Ateneo Art Awards 2011: Anatomy Of Autonomy

It was 13th of August, Saturday, I attended my friend pretty Clou’s Birthday Party at the Shangri-La Mall in Mandaluyong. I arrived an hour early. While waiting for the party to start, I recall that every 1st and 2nd Saturday of the month there are holding Exhibits there, so I decided to see it, and golly it was so amazing. I enjoyed what I saw there, and then I realized that party is about to start.

Here some of the details about the exhibit.

About the Ateneo Art Awards

Established in 2004 to honor the memory of its founding benefactor Fernando Zobel de Ayala (1924- 1984),whose support of young Filipino visual artist left an indelible marks in Philippine art history, the Ateneo Art Awards are given to Filipino visual artist below the age of 36 for outstanding works in a exhibition between 2 May 2010 and 1 May 2011.


From the 12 shortlisted exhibitions/artworks, 3 are chosen as winners. The winners are then invited to apply for international resindency grants funded by the Ateneo Art Gallery and its partner institutions: Common Room Networks Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre in Bendigo, Austrilia, Artesan Gallery in Singapore, Art Omi in New York, USA and Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, United Kingdom.

Since 2009, the Ateneo Art Awards exhibition program has been extended to the Visayas; in cooperation with the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. the artists' return shows are exhibited in Casa Gorordo Musuem, Cebu City. The exhibiteds as accompanied by a series of artist forums and art talks in various Cebu Universities. This program evolved from the desire of the Ateneo Art Gallery and RAFI to foster greater exposure and appreciation for Philippine contemporary art as well as encourage discussions about arts.

About Anatomy Of Autonomy

On its eight year, the Ateneo Art Awards takes the theme "Anatomy of Autonomy," dissecting and surveying artistic thought in the contemporary Philipines art scene. Unbound by any culural, social, academic or even aesthetic dogma, the creative spirit of young Filipino visual artists is duly recognized.

*****************************************

Ateneo Art Awards 2011 Shortlisted Artists

Renato Barja Jr.

The Jungle and the Rain

The character depicted in Renato Barja Jr.'s Blanc exchibition The Jungle and the Rain may be strange but they're definitely not strangers. Barja's rubgy boys and butchers were actual personalities around his Cavite studio, where he had spent more time in the past few years.

Painted in oil and sculpted into the third dimension, one such character Barja refers to as The Prophet is a modern-day soothsayer turned mad by a tragic past,who spends time preaching in the streets of Cavite alongside an eye-loyal dog. Other works include paintings of actual events during his stay in Cavite, completing the circle that is his visual diary.

Bembol Dela Cruz

House Blends

Frank Callaghan

River of Our Dreams

Man invented cameras to doucment the visible world. What separates documentation from art is oftentimes the creative intuition that occurs in the moment between the peep and the click.The advent of digital photography has signigicantly widened the distance between the two. While most photographers purposely jump to the safety net of image manipulation programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Frank Callaghan uses pure mastery of technical skill to evoke beauty from the mundane and dream from debris.

In this solo exhibition River of Our Dreams at Manila Contemporary, which was also part of a project to promote the ecology of the Pasig River, he mounted a series of photographs of the urban skyline calmly reflected along its banks. Glowing with his trademark treatment of light, his skill control of the lens unravels an almost dreamlike urban ecology, full of the colors filtered out by the human eye. The original exhibition included a large aquarium filled with water from actual river, providing a dash of context and underscoring the beauty of reflected light.

Nona Garcia

Fractures

Olivia D' Aboville 

News Frontiers: Olivia d' Aboville

Chasm of Fantasies

Sam Kiyoumarsi

Inienable Dreamless

Kawayan De Guia

Bomba

Tatong Recheta Torres

Make My Day!

Maria Taniguchi

Echo Studies

Rodel Tapaya

Simple Depictions

One of the most enigmatic character archetypes is the stranger.

MM Yu

Waste Not Want Not

Maria Jeona Zoleta

Sure Sure, Happy Happy, Picture Picture

********************************

Jurors

Ramon E.S.Lerma
Director & Chief Curator, Ateneo Art Gallery

Benedicto Cabrera
National Artist for Visual Arts & Director Bencab Museum

Fr. Rene Javellana, S.J.
Associate Professor, Fine Arts Program Ateneo de Manila University

Geraldine Javier
Visual Artist & 2004 Ateneo Art Gallery Winner

Raymond Lee
Screenwriter,Film Producer,Teacher, and Former Gallery Owner

Sandra Palomar
Visual Artist

Mary Ann Pernia
Education Consultant, Lopez Memorial Museum

Erwin Romulo
Editor-in-chief, Esquire Philippines

Alan Whittaker
Associate Professor in Ceramics, Head of Dept. of Fine and Applied Arts, Liverpool Hope University

****************************************

Exhibition date :
5-15 August 2011 at Grand Atrium, Shangri-la Plaza Pasig City

Exhibition Continues :
20 August - 10 September 2011 at Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo De Manila University

******************************************


For more photos go on http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.266472603365666.77668.119203451425916
For more information about the Ateneo Art Awards 2011: Anatomy Of Autonomy go on http://www.ateneoartgallery.org/
Ateneo Art Awards Souvenir Program