filippino moderna e contemporanea, i suoi interessi comprendono la cultura visiva nei contesti del colonialismo, nazionalismo, diaspora / esilio e propaganda nei media popolari. Questo sembra essere in linea con indicazioni di Enwezor.