Happy birthday Jose Rizal (June 19)

Jose Rizal, photo from Lopez Museum via Eric Ambata

Philippine alternative filmmaker

In commemoration of our  national hero's -  José Protacio Rizal birth month, internationally acclaimed filmmaker and author Nick Deocampo will trace the beginnings of Philippine cinema signalled by the first feature film on Rizal, and how the history of local cinema has been further enriched by films about him and his works. Deocampo's lecture "Rizal, Cinema and the Filipino Nation" is on June 30 (Saturday) from 2 to 4pm at the Lopez Museum in Ortigas, Pasig.

 

Check out Beat exhibit @ Lopez Museum

Ernest's "Hidalgo, the super multi-dimensional time bandit"

If you want something fresh and different, visit the Lopez Museum at the ground floor of Benpres Building on Exchange Road and check out its current exhibit called Beat.

Husband and wife Chit and Eileen Ramirez curated the exhibit playing with the double entendre of Beat - which can be interpreted as defeat (verb) or rhythm and movement (music).  The exhibit features commissioned works from two contemporary artists Nikki Luna and Ernest Concepcion, juxtaposed against 19th and 20th century masters from Lopez Museum's private collection particularly that of Felix Resurrecion Hidalgo.

Chit said [watch Cityscape clip below] "we wanted to engage the audience to think about what Beat is for them. It is a nice discourse how people would view old masters' works and the contemporary works."  Eileen explains in her curatorial notes  "...By staying on the present tense rather than as the more definitive 'beaten', this exhibition also conscripts the energies of artists Nikki Luna and Ernest Concepcion to effect stagings of confrontation with the difficult the resistant and even the impossible."

Nikki's "Precious and Fertile" installation 

And so Nikki presents her advocacy, her concern for the plight of the farmers of Hacienda Luisita and the various issues faced by indigenous people in their ancestral lands. She said "art should talk about what's happening especially those who are not able to articulate their problem and issues that are usually ignored." For her Precious and Fertile installation, china bone pipes hang atop a mound of soil with a portion of a video documentary on Hacienda Luisita projected on the wall. And for Azucera,  she shaped sugar into diamond resins to represent the value of sugar as produced by farmers.

Spotted Ernest drawing in one of the galleries

Ernest, on the other hand, is creating an epic piece in his Hidalgo, the super mutli-dimensional time bandit installation. He said "I wanted to challenge what the museum has to offer... kind of an action-reaction dynamic."  His artwork is a work-in-progress, spilling out unto the other parts of the museum including the main hallway, unto walls which hang the permanent collection of the museum.

Chit said that at one point their works will connect because of what Ernest is doing. He is hopeful that this will come in to fruition at the end of the six months that Ernest is in Manila (he is based in New York) or at the end of the exhibition run in October. So, if you're lucky like me, you may catch Ernest in action.  

Don't miss Myra Beltran's Mi Ultimo Adios (excerpt from Itim Asu, running time of 5:07) and go all the way down to the Library and view the studies of Hidalgo. The museum is open everyday from 8am to 5pm except Sundays. Tip - do ask for a guided tour and check out their note cards and notebooks for only P100! 

Toy Customization workshop with PSP at Lopez Museum

When I walked in the Toy Making Workshop for kids at Lopez Museum this morning, I was surprised to see all adults in the class. Yes 12 adults in a supposedly kid's workshop.   The workshop  was conducted by three members of the street art collective  Pilipinas Street Plan (or PSP) - Whoop, Wes and Epjey.  In fact, Whoop said that they started late because they were waiting for the kids to arrive.

Today instead of learning taka, a traditional art form practiced in Paete, Laguna using  papier-mâché , PSP taught us how to customize toys.  This is the art of changing a toy from its original form simply through painting and drawing. PSP brought several plastic toys of various shapes and sizes for us to work on - cars, robots and dolls.

Toy customization was made popular in 2002 when Robert Budnitz introduced plastic vinyl toy dolls called  'munny' which is a blank figure with movable joints meant for do-it-yourself art. The price of munny figures online ranges from $9 for a 4-in size to $200 for 18-in.  Just the same,  as PSP showed, any old toy can be customized. All you need is water-based paint, paint brushes, cups to mix paint, water, rags and paper towels. I would add an apron since I managed to stain my clothes all over with paint.

The first step is to apply base paint using white acrylic paint.  A tip is to rub the toy and hands first with alcohol to remove oil before applying the base paint. Otherwise, it will come out like my robot on the right.

Once the base paint dries up, the next step is to start painting and then drawing.  A tip is to use a blow dryer to dry faster. My creative models were artworks by PSP's Nemo, Epjey and Whoop. Actually, the whole area was inspirational. The workshop was held inside gallery 2 where PSP literally transformed the area into street art with graffiti, mixed media, vinyl toys, taka and including props like rubber tires. One wall had a giant Philippine map with some sites labeled with stickers, stenciled and sprayed images. According to Whoop, the labels indicate where PSP's art are present all the way up north in Luzon and down south in Mindanao.

After two hours, here's my masterpiece  I dubbed "L'amuse bouffan".  Our artworks will be included in the fund raising event on February 19, 2011 in Art in the Park in Salcedo Village in Makati. The proceeds will go to Knowledge Channel Foundation’s programs for Filipino schoolchildren.

Other works:

Tara

Teacher Ria

Martin

Karen

and meet our facilitators, the PSP street artists:

Whoop

Wes

Epjey

PSP is one of the featured artists in the ongoing exhibition "Extensions" which will run at Lopez Museum until April 20, 2011. I hope the museum collaborates with PSP again and push through with Taka soon!