Unboxing time
19 October–16 November 2024
Art Director
Silvana Ancellotti-Diaz
Gallery Manager
Álvaro Talavera
Exhibition Team
Thess Ponce
Roy Abrenica
Mariela Araza
Edgar Bautista
Gabriel Abalos
Jose Joeffrey Baba
Graphic Design
Karl Castro
Daena Dizon
Exhibition Notes
Dondie Casanova
Art Imaging
Miguel Buid
Artist Portrait
Misael Bacani
Copyright © 2024 Galleria Duemila, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system transmitted in any form by any means without the written consent of the above mentioned copyright holder, with the exceptional reasonably brief excerpts and quotation used in articles, critical essays, or research.
Artist statement
My practice engages familiar materials to explore the politics and demands of daily life. This approach allows me to reflect on my own experiences, habits, and personal history, and how broader systems take shape in the ordinary. Influenced by the questions raised by the arte povera movement, I engage with these inquiries in the context of contemporary social media and the age of simulacra. In the process, I examine how materials and their images can simultaneously echo or challenge their time.
The Unboxing time series draws from elements of my daily life, digitally scanned, colored, re-scanned, torn, drawn, and painted. The resulting abstract compositions simultaneously chronicle and excavate the mundane. These works capture the flows of mediation, labor, and other life processes by imprinting patterns of consumption and their by-products through a blend of scanography, ersatz printmaking, photomontage, collage, and assemblage.
Formally, I play with the idea of space and ground. Artwork frames are usually considered an extraneous element, a presentation decision left to the curator, exhibition designer, or collector. In the case of these works, the collages interact with the color and scale of the frame, thus making the frame integral to the work. I am interested in the nuances in the interaction of color and framing, and how it shifts the way we see things.
In the works presented here, I also integrate photographs from my experiences surrounding the pandemic: roadside flowers from solitary walks during lockdown, protest actions alongside indigenous students, trips to the hospital, school visits. Indeed, the series began as a way for me to continue making art and survive with my humanity intact, despite the limitations of the pandemic and the restrictions of our government’s pandemic response.
The large textile work in this exhibition, made in my isolation during those difficult years, was first unfurled during a Labor Day protest action in 2021. The patchwork incorporates face masks, found textiles, and flour sacks, forming a message in overt defiance of the
ruling administration. As with my collages, this quilt plays with color and space, but its legible elements stop short of full abstraction, rooting it in the real and concrete.
A new set of works called Framing time likewise responds to the current administration. These integrate pages from Today’s Revolution: Democracy, a 1971 book attributed to the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. In the context of his son’s rise to power through “democratic” elections, I meditate on what it means to live in a supposedly democratic society, and how we consume/live out these ideas.
The term “unbox” gained vernacularity in the years leading to the pandemic. The exhibit’s title refers to the constant boxing and unboxing which became part of the “new normal” mobility of goods and services, increasing the focus on packaging, protecting, transmitting, receiving. It also refers to the need to unbox notions of time and chronology, for our spaces, routines, and sensibilities are co-inhabited by the past, present, and future, everywhere multilayered all at once.
Ultimately all these patchwork assemblages are ephemera made persistent, imprinting the disposable alongside the sacrosanct, intimating the ways in which I navigate, cope, survive, and persevere within my social context as an artist and citizen.
Karl Castro
COR - 20457
Unboxing time 12
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame
110.49 × 157.48 cm / 43.53 × 62.05 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20458
Unboxing time 13
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame
110.49 × 157.48 cm / 43.53 × 62.05 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20459
Unboxing time 14
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame
110.49 × 157.48 cm / 43.53 × 62.05 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20460
Unboxing time 15
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame
110.49 × 157.48 cm / 43.53 × 62.05 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20461
Unboxing time 16
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame
142.50 × 79.50 cm / 56.15 × 31.32 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20449
Unboxing time 17
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame
104.50 × 90.50 cm / 41.17 × 35.66 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20450
Unboxing time 18
mixed media collage in artist’s frame
86.00 × 116.00 cm / 33.88 × 45.70 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20196
Unboxing Time 10
mixed media collage on artist frame
125.73 × 143.57 cm / 49.54 × 56.57 in.
2020–2023
COR - 20197
Unboxing Time 11
mixed media collage on artist frame
113.03 × 151.13 cm / 44.53 × 59.55 in.
2020–2023
COR - 20463
Unboxing time 20
mixed media on collage in artist’s frame (triptych)
87.00 × 112.50 cm / 34.28 × 44.33 in.
per panel: 68.50 × 37.50 cm / 26.96 × 14.76 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20462
Unboxing time 19
assemblage of textile, acrylic on paper in artist’s frame
95.50 × 54.50 cm / 37.63 × 21.47 in.
