Foundation News

MFPI Lecture Series “Politics: Pinoy Style”
SPARKS: Illuminating the Filipino Self

With the May 2010 Philippine Presidential elections 4 months away,  The Museum Foundation of the Philippines is conducting a series of lectures on Philippine culture and politics entitled “Politics: Pinoy Style.”

The third part of this series is a talk by artist and political satirist, Jose Tence Ruiz, on February 9, Tuesday, 6-7:30pm in Silverlens Gallery. Entitled “SPARKS: Illuminating the Filipino Self,” the talk is on the formation of social realism in Philippine media and its significance on Philippine nationalism and nationhood. Ruiz will be showing ‘how the visual lineage” of social realism can find its roots pre-1975, the year social realism was formally declared. “A whole host of precedent imaginations…sought to articulate an entire world of self recognition,” Ruiz explains. “It would be the basis for a workable nationalism, a community imagined.”

Fitting a time with heightened social consciousness, this lecture series discusses the past’s definition of social realism, i.e. its interpretation of social ills, competencies, and talk, in hope of illuminating the present’s socio-political scenario.

You can download the reply form, fill it up and fax to 404-2685 / 722-9073/ 810-6912. You may also text/call 0928-5039392 (Elvie) to reserve slots.

Image: (left) Vicente Manansala, Wartime Inflation and the Housewife, 1941, (middle) Bag-ong Kusog, How the Imperialists are Provoking and Pitting Us Against Each Other, 1926, (right) Galo Ocampo, Ecce Homo

Related Gallery Events of Synthetic Reliquaries
January 29, 2010, Friday
4-6PM

Panel Discussion: “Talk on the Master Narrative of the Aesthetic Incorrect” with Gaston Damag, Manuel Ocampo, Raymond Lee, and Gerry Tan : January 29, Friday, 4-6 pm, SLab at Silverlens Galleries.

Four Filipino artists and thinkers come together to discuss the irony of making art as a devotional practice in a setting that doesn’t need it. Gaston Damag, the man behind Synthetic Reliquaries a show, which mixes the ‘native’ Ifugao bulul with resin polyester, wants to launch an inquiry into the position of contemporary art in history, society and space. How does art’s meaning and interpretation change in every setting or context? What is the role of the artist in this journey of thought? Does art and meaning exist because of who makes it and/or who looks at it?

The event is free of charge but reservations are required. Please contact Thess Nobleza at 8160044 or email us at manage@silverlensphoto.com.

Image: Gaston Damag, Domesticated Pieces, 2003/2010, Photograph by Rachel Rillo

Save the Date: Art in the Park on February 27, 2010, Saturday, 2 to 10 pm, Jaime Velasquez Park, Salcedo Village, Makati City. Organized by the Museum Foundation of the Philippines with the help of Bgy. Bel Air and Security Bank MasterCard.

An annual project of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, ART IN THE PARK is an affordable art fair for paintings, prints, photos, and sculpture. Pieces have a price ceiling of P20,000.00.

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For more Museum Foundation events and activities please visit our website at http://museumfoundationph.org/news/

Religious art is dangerous. If you let it, what you see is not what you get.

Of course, you can simply look at it with the eyes of the aesthete or art critic, and see line and color, subject matter and socio-historical context, technical skill or the lack thereof.

Or you can go off to an adventure into the sublime.

This is because religious art, including Christian art, is ultimately only a sign. As a sign, it points to a reality that is outside or beyond itself. It is an expression of a people’s experience of the divine, a doorway through which, gazing now upon the work of art, one may enter faith’s mysteries once more.

Christian art, whose subject matter revolves around the central mystery of God’s saving love in Jesus, invites the viewer to behold this love. To gaze upon it and to behold God’s love is an experience which becomes, for both the one who believes and the one who still seeks, an act of contemplation. It is a wordless prayer.

And prayer, as anyone knows, is dangerous territory: it can lead you to amazing adventures where bushes are afire and water turns to wine and the blind see, all because of a God whose very nature is love.

May these paintings allow you a glimpse into that love. If you let them, what you see is not what you’ll get. By God’s grace, you will find more.

The Museum Foundation of the Philippines is pleased to announce the second in its series of lectures on Philippine culture and politics leading up to the May 2010 elections entitled “Politics: Pinoy Style.”

Manuel L. Quezon III
Historian, host of the ANC show “The Explainer” and Philippine Daily Inquirer “The Long View” Columnist will talk about image making of presidential candidates.

This will be on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 6:30 pm at Silverlens Gallery, 2/F YMC Building 2, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City. Please do come and also join our MFPI Fellowship that will follow right after the lecture.

Fee:
P100 for members
P50 for student
P200 for non-members

Please download and fill out the reservation form.
Fax to 404-2685 / 722-9073/ 810-6912.
Email to inquiry@museumfoundationph.org

You may also text/call 0928-5039392 (Elvie) to reserve slots.