Contemporary exhibit at Casa Gorordo Museum

The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) and the Ateneo Art Gallery (AAG) opened an exhibition last April 28 at the Casa Gorordo Museum.

Dubbed “The Next Wave,” the exhibit features works of 2009 Ateneo Art Awards winners Leeroy New and Kiri Dalena.

The works represent the artists’ individual response to their residency grants.

New went to La Trobe University Visual Arts Center in Australia, while Dalena went to the Common Room Networks Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia.

New defines his dread and fascination of the sacred and the profane by recreating the awe and terror of a balete tree, known as dakit in Cebuano by using orange flexible conduits or electric cables attached to and choked other trees.

Dalena’s exhibit intends to contemplate the past and the continuing brutality denounced by various sectors in countless angry statements, which are written in a thick yellow book of slogans. A blinking neon sign screaming “Liar Liar Liar” illuminates the room, recalling the reactions to controversies like the “Hello Garci” scandal. Dalena aims to show tragedy as history, as shown by a blinking neon yellow light that spells “History.” Inscribed in a funeral slab are the words “Watch history repeat itself.”

Ramon Lerma, director of the Ateneo Art Gallery, noted that The Next Wave exhibit reflects upon ideas of certitude and flux, static and movement.

“Just as the collective achievements of the past have led to a resurgent level of confidence among emerging Filipino artists, so, too, have a new group of young practitioners been inspired; their inventive energies gathering force as they hurtle towards the future and make their mark,” he said.

The opening of “The Next Wave” exhibit was attended by local visual artists and writers, students, media and the academe.

Messages were given by Dr. Jocelyn Gerra, executive director of the Culture and Heritage unit of RAFI, Lerma and AAG managing director Yael Buencamino.

Regional Trial Court Judge Simeon Dumdum, an award-winning poet and essayist, graced the ribbon-cutting.

Casa Gorordo Museum of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. is the official hub in the Visayas for the 2011 Ateneo Art Awards.

The exhibit will run until July 10.

For more information, contact 418-7234 local 703 and look for Karl Damayo.