2020–2024
Karl Castro: Unboxing time
by Dondie Casanova
In an interview, Ai Weiwei once said that design is “a reflection of the issues humans face over time.” Indeed, contrary to how it is commonly experienced at present, design is not only a means towards consumption but also an indicator of consumer and human behavior at a specific moment. It is thus a worthy exercise to look at everything we have purchased, even amassed, and wonder if it provides a just portrait of ourselves.
Artist and designer Karl Castro explores this complex relationship between society and design in his solo exhibition, “Unboxing time.” Through different collages and assemblages, he provokes analyses of how the design of objects from daily living is reframed as consumers reprioritize their spending habits when faced with a global pandemic and its aftermath. Since the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, countries including the Philippines have implemented full and partial lockdowns to decrease the number of cases. But as these mobility restrictions served to mitigate the burdens on healthcare, they heightened the already limited accessibility of goods throughout the country.
The unsettling nature of an impending global economic collapse due to a health crisis highlighted our reactionary behaviors of panic buying and grief spending. Essential items such as food and basic household goods were hoarded in large amounts, while nonessential items like makeup and toys compensated for the perceived loss of extraordinary experiences.
The process of integrating product design and packaging in Castro’s works becomes an avenue for inquiry about our existence in the current stage of late capitalism. The pandemic accelerated the growth of e-commerce as a platform to make goods and services widely available despite our limited mobility. It also heightened the wanton consumerism that late capitalism encourages, and even posits it as the pinnacle of human existence. As retail services deploy more product packaging to keep their contents safe, we are left to evaluate where we stand in the accompanying rise of throwaway culture.
Through their sheer size and composition, Castro’s works evoke an overwhelming sense of wonderment and unease. As he employs a multitude of methods that warp our familiarity with everyday objects, once distinct iconographies seen in product packaging are enmeshed to the point of abstraction.
In the mixed-media collage series of the same name, various relics of our consumptive behavior are interpolated and juxtaposed with one another. Junk food wrappers, takeout boxes, and receipts are scanned, distorted, and torn through physical and digital methods before being recolored and framed in solid blocks of blues, purples, and greens. In these works, the human capacity for hunger is contextualized through vibrant color, and the spatial adjacency of these elements provides framing to an otherwise random collection of scans.
In other parts of the works, balikbayan boxes are evident. These familiar cardboard delivery boxes were popularized in the 1970s as a means for overseas Filipino workers to send home goods from their countries of work. Their contents were mostly non-perishable items that were difficult to find in the Philippines, ranging from canned goods to clothes and toys. Viewers see glimpses of handling symbols such as a sun or an x-mark, but they are stopped short of being comprehensible by sticker labels and lotto tickets. The ubiquity of these boxes provides an illustration, an allegory even, not only of the remittance-fuelled consumption of Filipinos, but also the remittance-sustained economy of the country.
Nonetheless, there is a certain loneliness that arises from the Unboxing time series. It is in these works that we are forced to face graphics from everyday life that have been rendered invisible through familiarity. We have ascribed specific moments of our lives to these mundane graphics that we might find ourselves wanting the “invisible” familiar. Food cartons can become sources of relief from the unsettling pandemic. Delivery boxes can become vessels for family members to repatriate, their gifts becoming their proxy.
The textural components of each collage reveal itself slowly to the viewer, much like the process of unboxing–a term that has permeated our general lexicon. The experiential and communal aspect of an unboxing gives people with similar consumption patterns a shared anticipation over the same object. But as the packages in Castro’s works become mere pieces of evidence that such a process has occurred, the viewer is left to search for its contents. The cycle of wanting perpetuates with the sight of the unboxing’s remains.
It is in these collages that Castro treats the detritus of the unboxing process as an anti-portrait of the consumer and the consumed product. Viewers can surmise the contents through their own experiences with a package with a similar identity. “These items must have been less than 20 kilograms in total.” “They must have really liked Korean fried chicken.” “That child really likes those salty chips.” Though we might never arrive at the true resemblance of the consumer or the item they have purchased, we could still come to a close approximation of them. It is in this pursuit of understanding who or what is portrayed in Castro’s works that he is able to communicate effectively with the viewer.
