Concurrents
A Collective Community Exhibition with Chuah Shu Ruei
856 G Gallery, Mandaue City, Philippines
Malaysian contemporary artist Chuah Shu Ruei holds a participative community art project that is an extension of her series of paper collages called ‘Dunia’ (The World), which dwells on themes of interconnection, dichotomies, perspectives, boundaries, transcendence, and change. The project intends to incorporate traditional heritage into contemporary art.
Looking for Action: Performance, Video and Direct Art in Cebu
by Paul Grant
In 1991, Alice Guillermo, the respected Manila-based art critic published a much-needed history of Cebuano art entitled Cebu: A Heritage of Art [1]. Guillermo eloquently expounded on works created in Cebu, from church ceilings to what she referred to as the then contemporary "crop" of artists. While the work is a laudatory, necessary and insightful effort, one might be struck by certain gaps, not in the history she recounts, nor in the group of artists whom she celebrates, but rather more generally in the very concept of art described: in large part what we encounter in this avowed heritage is painting. The resultant picture is of an artistic tradition touched by certain realist schools, folk art, tendencies in art brut, and a fair amount of portraiture and landscape.
