CURRENT exhibitions
SONGSPIELS AND TRAGICOMEDIES
October 19, 2019 - January 24, 2020
Chto Delat
Alfredo Esquillo
Curated by Inti Guerrero
Songspiels and Tragicomedies is an exhibition featuring the collective Chto Delat — What is to be done? (Russia) and Alfredo Esquillo (Philippines). Curated by BAP's Artistic Director Inti Guerrero, this exhibition of absurd tragicomedies associates two formally distinctive practices that nevertheless each engage with the idiom of Social Realism, a prominent language in the art histories of both Eastern Europe and the Philippines. The exhibition reveals many paradoxes of class struggle in the current phase of capitalism entangled with corporate nationalism and institutionalised religion. The latter plays a major character in the exhibited works, from the revival of religious conservatism in post-socialist contexts tackled by Chto Delat to the fanatic Catholicism controlling the masses in Esquillo's compositions.
Free and open to the public. Props comprising the work of Chto Delat were fabricated at the artisan workshops of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bataan. The opening reception is sponsored by Engkanto Brewery.
BATAAN
The exhibitions and installations from past and current artist residents, which can be seen around Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, Bataan, features Nazarene: Quiapo Constellations by Polis artist Pawel Althamer, Cagayan Garden by Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan, Cian Dayrit’s Busis Ibat Ha Kanayunan, The Jrai Dew Sculpture Garden by Art Labor & Jrai Dew, and Hera Büyüktaşçıyan's kinetic scultures.