An equivalent communication happens in Castro’s assemblage series, Framing time. As each of the compositions moves radially along the pictorial plane, each frame spatially contextualizes the elements within and around it. Select pages from Ferdinand E. Marcos’s book, Today’s Revolution: Democracy, are removed from their binding and placed in nested rectangular frames. These pages that eloquently package social and economic democracy in a liberal society are presented against sky-blue textiles, collages, and blocks of primary colors. As each element alludes to capitalism, and the Philippine state and its citizens, they also attempt to incorporate the viewer in the context that the select passages exist in. Elements in these assemblages ripple outward and inward, proving Kamala Harris’s now famous statement: “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”
The exhibit is punctuated by Four-letter word (2021), a quilted textile with the protest text “OUST DU30.” Formed using facemasks and flour sacks, the use of unconventional textiles for protest art provides a rich investigation of why these materials are relevant to past President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime. Poor political decisions on the country’s management of the pandemic and the inconsiderate laws passed surrounding commonly consumed food commodities make these seemingly unrelated textiles work as a statement against a populist leader.
As the works in “Unboxing time” reposition histories, both personal and political, Castro engages the viewer to engage and reflect on the broader narrative that they exist in. As the works unbox and frame temporality, we must contemplate what objects and actions we fill time with, before engaging others to look at what’s inside.
COR - 20444
Framing time 1
assemblage of book pages, mirror, and collage in artist’s frame
95.00 × 72.00 cm / 37.43 × 28.37 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20445
Framing time 2
assemblage of book pages, mirror, and collage in artist’s frame
95.00 × 72.00 cm / 37.43 × 28.37 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20446
Framing time 3
assemblage of book pages, mirror, and collage in artist’s frame
95.00 × 72.00 cm / 37.43 × 28.37 in.
2020–2024
COR - 20447
Framing time 4
assemblage of book pages, mirror, and collage in artist’s frame
95.00 × 72.00 cm / 37.43 × 28.37 in. 2020–2024
COR - 20453
Four-letter word quilted and stitched found textiles, face masks, and ribbon
203.20 × 264.16 cm / 80.06 × 104.08 in.
About Karl Castro
Karl Castro (b. 1986) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages deeply with the intersections of art, history, and community. His work spans painting, weaving, collage, photomedia, and exhibition-making, often addressing themes of materiality, the emergence and circulation of knowledge, institutional memory, and collective narratives. Design functions as a complementary discipline within his broader practice, particularly in contexts where visual culture intersects with historical and archival inquiry.
Castro has held solo exhibitions at institutions such as Chidori Bunka, Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Ayala Museum, Giant Dwarf Art Space, and Project Space Pilipinas. His collaborations with cultural institutions, libraries, and archives have resulted in exhibitions and public installations that probe shared histories and contemporary realities. In 2022, he collaborated with curator Marian Pastor Roces and communities of indigenous and Muslim women for Weaving Women’s Words on Wounds of War at the Ateneo Art Gallery, a project rooted in memory and lived experience. His 2023 residency under AIRΔ Vol. 7 Osaka explored the legacy of Asia’s inaugural World Exposition and the Philippines’ participation within the context of a rising authoritarian regime. In 2024, he contributed to the development of Locations of Freedom, the Philippine Pavilion at the 15th Gwangju Biennale.
In parallel, Castro has cultivated a significant design practice, working on cultural and scholarly publications, as well as cinematic posters. He is a lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts, Ateneo de Manila University, and serves as research head for @ brutalistpilipinas, a platform dedicated to the study and appreciation of brutalist architecture in the Philippines. His practice is consistently informed by an engagement with cultural history, craft, and the complexities of Filipino identity.
