By ANGELICA DEMEGILLO
Calling all art lovers! Art Fair Philippines 2024 is happening this weekend at The Link in Makati City.
Art Fair Philippines stages its 2024 exhibition from Feb. 16 to 18 at The Link in Ayala Makati, Makati City. The car park was transformed into a multi-level exhibition that showcases modern and contemporary art. Alongside homegrown Filipino talent, foreign galleries and artists from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam have also flown in for this year’s event.
Now in its 11th edition, Art Fair Philippines features its usual exhibitions, such as ArtFairPH/Projects, ArtFair/Residencies, ArtFairPH/Photography, ArtFairPH//Talks and ArtFairPH//Digital.
ArtFairPH/Projects also showcases installations and innovative exhibits commissioned for the fair. Located in a contiguous space conceptualized by production designer and theater director Ed Lacson, ArtFairPH/Projects presents works by renowned Filipino artists including Jonathan Ching, Jigger Cruz, Gean Brix Garcia, Rod Paras-Perez; a selection of women modernists, and a group of muralist painters mentored by Alfredo Esquillo Jr. and Renato Habulan.
The Projects section also features Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist Mr. StarCity, who is set to impress with his stunning “Loverboy” collection, set up in a space awash with cobalt blue paint, complemented with ambient lighting and music.
There’s also Romanian conceptual artist Andreea Medar who is showcasing an enchanting installation dubbed “Leftovers from the Future,” which pays homage to her grandparents’ village located in the south of the country where she grew up. Her contemporary exhibit features a ‘plastic garden,’ composed of manually hand-stitched clear plastic sheets sewn to mimic leaves and vines, illuminated under a UV light to further immortalize the essence of a traditional garden.
She tells PeopleAsia that the whole installation is inspired by the tradition practiced by the women in their village which is manually sewing clothes and heirloom tablecloth. Medar also reveals that the plastic sheets in her installation are symbolic material as they are used to protect hand-stitched heirloom tablecloths in the village.
Another interesting piece presented at the fair is Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudia’s “Be a Tree Now!” that was brought in by the Spanish Embassy in Manila. Ampudia’s quirky project, which invites Art Fair goers to ‘do a little dance to become a tree,’ is a call for climate justice.
“Through this project, I want to build a relationship between species and nature — It’s about survival,” Ampudia tells PeopleAsia through an interpreter. He also adds that the whole project aims to make people experience being a tree by performing simple arm movements in front of a camera. The result is a moving multiple-exposure image resembling a tree’s canopy.
Make sure to check out as well the CryptoArt section (included under Digital section) located on the 7th floor, where traditional art meets digital art. CryptoArt PH, as described on Art Fair Philippines’ official website, “is an evolving community built to empower interdisciplinary Filipino creators who are carving their paths in the dynamic web3 space.” It also aims to direct builders or artists to platforms, both physical and inside the metaverse, to increase the visibility of their creations and generate opportunities for a sustainable career.
The artworks showcased at the exhibit in the CryptoArt PH section are created in collaboration between two artists. More than just a framed two-dimensional artwork or a still sculpture, each piece — with the help of technology — comes to life to tell a whole animated story that can be viewed through a mobile app called ‘Artvive,’ an augmented reality (AR) tool that allows artists to present new dimensions of art.
The fair also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Karen H. Montinola, a grant given by the Montinola family in memory of Karen, a collector who championed the works of emerging Filipino artists. The 2024 KHM Selection grant has been awarded to visual artist Gean Brix Garcia.
To commemorate the special milestone of the grant, Art Fair Philippines 2024 will have a retrospective exhibit curated by art consultant Norman Crisologo, featuring recipients of the grant, namely Pio Abad (2014), Mike Adrao (2015), Mac Valdezco (2016), Mark Valenzuela (2017), Alvin Zafra (2018), Liv Vinluan (2019), Carlo Villafuerte (2021), Melvin Guirhem (2022) and Faye Abantao (2023).
A harmonious exhibit
According to Art Fair Philippines co-founder Lisa Periquet, there’s no particular theme for this year’s exhibit, but they work on certain thematic threads to showcase art pieces and artists that need to be highlighted.
“There’s no imposition, it’s more of an internal thing — we follow certain thematic threads and we try to work with that. For example [we] want to [showcase] digital art, because we think it’s important, we’ll do something like that. Or we would want to feature women artists because we want to shine a light on them, because it’s also important, we work with that” Periquet tells PeopleAsia.
This year’s exhibit also shines a spotlight on more emerging foreign artists and galleries. Periquet shares that the Fair welcomes and features more foreign artists now as it is gaining traction.
“When we started, we wanted to present the best of Filipino artists. Then we noticed that so many people were coming from the regions and we have foreign galleries approaching us to collaborate. Our foreign galleries this year are at about 25 percent. Imagine, one out of four is from another country!”
Asked if people appreciate art now more than before, Periquet says “definitely.”
“We can see it in the audience numbers. There are so many art events and art fairs now which shows that there is a lot of interest. The market has grown, as well,” she concludes.
Art Fair Philippines 2024 is happening at The Link in Ayala, Makati City and is open from 10:00 a.m to 9:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased via www.artfairphilippines.com and on-site at the 4th floor reception area of Art Fair Philippines.
For more information, follow Art Fair Philippines on Instagram at @artfairph and Facebook at facebook.com/artfairph.
