Visual Arts
Korean Cultural Center in the Philippines will open its art exhibition “The Beautiful Journey in the World,” on March 3. The exhibit features the artworks if 19 Korean artists who are currently residing in the Philippines. It showcases the artists’ perception of the world based on their experiences and adventures while living abroad. Filipino artists such as Jacqueline Hess, Connie Quirino, and Yueh Faye Lai will also take part in the display as guest exhibitors.
Music
The Johann Strauss Society of the Philippines Foundation, Inc. (JSSP) will hold a gala dinner concert A Kaleidoscope of Austrian Music on March 2at the ballroom of the New World Makati Hotel. The event features internationally-renowned concert pianist Raul Sunico performing with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra to be conducted by eminent Austrian conductor Ernest Hoetzl. Program includes W.A. Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major,” J. Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5,” Johann Strauss II’s “Emperor Waltz,” and Lehar’s “Gold & Silver Waltz.” Paul Hertel’s “Emigration” will also be premiered for the first time in the Philippines.
Visual Arts
Our natural reflex is to be sucked into a world of illusions that are as real as the spirit we have.
We thrive on our flawless foresight that never fails us. This same foresight is full of devious predictions which forcefully shove us fall into a trap of lies. We save and preserve ourselves from the spikes in this trap by lying to ourselves. Paolo Germar’s “Blood Stained Glass” shows that our need for self-preservation is our sanity caused by delusions of grandeur and perfection. We hold our breaths when we are filled with despair and start to see stars and glitters that blind us once more. The exhibition is open to the public and is on show from until March 15 at Kaida Contemporary, 45 Scout Madriñan St., South Triangle, Quezon City, 02 463 5859 or 63 927 929 7129, kaidacontemporary529@yahoo.com.ph
Fashion
Homegrown talent Ann Ong was recently recognized at the NY Now Winter 2016 trade show for her handcrafted gold clutch which was chosen as the Best New Produce Design. The fair ran from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3 at the Javits Center, New York City. Creating jewelry fashion pieces “for women who are confident and have a mind of their own,” Ann Ong is one of the outstanding women designers featured twice a year at the Manila Fame, the country’s premier design and lifestyle event. She is likewise a three-time awardee of Katha, the hallmark of Philippine product design excellence and innovation. www.manilafame.com
Visual Arts
Cian Dayrit’s “Pasyon” references Rey Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution, the seminal text that limned the conceptual world of various resistance movements from 1840 to 1910 through the lens of popular devotional practices in the Philippines. In “Pasyon,” his fifth solo exhibition, Dayrit takes a different tack and approaches the now-familiar forms and formats of devotional paraphernalia as sites of concentration, which he uses to render composites of various ideological trajectories that are active within the Philippine contemporary. Exhibit runs until March 12 at Artinformal, 277 Connecticut St., Greenhills East, Mandaluyong
Photography
A two-man exhibit “Incognito Field” features emerging photographers Gino Javier and Czar Kristoff, whose photographs magnify the lives of denizens existing microscopically in the overlooked cracks and crags of this highly dense city of Manila. Their lens intimate as well into the happenstance congruence of the non-human elements that provide unintended narratives to the scenes photographed. Exhibit runs until April 9 at Post in Cubao X.
Visual Arts
Bencab Museum’s Gallery Indigo features “Crafted Mythologies,” a two-man show on the transformation of traditional modes of craft by Anton del Castillo and Riel Hilario. The exhibition is a two-part demonstration of how tradition-based art making is given autonomy and harnessed by the artists to address contemporary issues of nostalgia, apocalypses, and mythic spaces. Exhibitions will be on view until April 10, Km. 6 Asin Road, Tuba, Metro Baguio, 074 442 7165; 63 920 530 1954 bencabartfoundation@gmail.com, www.bencabmuseum.org
Leeroy New’s “Partake Harder” is still life gone wrong. It explores another realm of the deep subconscious and rearticulates the traditional themes ubiquitous in human history. The inanimate is given new life. The mundane intersects with the sublime. Human forms undergo reconfiguration. Sacred banquets turn into profane feasts. Religious iconographies are demystified. It is a misrepresentation of the classics where no place is left for the commonplace-where viewers are compelled to create new narratives, where a series of wrongs can be right. Exhibit runs until March 13. 02 856 7915, 63 917 572 7970
Literature
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), through the Philippine Cultural Education Program (PCEP), calls for contributions to Talas, a transdiciplinary academic journal on culture-based education. The journal is envisioned as educational space for critical discussions and creative dialogues among scholars, practitioners and culture bearers in various fields such as Philippine arts, heritage, history, culture, and education. It welcomes scholarly articles, literary works, visual arts and performance documentation, and book reviews which may be written in Filipino or English. Interested contributors should submit a one-page proposal to PCEP Secretariat at pcep.secretariat@gmail.com on or before March 30. 02 986 4147 pcep.secretariat@gmail.com.