2/F YMC BLDG 2, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City, Philippines
Gallery Hours are 10am to 7pm Mondays to Fridays and 1pm to 6pm on Saturdays.
(+632) 816.00.44 / (+63905) 2650873
For inquiries or to be added in our mailing list, email manage@silverlensphoto.com

Mirroring the elements, design and professional structure of the Silverlens Gallery, SLab (Silverlens Lab) is the new gallery, established 2008, for Philippine contemporary art under the Silverlens Group. Silverlens and SLab artists push the boundaries of their medium and are aggressive in their dialogue with a critical audience. The gallery artists are represented by Silverlens internationally for their exposure, recall, recognition, and collection.

Reconfiguring
by Bea Davila

Gaston Damag is the artist we should all know about as Filipinos. Damag, a Paris-based Filipino performance and installation artist has been showing the world Filipino, particularly his own Ifugao, culture in the most thought provoking way and now, it is our turn to get to know him and his work.

From the museums of Paris and Luxembourg, Damag brings home Synthetic Reliquaries, an exhibition of major works he created during his 15 years in Europe, albeit with a Filipino twist.

Synthetic Reliquaries stems from Damag's dedicated passion for and personal connection to Ifugao culture and its representation and references in art and history, which sprung when he visited the Museum of Natural History in New York 20 years ago. On display were photos of his Ifugao village and relatives, treated as anthropological items to show the evolution of man. To him, it was most strange and insulting how the museum portrayed a living culture as relics of human evolution, as specimens to be studied by the West. 'What are they saying about my culture and my family; are they telling me who I am', Damag wondered.  It was in Paris sometime later did he realize the impact of this experience on his art. Damag decided to take his culture (away from the museum) and claim the imagery; he will take control of his own culture’s storytelling. His culture will live and breathe, as it should.

In Synthetic Reliquaries, his first major show in Manila, Damag spotlights the Ifugao Bulul, what it represents and how it is represented.

Damag does not offer us the ‘traditional’ picture of the Bulul, the rice god carved in wood. Instead, he casts hand-carved wooden Bululs in resin polyester, makes multiple copies of them and then intertwines them with fluorescent bulbs and more plastic. Damag reinterprets the “native” and turns it on its head.

 “When Bululs are in the museum showcases, they have this synthetic aura because they are no longer in their natural context; they become superficial and devoid of their original aura and use. I intend to underscore this artificial or synthetic quality.”  Damag juxtaposes the traditional with technology and commercialization – relic and polyester- to challenge our ideas of what is ‘primitive’ and what is ‘cultured’, as well as what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘learned’. Synthetic Reliquaries is about making and understanding the same piece in a different way. 

To add to the sculptural commentary, Damag draws attention to how an object’s meaning is affected by change in context and space, as well as transformation of material. Synthetic Reliquaries has meaning inside and outside the context and space of SLab, Manila, Philippines in 2010.

Synthetic Reliquaries opens at 6 pm in SLab, Silverlens Gallery on January 13, Wednesday and runs until February 06, Saturday. It opens simultaneously with STEREO 1 by Juan Caguicla and Christina Dy at Silverlens Gallery and Paper Panic! by Dina Gadia and Mark Salvatus in 20Square, SLab Gallery. Gaston Damag will have his Artist Talk on January 19, Tuesday, 5-7pm in Slab.

Synthetic Reliquaries is shown alongside by STEREO 1 by Juan Caguicla and Christina Dy at Silverlens Gallery and Paper Panic! by Dina Gadia and Mark Salvatus in 20Square, SLab Gallery.

For inquiries, contact Silverlens Gallery at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, 816-0044, 0917-5874011, or manage@silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10am–7pm and Saturdays 1–6pm. www.silverlensphoto.com / slab.silverlensphoto.com.

Image: Gaston Damag, Conciliabules des idoles dans un musee, 1995

Reconstructing
by Bea Davila

Going beyond the boundaries of paper, Paper Panic! engages us in dialogue as it exposes the colors of life. With a background in advertising as graphic designers, Dina Gadia and Mark Salvatus know quite well what is popular, what sells and entices, and what alienates and turns off. Each takes what they have learned and experienced in their practice and infuses them with their respective questions, ideas and emotions.

Paper Panic! highlights Gadia and Salvatus' preference for the collage, which to them is beyond the literal cut and paste. Drawing from their varied interests and influences (such as Gadia's attraction to the 30s to 70s eras, movie posters, and comics; and Salvatus' interest in street art) Gadia and Salvatus combine these different elements to make a single image or thought. They deconstruct and reconstruct to make every piece of work whole.

Salvatus invites us to imagine ‘what was’ and to question ‘what is and is not’. Feel anger, comedy, fear, abstraction and vision, he says. Gadia, on the other hand, tells us of ‘the way things are’. “Some are like puns, to be grasped and enjoyed [on] their first impact, while other works reveal a subtle but sustained connotation of social critique.”  She wants it “raw, bad and tough”, while encouraging us to laugh along.

Indeed, Gadia and Salvatus have a lot to say, on paper.

Paper Panic! opens at 6 pm in SLab, Silverlens Gallery on January 13, Wednesday and runs until February 13, Saturday. It opens simultaneously with STEREO 1 by Juan Caguicla and Christina Dy at Silverlens Gallery and Synthetics Reliquaries by Gaston Damag in SLab Gallery.

Paper Panic! is shown alongside STEREO 1 by Juan Caguicla and Christina Dy at Silverlens Gallery and Synthetics Reliquaries by Gaston Damag in SLab Gallery.

For inquiries, contact Silverlens Gallery at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, 816-0044, 0917-5874011, or manage@silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10am–7pm and Saturdays 1–6pm. www.silverlensphoto.com / slab.silverlensphoto.com.

Image: Dina Gadia, Catch, 2009

As a related gallery activity Gary-Ross Pastrana will also show a film, "Fitzcarraldo" by Werner Herzog on December 12, Saturday, SLab, from 3-5PM in conjunction with his current show at SLab, 'Indivisibilis.' This exhibit is shown alongside Rachel Rillo's 'Grain' at Silverlens Gallery and Isa Lorenzo's 'Release' at SLab's 20Square.

For inquiries, please contact 816-0044, email manage@silverlensphoto.com or visit www.silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10AM–7PM and Saturdays 1–6PM. Silverlens Gallery is located at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati City.

Installation shot by Gary-Ross Pastrana