the idea is the medium
(Featured artworks by Gerecho Iniel Cruz, Pin Calacal, Celine Lee, Wipo, Jezzel Wee, Lesley Ann-Cao, Koki, Miguel Lorenzo Uy, and Kat Grow)
Contemporaneity, as much as it defines a certain milieu, such descriptor has also broaden the discourse in art — its thematics, iterations, and utterances. It is only important to note that contemporaneity explores ideas and ideologies rather than artistic styles and techniques. Hence, it can be argued that contemporainety is the visual ideation of something concrete (for example an artwork) through the most abstract medium which is the human cognition or the mind. Framing this notion within the local context, here are some artworks that articulate and resonate contemporaineity on their own merits.
Bonsai, a 400-page handbound book and artwork, explores the idea that things, even those non-edible, can be scaled down for consumption. A tiny little red book that can actually fit the size of the mouth of its maker, artist Lesley Ann-Cao prints random words and phrases on every page of the book, all intended to be consumed and digested for the nourishment of one’s self.
Wipo, who is known for his instinctive brush strokes and playful twirls and smudges, this time experiments on the linearity of paint on folded papers. In Folded Realities, the heavy and lightweight rendering of lines is the artist’s ode to memory, of drawing the line between forgetting and remembering.
Contemplating on her roots and genealogy, Celine Lee attempts to lay out the borders between Philippines and China by using resources that are abundant in these two countries. Lee’s process of printmaking — beating and scratching the surface of the material — becomes suggestive of the way Earth is being exploited in various forms. (Original text published on spot.ph.)
Kat Grow, reflecting on worth and worthlessness of discarded objects for her installation Of Face Value, presents a row of bottles containing stained tissue papers she used in painting. By assigning a different denomination to each bottle, Grow equates the valuation of things (indicated through paint pigments) to economics and currencies.
Wind and Water, a single-channel video, allows the viewers to marvel at a raging sea and its vastness that is captured, trapped, and encapsulated in a wide-framed white box. Miguel Lorenzo Uy deals with nature and time as he speculates on their correlation with each other and the endless possibility of their mere existence.
Pin Calacal, in her series of handmade postcards, challenges her notion of real and imagined places. Return to Sender consists of 20 posts which Calacal sent to herself, with return addresses that could possibly exist in the artist’s mind. Here, the posts serve as the only connection that could bridge two different dimensions: the real and the unreal, the self and the imagined self, the personal and the impersonal.
A collaboration between artists Gerecho Iniel Cruz and Jezzel Wee, Drone Progression examines the potential of creating new sound and sound art using drones and ceramics. Called ceramic drums, the works, though sculptural in form, produce both visual and auditory experiences through the unison of machines (robots) and earthen elements (ceramics).
Koki’s suseok, a Korean term for a scholar’s stone, is the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to be. It is manmade and lacking cultural value. With the absence of distinct attributes that a scholar’s stone should possess, the work, made from concrete aggregates, interrogates the way humans attach values and virtues to an object, bearing the weight and burden of tradition.
(texts and photographs by the author)
References: Bautista, Gwen. Paper Weight (2019). Altro Mondo Creative Space.
Cruz, Gerecho Iniel. Drone Progression (2019). Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery.
