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On view till March 26 at Tin-Aw Art Gallery: Transmission, an exhibition of the work of artist-mentors and their mentees. The anniversary show features pieces by Elmer Borlongan and Mike Adrao, Renato Habulan and Alfred Esquillo, Eduardo Orozco and Mark Justiniani, Don Salubayba and Henrielle Pagkaliwangan, Santiago Bose and Alwin Reamillo, Jose Santos III and Ioannis Sicuya, and Leo Abaya and Lee Paje.

The minute we stepped into the gallery we knew which piece was by Leo Abaya.

Panginoong Alipin

Next to Leo’s painting was an arresting copper etching by his student Lee Paje.

The panels on the right tell the story of alien spacecraft who arrive on Earth and abduct gay couples, including pairs of Disney princes. The spacecraft look like the Bozanian ships on Voltes V, which reminded us of a piece we wrote many years ago.

It was Roby Alampay, now the editor of InterAksyon and BusinessWorld, who first saw a link between Japanese robots and People Power.

Leo’s painting also reminds us of Steph’s cat Twister.

Tin-Aw is on the Upper Ground Floor of Somerset Olympia, Makati Avenue, Makati City, across from Old Swiss Inn. Somerset Olympia is next to the Peninsula. For more information, call (02)892 7522 or visit www.tin-aw.com.

A scene from the Met Opera’s Bluebeard’s Castle

ON SUNDAY we ran into Grace at the ballet at the Cultural Center, and on Wednesday we saw her again at the opening of the Art Fair. “Uyy, culture!” she said, and there has been an unusual number of arts and culture events in February. I know, because otherwise I would’ve seen Deadpool five times (You snobs don’t know what you’re missing. My favorite line: “Of course looks matter! Ever heard David Beckham speak?”). For a few weeks it felt like Manila was a Culture Capital, fairly teeming with plays, screenings of classic Filipino movies, art expositions, even opera.

Then I learned that February is National Arts Month, which means that when it ends we go back to being, as Noel puts it, culture lower-case.

Read it

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1555 (oil on canvas) by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69); 73.5×112 cm; Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium. From Wikimedia Commons

Musée des Beaux Arts (1940)
by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just
walking dully along;
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At first glance, Faig Ahmed’s carpets look like digital photos that didn’t load right the first time you clicked on them. Intricate patterns morph into messes of pixelation; blocks of color slide off like someone scrolled past them too fast; and some of the 2D mats look like they are bulging off a screen. But while they may appear to be software glitches or bad Photoshop editing, every one of Ahmed’s carpets are hand-woven – bugs and all.

Read about the work of Faig Ahmed at Smithsonian.

Kiss of Judas by Napoleon Abueva, starting bid Php400,000

Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Porta Vaga, starting bid Php700,000

Talking Birds by H.R. Ocampo, starting at Php1.8M

If you want to convert your cash into a piece of Philippine art history, there’s Vicente Manansala’s “Mother and Child” from 1971, opening bid Php2M; a landscape by Botong Francisco, oil on board, Php2M; “Talking Birds” from H.R. Ocampo’s transitional period, starting at Php1.8M, and Napoleon Abueva’s sculpture in oak, “Kiss of Judas”, Php400,000. If you’ve decided that anyone can buy a Birkin and a Jaguar, but art always has cachet, there’s Ronald Ventura’s take on Leonardo’s Vitruvian man, “In Memorial”, starting at Php7M. If your money makes you feel guilty, contemplate the Passion of the Christ with a three-foot image of the Nuestra Señora de la Soledad de Porta Vaga. Made in Manila in the 1800s, the image ponders the whips, crown of thorns, hammer and nails at the center of the Catholic religion. Php700,000 opening bid.

Unless you’re very rich, the most memorable part of that last paragraph is the money. By my estimate, art auctions are 20 percent art and 80 percent commerce. I’ve looked in on a couple of auctions to watch people spend money without blinking, and they are not like the proper, gracious affairs in movies like North by Northwest. They’re more like sabong (cockfights)—rowdy, democratic, casually-dressed and probably as lucrative. Many of the bidders choose to be invisible, sending emissaries or joining the action online. The competition can be ferocious: the excitement as a Magsaysay-Ho or a Ventura crosses the Php20M mark is intense, even if you have nothing at stake. The tension is so thick, you can feel rich by osmosis.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

You can preview the Kingly Treasures auction from November 28 to December 4 at Leon Gallery, G/F Eurovilla I at the corner of Rufino and Legazpi Streets in Legazpi Village, Makati City. The auction is scheduled for December 5 at 2pm. To see the full catalogue and find out how to get a paddle, visit www.leon-gallery.com.

Tinio-Gabaldon cabinet, 19th century, starting at Php3M

Blue Harbor by Jose Joya, starting at Php3.6M.

Landscape by Carlos “Botong” Francisco, starting at Php2M

Update: Reader kotsengkuba alerted us that Vicente Manansala’s Mother and Child is at the Singapore Art Museum. According to the auction catalogue, the Manansala on offer is similar to that one, but painted later. Artists did paint the same subjects over and over again.

Good sleuthing! Sharp viewers make life more difficult for forgers, although the demand for masterworks keeps them employed.

Unwearables by Steph Palallos

Made by Hand
By Leo Abaya

Craft is the “C” word that used to be shunned when sleekness and conceptualism in art and design were at their most persuasive and pervasive. That was a time when discourse and theorizing was at the forefront and the skill that was most worthy of the artist was not that of the hand, but that of the mind; a distinction perpetuating the separation of the verbal and the manual, even insinuating the lack, if not, absence of one in the other.
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