Raquepo uses graffiti technique and mixes diversity of images, which are usually from subculture. Explanation of the age of image can be exactly applied to Jucar’s works with his trademark subculture, kitsch, and composition. The exhibit features works done in a 6-month artist’s residency in Seoul, South Korea. On view until August 5 at Mag:net Gallery, Katipunan. For inquiries, please call 929-3191.

From July to December 2010, Green Papaya Art Projects will observe the Philippines’ typhoon months with a series of collaborations between two artists of similar genres investigating social sculptural projects based on context of time/place, relational works and encounters.

The Ephemera of Disposable Goods, a program of curator-in-resident Lian Ladia, aims to make available to featured artists Green Papaya’s space and bar hours (Wednesday-Friday-Saturday from 6PM-12midnight) as an open studio facility where artists and public can engage in discussions and debates as the artists go through their process of constructions and deconstructions every session. Remnants of the day’s work will remain on view at the show window (when the space is closed) leading to a documentary installation at the end of each project.

Catch The Crocogator: Ferdz Valencia + Vic Balanon opening this July 28-August 13. Ferdz Valencia and Vic Balanon will create a spatio-temporal imprint called The Crocogator with paints, wood scraps and found objects.

For more information and collaborative proposals, please contact 0999-3811217 or email lian_ladia@yahoo.com.

The Alliance Francaise Foundation in Paris, in partnership with the French magazine Courrier International, has launched an international photography competition on the theme “I’m 20 years old in my country” (”J’ai 20 ans dans mon pays”) or photographs of the youth in the Philippines. Alliances Francaises around the world are invited to coordinate the competition in their respective countries.

In Manila, the competition is organized by the Alliance Francaise de Manille with the support of Silverlens Gallery, ongoing until August 10. Participants have to send the registration form (can be downloaded from AFM website: www.alliance.ph) and four (4) photos by email to sabrina@alliance.ph by August 10, 2010, on the theme: “I’m 20 years old in my country” (photographs of the youth in the Philippines). Technical requirements for photos: JPEG, 1MB maximum, resolution 1500×2000pixels or 72 DPI.

The competition is open to Filipino citizens and residents in the Philippines, non-professional photographers, without age limitation. The photos submitted have to be original and unpublished.

The jury in Manila will select one winner and will send two (2) of his/her selected…

Multi-award-winning painter, poet and critic Cesare A.X. Syjuco unveils his recent works at Galleria Duemila on July 24, Saturday, 4:30PM.  Entitled “The Ancestry of a Stone”, the exhibition will showcase Syjuco’s latest forays into the literary and the visual, in what promises to be his most important show in six years.

Featuring his “New Literary Hybrids” – equal parts poetry and visual art – Syjuco reprises his landmark 2004 solo exhibition at the Main Gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.  But there are new twists and turns, as might be expected from this 56-year-old renegade artist, well known for his gallery wit and mischief.

“There will be brand-new works, and some spanning the last six years since CCP,” Syjuco says of the exhibit.  “All in all, I would have to say that it’s the best show I’ve had in a while.”

Syjuco’s works will be on view until August 28.  Galleria Duemila is located at 210 Loring Street, Pasay City.  For more details, please call 831-9990, fax 8339815, email duemila@mydestiny.net or visit www.galleriaduemila.com and www.cesaresyjuco.com.

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Silverlens Gallery celebrates MANILART 10 with Stereo 2 by Juan Caguicla and Christina Dy, July 27-31, 2010 at Silverlens Gallery. As a special extension of the Silverlens Show at MANILART 10, the Philippines’ 2nd international contemporary art fair to be held from July 30-August 1 at the SMX Convention Center, Caguicla and Dy join Frankie Callaghan, Leslie de Chavez, Mariano Ching, Chati Coronel, Christina Dy, Wawi Navarozza, Gina Osterloh, Hanna Pettyjohn and Rachel Rillo.

Showcasing the second part of two series marrying Caguicla’s edgy photography and Dy’s large-scale charcoal drawings, Caguicla and Dy present only one image, albeit a very strong one. As in January’s Stereo 1, the two choose their body as their subjects to produce an altogether new and grotesque image. It is indeed “stereoscopic”, as described by mutual friend Raymond De Veyra, the source of the show’s name.