Education
2008, Bachelor of Arts in Film and Audiovisual Communication, University of the Philippines 2003, Major in Visual Arts, Philippine High School for the Arts
Solo exhibitions
2024, Unboxing time, Galleria Duemila
2024, ドリーム・アフター・ドリーム (Dream after Dream), Ishmael Bernal Gallery 2023, ドリーム・アフター・ドリーム (Dream after Dream), Chidori Bunka, Osaka, Japan
2019, From Angono, Giant Dwarf Art Space
2018, Past lives, Angkla Art Gallery
2017, Hypervisual, Project Space Pilipinas
2016, Social fabric, Jorge B. Vargas Museum
2016, Secret lives of books: Karl Castro, book designer, Ayala Museum 2014, Two things, Silverlens
Selected group exhibitions
2024, Locations of freedom (vMeme Contemporary Art Gallery), Ortigas Arts Festival
2024, ALT Philippines (Galleria Duemila), SMX Hall 4 2023, 50 years of Philippine design and beyond, National Museum of Fine Arts 2023, Metamorphosis: Art amidst change, Nexus Gallery 2023, Line of sight, Galleria Duemila
2022, The body is a circle, which comes home in the hands, Gravity Art Space 2020, In the forest, even the air breathes, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
2020, About time, White Walls Gallery
2020, The mirror cuts both ways, Espacio Manila and Artphile Gallery
2019, Souls, soil, and sea, Artinformal
2018, Happening now, Angkla Art Gallery
2018, SaLang, West Gallery
2017, Dissident vicinities, Bulwagan ng Dangal, University of the Philippines 2016, Open studio open wall, Thousandfold
Selected curatorial and exhibition design projects
2024, Locations of freedom, Philippine Pavilion at the 15th Gwangju Biennale, National Asian Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea
2022, Weaving women’s words on wounds of war, Ateneo Art Gallery 2022, Weaving women’s words on wounds of war, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University
2021–2025, Notes for tomorrow (Independent Curators International), China, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Turkey, USA, Zimbabwe
2019, Scenes reclaimed: CCP 50 × Cinemalaya 15, Bulwagang Juan Luna, Cultural Center of the Philippines
2018, The 70s: Objects, Photographs, Documents, Ateneo Art Gallery 2018, End endo: Artists against contractualization, Bulwagan ng Dangal, University of the Philippines
2018, What we talk about when we talk about the War on Drugs, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University
2018, 100 taon ng pangunguna sa edukasyon: Paghawan ng landas, paglinang ng larang, College of Education, University of the Philippines
2018, From risk to resilience: Coastal cities at risk in the Philippines, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University
2017, Rizal Library Nation Building, Ateneo de Manila University
2016, Color in history: FHL now 20, Ayala Museum
Grants and residencies
2023, Osaka Artist-in-Residence Award, TRA-TRAVEL and The Japan Foundation Manila, AIRΔ vol.7, Osaka, Japan
2019, Omehen: The garden as chronicle and strategy of resistance, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University
2019, National Committee on Cinema, National Commission for Culture and the Arts
Selected talks and workshops
2024, Juxtaposing Art, Politics, and Nation (J.A.P.A.N.), presented by The Japan Foundation Manila and TRA-TRAVEL, UP Film Center
2023, Expo ‘70 Tour with Karl Castro (TRA-TRAVEL and The Japan Foundation Manila), Osaka, Japan
2023, A conversation with writer, color analyst, and Expo ‘70 researcher Manabu Miki, Chidori Bunka, Osaka, Japan
2023, The Philippine Design Gene (Manila leg), part of a nationwide series of consultative roundtable discussions, presented by the Design Center of the Philippines
2023, Brutal na pagmamahal: Documenting brutalist heritage with the Philippines with Brutalist.ph, presented by Headroom, Dexterton, and Cardrian Builders 2023, Project Banyuhay - A series of capacity-building workshops on digital storytelling for indigenous youth, presented by NTFP-EP Philippines, Ugnayin National Indigenous Youth, Team Bukás na Bukás
2022, Creativity for whom?, online lecture presented by iAcademy
2021, Usapang Design Episode 3: Design for a golden age, online lecture presented by the Communication Design Association of the Philippines and Adobo Magazine
2021, One with our audience: Notes on art and design for meaningful conversations, online lecture presented by CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness
2018, Uncovering Philippine book design, panel with Ige Ramos and R Jordan Santos, moderated by book historian Patricia Jurilla, Philippine International Literary Festival
2017, The making of Kung Alam N’yo Lang, panel with writer Ricky Lee and illustrators Jether Amar, Kenikenken, and Ivan Reverente, BGC Arts Festival
2016, Pageturners: The stories behind the books, organizer and moderator of a series of panel discussions on independent publishing, Ayala Museum / Filipinas Heritage Library
2016, The reader as designer, moderator of a two-day book design workshop, Ayala Museum / Filipinas Heritage Library
Galleria Duemila was established in 1975 by Italian born Silvana Ancellotti-Diaz. Duemila means “twentieth century” and it was this vision that inspired Duemila’s advocacy in promoting and preserving Philippine contemporary art. To date, it is the longest running commercial art gallery in the Philippines maintaining a strong international profile. With the vision to expose its artists locally and within the ASEAN region, Duemila complements its exhibits with performances, readings, and musical events in its custom-built gallery in Pasay City, Manila.
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Galleria Duemila takes pride in being the only local gallery to publish and mount retrospectives of artists as part of its advocacy in pursuing art historical research and scholarship. With the collaboration of institutions, Duemila has mounted the retrospectives of Roberto M. A. Robles (Ateneo Art Gallery, 2011), Duddley Diaz (Vargas Museum, 2009), and Julie Lluch Dalena (Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2008). It has also published a book on Diosdado Magno Lorenzo (National Library of the Philippines, 2009) and produced a major Pacita Abad exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2004. The gallery maintains close ties with museums throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States. Its futurist vision keeps it at the cutting-edge of PhiIippine art, making and archiving history as it happens.
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