Roberto Chabet marks golden year with shows in Hong Kong, Singapore

MANILA, Philippines - Roberto Chabet, one of the country’s most influential artists, celebrates 50 years of his professional practice as an artist, curator and teacher in 2011 through the project banner of “Chabet 50 Years.” This celebration is partly realized through 15 exhibitions at various venues in Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila from 2011 to 2010.

King Kong Art Projects Unlimited, together with Osage Art Foundaiton and the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts (ICAS), are presenting a series of exhibition of works by Chabet and over 80 acclaimed and emerging Filipino artists whom he has taught and mentored.

The exhibitions that will launch the program entitled “To Be Continued,” “Intermediate Geograpy” and “Complete & Unabridged, Parts I and II” will offer viewers a chance to appreciate and examine Chabet’s work and legacy. Since his first exhibition in 1961, Chabet has been instrumental in establishing the foundations of contemporary practice in the Philippines. His works, ranging from painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, and installation, resist easy categorization. Using mostly ordinary and found materials, he takes an inclusive approach to art, searching for the sublime not just in abstract ideas but also in the immediacy of the quotidian and the commonplace. Beyond the significance of his artistic practice, these exhibitions will also explore Chabet’s influence as a curator and educator.

“House Painting” by Roberto Chabet

The solo exhibition, “To Be Continued,” is a landmark survey exhibition of Chabet’s plywood works from 1984 to the present. In these works, Chabet utilizes his signature material — store-brought plywood boards. It is a material, which has become not only the surface and support of his paintings and installations, but to a large extent its subject matter and content. The exhibition gathers for the first time significant works, including the seminal 1980s trilogy “Russian Paintings,” “House Paintings,” and “Cargo and Decoy.” Highlighting process and the provisional aspect of the material, “To Be Continued” is reflective of Chabet’s practice, which gives precedence to the fugitive and contingent nature of art. This exhibition, which is on view until Feb. 11 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts, is curated by Nilo Ilarde, Ringo Bunoan and Isabel Ching.

“Intermediate Geography” was an installation first displayed in 2005 as part of Chabet’s series of annual simultaneous exhibitions at Finale Art Gallery and West Gallery at SM Megamall in Manila. It will be reconstructed in Osage Soho. “Intermediate Geography” is like a reminder of the dichotomies between the known and the unknowable; the expressible and the inexpressible; private and public; oneself and the other; art and non-art. Curated by Nilo Ilarde, the exhibition will run from March 5 to May 9 in Osage Soho, Hong Kong.

For the group exhibitions in Singapore and Hong Kong, “Complete & Unabridged, Parts I and II,” a wide range of works by Chabet and his former students will be featured. This two-part exhibition aims to highlight the role of Chabet as a mentor and influence to generations of Filipino artists, mainly from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, where he taught for over three decades. Reflecting the diversity of interests and practices in contemporary Philippine art today, the works in these exhibitions are connected by a continuing discussion on alternative forms and ways of thinking about art, which Chabet has consistently raised through his own art, curated exhibitions and teachings. Part I will open on Feb. 17 at the Institute of Contemporary Art Singaproe, LASALLE College of the Arts and will run from Feb. 18 to March 26. Part II will take place in Osage Kwun Tong in Hong Kong, its opening reception will be on March 4. It will run from March 5 to May 9.

“EtherealScape” by Kaloy Olavides

The three exhibitions are part of Osage Art Foundation’s new platform called “Regional Perspectives” which aims to foster a deeper regional consciousness of the arts within Asia. The project “Chabet 50 Years,” however, is part of a series of projects organized by King Kong Art Projects Unlimited.

For information, call Sidd Perez from King Kong Art Projects Unlimited via e-mail chabet.50years@gmail.com.