Category Archive for: review

which is not to say i don’t enjoy it, these small exhibits that are premised on the creative process of artists, where their artmaking is what’s pushed to the fore, and used as / become the objects of art. in Felix Bacolor’s Leavings one of the smaller West Gallery spaces is turned into an art studio of sorts, with no dirt on the floor or walls, no semblance of work being done, other than well, in the work that’s installed: on the walls, on the floor, against the post in the middle of the room. (more…)

was it fun? yes. was it funny? absolutely. but also it banks on layer upon layer of intertextuality. you need to know some Shakespeare to have a sense of how absurd it is that these two actors Leo and Jack are in Amish country performing two-man-excerpts. you need to have a sense of the context that is York, as old and rich and conservative suburban community so you’d know how while Meg is a woman who knows of a bigger world, she stays put and is engaged to be married to the minister. you need to have a sense of how this small cast and its dynamism is premised on 1950s America and its changing cultural landscape, where a family doctor, an aunt Florence who refuses to die, and the most random of bimbos on that stage are but symptoms.

of course without banking on all of these, Repertory Philippines’ Leading Ladies would still be that funny play about cross-dressing British men. but appreciating it as such would be to think this nothing but a 1980s Roderick Paulate movie. (more…)

two sadnesses must be invoked: one that this talented sound | installation artist has been in a coma since the end of 2011, when he fell victim to a hit-and-run incident. the other is that this short review will not do justice to his work, soundless as this is, strange as it seemed to me to have to take videos of work that required i strum my fingers through string and touch balls. yes, it’s as fun and strange as it sounds. (more…)

it was the start of the year and after this boycott of Manila Contemporary i welcomed the chance to go back. but of course i did just in time for another non-exhibit, i.e., it’s that time of year when the works from the stockroom / backroom, the ones waiting to be sold, are hung on gallery walls. at least this time it was clear. and this time there were works worth talking about. well one work that i can’t pass up. (more…)

It’s easy to dismiss “Next Fall” by Geoffrey Nauffts as another gay play, as another one of those that romanticize the narrative of love that is different, because it’s not heterosexual. But that would be to miss out entirely on what else is unfolding in front of you as spectator, it would be to miss out on the nuances that’s in the rest of this narrative’s necessary transformation of the ways in which we might view homosexuality on the one hand, religion on the other, love across the board. (more…)