In this show, called Stereo 2, Caguicla and Dy go much further with what they bare and where they connect. And by also going much bigger in scale, Stereo 2 is meant to make an impact.…

Artist William Gaudinez retells a myth of a lost land in his new collection of works, “Alay sa Lemuria”. His pieces narrate both the history and the struggle of a nation during the contemporary times. It mirrors a nation’s quest for identity. Thus, it stammers back and acknowledges the significance of the old ways, myths, legends and aged beliefs to realize and get hold of its truest character. The exhibit runs from July 17-August 4 at NOVA Gallery, Warehouse 12A, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Don Chino Roces Ave., Makati City. For more information, please call 392-7797, email gallerynova@gmail.com or visit www.novagallerymanila.com.

Where do we draw the line between Art and Design? The two are often grouped together but clear differentiations are confusing to articulate. When both are sources of inspiration for the other these delineations are based almost purely on nuanced emotional intuition whether approached by informed or uninformed audiences. Nevertheless, if necessary, such niche distinctions normally lie within value systems based around quality. Design praises form and functionality, impeccable finish durability and its ability to fulfill its intended purpose. Style and innovation perpetuate its evolution, visual sophistication and beauty.

Aesthetic and practical signifiers therefore determine quality. Contemporary Fine Art, although concerned with such principles has expanded its reach to revere conceptual ideas even at the expense of the perfect finish.  Ironically visual Art now has a very complicated relationship with Beauty. As such the purpose of art is also much more abstract. Its reason for existence is not for physical interaction but something more complex that incorporates the pleasure of looking with intellectual questioning and self-reflexivity.

Manila Contemporary takes these interwoven ideas as a departure point for…

Join artist Gaston Damag for a tour of his works exhibited at the University of the Philippines Jorge B. Vargas Museum on July 14, Wednesday at 11:30AM.

This walk through is in line with Gaston Damagís Líenvie de faire líamour (The Envy of Making Love), an installation of large pestles handcrafted from Banaue. Installed at the grounds east of the Vargas Museum, the work invites students and passersby to interact with its ephemeral presence amid the universityís landscape.

Damag will also bring students and guests inside the museum for an insight on the Concilliabule díIdoles Dans un Musee (Conclave of Idols in the Museum), an installation of bululs for the Bound exhibition.

In this candid gathering, Damag will share the story behind the projectís conception, production contexts, and meanings.

Gaston Damag (b.1964) is a Filipino artist who has been working in France for the past twenty years. Damag is known for works that integrate ethnographic sculptures with industrial materials. His sculptures respond to cultural and physical dichotomies.

Admission to the walk through is free. Reservation is encouraged.

For reservations and additional…

The Yuchengco Museum cordially invites you to the opening of the exhibit Pumapapel: Art in Paper, on July 13, Tuesday, at 6:30PM. Pumapapel showcases the beauty and versatility of paper as an artistic medium, and explores paper in a range of art forms.

Pumapapel pays tribute to everyday paper, elevated and transformed. The exhibit features the works of Movement 8 designers Tes Pasola and Tony Gonzales, who have been innovating, and pioneering papermaking and paper as an art medium for decades. Pumapapel also showcases the paper-based artwork of printmaker Pandy Aviado, sculptor Impy Pilapil, printmaker Joey Cobcobo, papermaker and designer Wataru Sakuma, and papermaker and researcher Asao Shimura. Another highlight of the show is an exhibit of recycled paper couture especially created by fashion design students from the School of Fashion and the Arts (SoFA).

Pumapapel: Art in Paper runs until November 6. For more details, please call 889-1234 or email info@yuchengcomuseum.org.The Yuchengco Museum is located at RCBC Plaza, at the corner of Ayala and Sen. Gil Puyat Avenues, Makati City. Museum hours are from Monday-Saturday, from…

Beautiful Inside My Head Forever is a found title. Scavenged from the title of Damien Hirst’s auction catalogue, it lays a playful predicate for a suite of diverse works dealing with the common and not- so-common notions of portraits – portraits as faithful or imaginary profiles of ourselves or of the other – how we frame ourselves, or others, as a self-reflexive performance.

Portraits (done with painting, photography, film, performance) are taken here as receptacles of lost memories, contents that are otherwise too weak (or too strong) to become conscious. In this context, while the occupation of “portraiture” is conscious, the resultant product is not. “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” is akin to Carl Jung’s treatise on the collective unconscious (contents that have not been individually acquired and experienced), archetypes (experienced images - the visual culture - that shape our perception of the world around us), and the life long process of self- becoming (or how to become individuals outside our shared experience of the world…) This might be too much of a Jungian perspective, but…