When the new is homegrown
Ateneo Art Awards is one of the barometers of the most cutting-edge contemporary art practices in the country.
The pursuit of the new looks every bit the norm in art, espe- cially if we look at what’s happening in the West. From art fairs to biennales, the proverbial envelope is being pushed (one can, in fact, argue that the envelope has dematerialized, with the concept primarily driving the work). In the Philippines, where the traditional media of painting and sculpture still hold sway, we do not lack for artists who interrogate the boundaries of material, the possibilities of form and content, prompting fresh visions, new angles of seeing the world.
This is no more evident than at the Ateneo Art Awards (AAA), which has recently declared the winners for its 13th edition at the Shangri-La Mall. The only institution- based award- giving body that offers art residencies as prizes, AAA has established itself as the barometer of the most cutting-edge contemporary art practices as well as a site of engagement through the exhibitions it organizes featuring the works of the finalists. After a brief stop at the atrium of the Shangri-La Mall, the works will be on view at the Ateneo Art Gallery (AAG) in Quezon City from Oct. 10 to Dec. 3.
From 12 finalists, the co-equal winners of the Fernando Zobel Prizes for the Visual Arts are Martha Atienza for “A Study in Reality No. 3” (Silverlens Gallery), Rocky Cajigan for “Museumfied” (Blanc Gallery), and Nathalie Dagmang for “Dito sa May Ilog ng Tumana: A Sensory Investigation on the Contradictory Relationship of Barangay Tumana with the Marikina River” (University of the Philippines).
The shortlisted artists, the majority of whom were first-time finalists, were Buen Abrigo, Romina Diaz, Ian Fabro, Ian Carlo Jaucian, Leeroy New, Jose Luis Singson, Ryan Villamael, Liv Vinluan and Paulo Vinluan. They were eligible for nomination because they had held an exhibition in a given year. Their works were mostly gallery- or museum-based. In the case of Dagmang, her work was her college thesis.
In the works of Atienza and Dagmang, the “new” is expressed in the treatment of materials and the component of space, the juxtaposition of multi-media elements
with common objects, while Cajigan’s embrace of the language of assemblage prompts fresh trajectories of figuration. This is not newness embraced for its sake, however, but a deployment of new strategies to activate homegrown concerns and realities. Atienza’s work gestures at the tempestuous storms that visit the country while Dagmang’s, as its title suggests, is an ethnographic study into the lives of those who reside beside the ever-threatening river.
Aside from Atienza (who swept all the residencies when she won for her work, “Gilubong sa Dagat,” in 2012), Cajigan and Dagmang are first-time finalists and winners. For the residency grants, Atienza will fly to La Trobe University of Visual Arts Center in Australia while Dagmang will spend time at the Artesan Gallery + Studio in Singapore and the Liverpool Hope University Creative Campus in England.
While a few artists get nominated year in and year out, the judges change, which belies the notion that the award celebrates only a certain kind of work. This year’s judges were Agnes Arellano, Fr. Jason Dy, SJ, Edgar Talusan Fernandez, Agung Jennong (a foreign juror who is an independent curator and lecturer from Bandung Institute of Technology), Angel Velasco Shaw, and Eric Zamuco.
The strength of the works was on full display, of course, the first time they were exhibited — in which curation, duration and spectation came into play. What the audience saw at Shangri-La Mall was just a glimpse of what had been shown. For instance, “Stagnant Energies” by Romina Diaz, which was exhibited at Finale Art Gallery, was palpably alarming and sinister in its original site, with its assembly of black and white photos of an abandoned mental institution in rural Italy alongside an empty metal bed and a video showing the artist tearing through a wall. I didn’t expect that her works at the AAA exhibition spoke for the whole thing, only on behalf of it. Which made me wish that I had more time and energy to see the works of the other finalists.
Another important aspect of AAA is the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism, which was won by Pristine de Leon for her essay, “Owning the Image: Exploring Lopez Museum’s Political Cartoons and the Pleasures of Residence.” Part of her prize is a fortnight column, called “Platforms,” for The Philippine Star. Another writing award, the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize- ArtAsiaPacific Magazine, was granted to Dominic Zinampan, which will give him the opportunity to write for the region-wide art magazine. The other shortlisted writers were Mariel Aglipay, Jasmine Cruz, Par Patacsil, and Carlos Quijon.
For the writing awards, the jurors were Star Lifestyle editor Millet Mananquil, Dr. Cecilia de la Paz, Fr. Rene Javellana, ArtAsiaPacific Magazine editor Elaine Ng, and AAG director Ma. Victoria Herrera.
The works that may soon find themselves shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards are now being shown as we speak in the many alternative spaces, galleries and museums throughout the country. Go out there, view the exhibitions, and nominate the work you believe in.