All-Filipina Exhibit in Sydney Australia's Quest for Philippine Art
All-Filipina Exhibit in Sydney
Australia's Quest for Philippine Art
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, March 29, 1989
WELL-KNOWN visual artists Judith Adam of Sydney, and Genara Banzon of Manila, first met in Perth (Western Australia) almost two years ago. Both were representing their respective countries in an international art event called "ARX 87", a well-funded exchange program involving artists, critics and cultural historians from Australia, New Zealand and the Asean region.
Ms. Adam was deeply impressed by the Filipina's work at the ARX conference. In her own words, she, like many Australian artists in attendance, became aware for the very first time "of how little we (know) of our near Asian neighbors. Never thinking Asian art (to be anything more than) batik and other decorative artforms, I was surprised to see contemporary art of the standard of Genara Banzon's."
Adam says that she "recognized in Genara a great talent and a highly articulate woman. This - and I hope not to offend anyone - is not the image that we often see of the Filipino woman in Australia."
She invited Banzon to mount an exhibit in Sydney. The latter accepted. Back home from the Perth conference, the two women corresponded regularly by mail and by telephone. And the more they communicated, the more convinced Adam became of the urgent need to introduce Australian audiences to contemporary Philippine art.
Eventually, the idea was expanded into a more comprehensive exhibition involving up to four Filipina artists. Banzon submitted a list of candidates that was in itself unorthodox — artists whose work she was familiar with, but whom she had yet to meet in person. After consultations with Adam and her sponsoring agencies in Sydney, the final choice was made last January.
Apart from Banzon, the Filipina contingent will include prominent socio-political painter Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, young UP prodigy Francesca Enriquez, and leading performance artist Jean Marie Syjuco. It is believed that the directions represented by the four will afford Australians an accurate view of the more significant developments in our recent visual artistry.
In the meantime, the indefagitable Ms. Adam is currently in Manila to personally oversee arrangements for the forthcoming event which is scheduled from August 28 at "The Performance Space", a government-subsidized Sydney showroom. Her own heroic efforts have been focused not only on the coordination of the project's elaborate mechanics in Australia, but also on the herculean task of raising the A$40,000 (approximately P680,000!) needed to fund this historic undertaking.
Adam envisions "a wealth of documentational and promotional material to ensure the exhibition's success. She has likewise arranged for the four Filipina artists to lecture at both the Sydney College of Art and the City Art College on August 30, September 6 and 13, and has scheduled media arrangements through the Australian ABC network. The exhibition will likewise be situated in the context of a major art conference entitled "The Politics of Exile".
Victoria Lynn, the assistant curator of contemporary art for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, has written her own assessment of the forthcoming event:
"Judith Adam is undertaking an important project for 1989 an exhibition of four well-established Filipina artists. The venture is clearly a significant one, exposing Australian audiences to something of the Filipino cultural makeup and providing these artists with the opportunity to speak about their country and their experiences. It is generally felt the cultural links between Australia and Asia need to be forged, and Ms. Adam's project is a serious contribution towards this end."
FRANCESCA Enriquez, although only in her mid-20s, is at the forefront of what has been called 'the new painting' in the Philippines, a pronounced tendency to large-scale bravado and painterly flourish, and inspired by a return to the international mainstream.
GENARA Banzon (above) is synonymous with both the installational genre and the investigation of indigenous and natural materials in recent Philippine art. Her extensive work in this regard has influenced a new generation of creative toilers now actively engaged in the exploration of their ancestral roots.
JEAN-Marie Syjuco is a multi-awarded painter and sculptor. However, she is now better known as a performance artist, widely acknowledged as a leading exponent actively championing a conscious drive to contemporize Philippine rituals and archaic literary and dramatic traditions.
IMELDA Cajipe-Endaya is undoubtedly among the country's foremost painters of socio-political themes, and is as highly regarded for her 'art of conscience' as for her innovative use of indigenous materials. Her large-scale paintings have been generously praised by leading critics and scholars alike, and have been widely exhibited overseas.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “All-Filipina Exhibit in Sydney Australia's Quest for Philippine Art” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, March 29, 1989
