ATENEO ART AWARDS GIVES RESIDENCIES TO 4 ARTISTS, 1 WRITER
The Ateneo Art Awards 2023 comes back in full swing on its 20th year. This year’s awarding ceremony recognized all shortlisted artists and writers at the Areté last Oct. 8 in a familiar prepandemic program. Artist residencies were awarded to the winners of the Fernando Zobel Prizes for Visual Art, and contributor posts and a writing residency grant for the winners of the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism.
The Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism observes its 10th year of bringing art criticism closer to the public since its inception in 2014. These awards recognize works written in both English and Filipino. The latter is fairly new, being on its third year of granting a winning writer a platform to publish critiques in Filipino.
According to Boots Herrera, the director and chief curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery (AAG), they received the most number of entries in this cycle with 50 submissions in the English category alone. This year’s winners in the English category are Sean Carballo, who is awarded a one year contributor post at a broadsheet, and Sam Del Castillo, who wins a similar arrangement with Art Asia Pacific Magazine. In the Filipino category, Noji Bajet bagged both a column in the Katipunan Journal and a writer’s residency at Orange Project Creative Hub in Bacolod for his essay “Ang Pagong sa Kalye Pergolese.”
Also recognized were shortlisted writers Allyn Canja, Jasmin Pandi and Madeleine O. Teh in the English category, and Jonathan Vergara Geronimo and Mark Raywin Tome in the Filipino category.
For the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art, the shortlisted artists are eligible to receive residency opportunities from any of the seven grant partners of the AAG. This year’s 12 shortlisted artists are Jan Balquin, Mars Bugaoan, Rocky Cajigan, Cian Dayrit, Doktor Karayom, Veron ica Lazo, Celine Lee, Veronica Peralejo, Luis Antonio Santos, artistic duo Joey Alexis Singh and Jim Jasper Lumbera, Tekla Tamoria and Vien Valencia.
Biennial cycle
Keeping with the award-giving body’s shift to a biennial cycle, four artists of equal standing were named winners, as opposed to three in the past edition. Acimmigrant cording to Herrera, this decision was made to manage their partners’ resources and accommodate the winners whose residencies have been deferred because of the pandemic. The artists who have yet to complete their residencies are Archie Oclos, who will be working with Artesan Gallery in Singapore, and Costantino Zicarell at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia.
The winning artists’ portfolios were submitted to AAG’s residency partners who respectively selected the artist they will award a residency to. These four winning artists are Santos, Valencia, Karayom and Tamoria. Santos wins a residency at Casa San Miguel in San Antonio, Zambales and the Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize. Santos was nominated for his 2021 show “Threshold” when he was still within the award’s age limit for nomination.
Valencia was awarded the ABungalow Artists’ Residency Project in Bacolod, and Tamoria is the first recipient of the No Space residency in Baguio. Karayom wins four residency grants: at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Canada, the La Trobe University residency, Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom and Project Space Pilipinas in Quezon Province.
Balquin topped the People’s Choice Poll at the time of the awarding for her work “the difference of what is and what is not.” The People’s Choice Poll is still open, so it is possible that another artist could exceed Balquin in the polls. If this happens, another winner will be announced in December after the exhibition closes.
The Ateneo Art Awards 2023 exhibition, along with catalogs of the shortlisted and winning essays, may be viewed at the Fredesvinda Almeda Consunji Gallery, Ambeth R. Ocampo Gallery, Elizabeth Gokongwei Gallery and Alicia P. Lorenzo Gallery, 3F Ateneo Art Gallery, Soledad V. Pangilinan Arts Wing, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University.
The People’s choice poll may be accessed here: forms.gle/ HL3oBNpzJqiadoko8