Leica Club Manila donates ‘Paintographs’ to National Museum
When friends and photography enthusiasts Joaquin “Jake” Lagonera, Jose “Joey” Antonio, Billy Mondoñedo, Francisco “Kiko” Balagtas, Benjamin “Benjo” Campomanes, and Alfonso “King” Reyno III opened their first ever “paintographs” exhibit as Leica Club Manila back in 2016, they thought it would be a modest affair of sharing their passion for art and photography with family and friends. They never imagined the exhibit When Lens
Meets Brush would become so popular that the National Museum of Anthropology would run the show for three long months.
Done in collaboration with top Filipino visual and mixed-media artists, the works conveyed a unique artistic expression with photography and painting merged on canvas. The exhibit was so successful that the National Museum has started to focus on photography as an artistic medium, notes its assistant director Ana Labrador. Director Jeremy Barnes also referred to the paintographs as one of the museum’s new creative directions.
In February 2018, members of the Leica Club Manila returned to the National Museum to donate five artworks from the said exhibit as their “gifts to the nation.”
Included are the works of Billy Mondonedo and Mario de Rivera’s “For God So Loved the World,” Kiko Balagtas and Norlie Meimban’s “Daydream,” Joey Antonio and Anna Vergel RS’s “Stone Splash,” Benjo Campomanes and Clarence Chun’s “Dreaming of Home,” and Jake Lagonera and Mario de Rivera’s “Mother and Son.”
“We are honored and privileged to make this donation. This is our small humble way of contributing to the promotion of cultural and artistic heritage of our country. With these artworks, hopefully, future generations will see the pain, the beauty, the smile, the dreams, the peace, the joy, and life itself as we see it through the eyes of our painters and through our lens. Hopefully they will enjoy looking at these,” Jake Lagonera said at the formal turnover rites of the paintographs on behalf of the members of Leica Club Manila and their collaborating artist-painters.
“It is our privilege to accept such generosity, especially since the National Museum is striving to focus on photography as an artistic medium. In these endeavors we have always used as guideposts our experiences working with Filipino photographers and artists who always bring in exceptional sensibilities to their art,” Labrador said.
Barnes noted that the works were indeed something very different from what people usually identify with the National Museum Collection. “But it’s so exciting, it’s so vibrant, it’s so artistic. The expression’s amazing. It opened people’s eyes to what was possible with classic creativity but married with technology and new ways of looking at the world around us. This is a creative direction for the Na- tional Museum. With these five works, we commit in receiving them, to maintaining them in perpetuity, in trust for the Filipino people, for future generations, for the young Filipinos and for decades and decades to come,” he said.