Metrobank Art & Design Excellence launched anew
THE METROBANK Foundation, Inc. (MBFI) is now accepting entries for its annual visual arts competition, the Metrobank Art & Design Excellence (MADE). The announcement was made during the kickoff event of “Art MADE Public” last Jan. 25 at SM Aura Premier, Taguig City.
For more than three decades now, MADE has since served as a platform to discover emerging names in the art scene. This year, “Discover” was chosen to be the theme opening its doors once again for painters and sculptors to immerse into a whole new experience — one that demands looking at the world with fresh eyes to discover the beauty in things mundane and overlooked.
The MADE Painting Competition is open to all Filipino artists aged 18-35 years old who have not held a solo exhibition. The MADE Sculptor Competition, on the other hand, is open to all professional Filipino sculptors who have staged at least one solo exhibition.
Two Grand Prize Winners for the Painting Competition and One Grand Prize Winner for the Sculpture Competition will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges. They will each receive a P500,000 cash prize and the “Mula” glass trophy designed by visual artist and MADE winner Noel El Farrol to be awarded during Metrobank’s 56th anniversary in September. Grand Prize winners also become member of the MADE Network of Winners (MADE-NOW), the alumni organization of past MADE awardees implementing pay-it-forward projects that benefit marginalized sectors.
In partnership with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), SM Supermalls, Manila Metropolitan Theatre and the United Architects of the Philippines, Art MADE Public is presented to the public through a series of exhibits, lectures and workshops on art and cultural heritage to be facilitated by renowned Filipino artists as well as architectural and heritage practitioners, in select venues nationwide. MADE shall serve as the catalyst that weaves together its advocacy for the visual arts and cultural heritage through three interrelated components — Connections MADE, Meet the MET in MADE, and MASJID.
For more than three decades, the roster of MADE winners has formed a unique web of interwoven generations, influences, and relationships within the local art community. Thus, this year’s works exhibited at the Art MADE Public showed how past winners relate to each other — mentor-apprentice, young artists inspired by established and senior ones, artists related by blood, and contemporaries within artist groups of different eras.
“The exhibit aims to present the diversity and richness of influences between and among past MADE winners artists. It is also about tackling their themes, messaging, and styles that have changed and emerged among contemporaries over time,” said MBFI President Aniceto Sobrepeña.
One of the featured works in the exhibit is Roberto Feleo’s. As one of the first awardees of then known as the Metrobank Annual Painting Competition in 1984, he is recognized in the art community as a mentor to generations of artists. Also included are the works of Elmer Borlongan, Emmanuel Garibay, and Mark Justiniani. They were once members of a group of young activist-artists during the late 80s to 90s known as “Salingpusa” who consecutively reaped MADE top distinctions.