MANILA, Philippines — One look at each exhibition space of this year’s shortlisted artists for the 16th Ateneo Art Awards will make you mutter something about things getting “curiouser and curiouser.”
Archie Oclos
There is Keb Cerda’s merging of painting with augmented reality accessible via an app, Doktor Karayom’s line drawings of corpses on a board game of doom, and other pleasant yet unnerving (well, to some) surprises.
Costantino Zicarelli
Celebrating the best of contemporary art in the country, the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art are given to three artists from a shortlist of 12. Selected by a jury, the three artists will be eligible for international artist residency grants funded by Ateneo Art Gallery and its partner institutions: La Trobe University in Bendigo, Australia, Artesan Gallery + Studio in Singapore, and Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Doktor Karayom
A total of 85 nominations were received after AAG’s call for nominations. These nominations were submitted by museum and gallery directors, artists, curators, art writers and art educators residing in the Philippines.
Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan
The 12 artists shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards 2019-Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art are: Zean Cabangis for “Somewhere, Anywhere” (Artinformal Makati); Lesley-Anne Cao, “The hand, the secretary, a landscape” (Cultural Center of the Philippines [CCP]); Keb Cerda, “Super Nardo: False Profits” (Untitled, Art, San Francisco, USA); Ronyel Compra, “Lutâ: Imprint of Lola Masyang’s House in Forest for the Trees” (Fundacion Sansó); Doktor Karayom, “Isla Inip in the 2018 Thirteen Artists Awards (CCP); JC Jacinto, “A Crack in Everything” (Artinformal Makati); Lilianna Manahan, “Frame in The Garden of Earthly Delights” (Aphro, The Alley at Karrivin); Krista Nogueras, “Lake Predicament” (Artinformal Makati); Archie Oclos, “Lupang Hinirang in the 2018 Thirteen Artists Awards (CCP); Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan, “Timestamps” (Finale Art File); Jel Suarez, “object reader” (MO_Space); and Costantino Zicarelli, “Years of Dust Will Build A Mountain” (Artinformal Makati).
Jel Suarez
Aside from the three winners, one artist from the 12 shortlisted will be the recipient of the Ateneo Art Awards-Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize.
Keb Cerda
AAG has also launched a People’s Choice poll at Shangri-La Plaza ahead of the Ateneo Art Gallery run of the exhibition. The artist with the highest number of votes by Aug. 18 will be given an AAA People’s Choice certificate.
Lesley-Anne Cao
In honor of art writer and Art Association of the Philippines founder, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, the Ateneo Art Gallery and Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Inc. (KLFI) established the Ateneo Art Awards-Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism in 2014 to encourage art writers and to get art criticism into the public sphere. This award provides exposure and opportunities for winning writers to be contributors to a national newspaper or an international art magazine.
Lilianna Manahan
AAG and KLFI announced the list of local exhibitions open for review as early as November 2018. This year, four writers made it to the shortlist. The shortlisted writers for the Ateneo Art Awards 2019–Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism are: John Alexis Balaguer, for “Everywhere is Here: The Museum as Heterotopia in Mark Lewis Higgins’ Gold in Our Veins” (Ayala Museum); Janina Gwen Bautista, “Nasaan ka na, Mara-bini? Drawing Out Women and Comics Out of the Periphery” (Francisco V Coching’s centennial Exhibition at the CCP); Jeckree Mission, “A Confrontation with Gendered Bodies in Southeast Asia” (Metropolitan Museum of Manila); and Mariah Reodica, “Saltwater Trajectories: Bisan Tubig Di Magbalon, and Viva Excon as Cartographer” (Viva Excon Capiz 2018).
Ronyel Compra
Two winners will be chosen for the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism who will each contribute to The Philippine STAR and ArtAsiaPacific. The new shortlisted entries will also be added to the Vital Points: Essays from the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism, a blog site dedicated for all shortlisted essays of Ateneo Art Awards.
Krista Nogueras
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The Ateneo Art Awards 2019 exhibit was mounted at the Grand Atrium of Shangri-La Plaza from July 17 to July 25. The show will then be moved to the third floor of Ateneo Art Gallery in Areté from Aug. 6 to Oct. 27. Winners will be announced at the awarding ceremony set for Aug. 18, Sunday, 4 p.m. at the Suthira B Zalamea Lobby, Soledad V Pangilinan Arts Wing, Areté in Ateneo de Manila University.
The Ateneo Art Awards is co-presented by Ateneo Art Gallery, Shangri-la Plaza and Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Inc.; in partnership with Areté. The Philippine STAR is a media partner of the Ateneo Art Awards.