Doppelgangers — Gerardo Tan

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After Patchwork 14 oil on canvas 198 x 198 cm / 2011

After Patchwork 4 oil on canvas 183 x 137 cm / 2011


The pursuit of authentic states in a time of multiple conditions has always been a challenge to modernist ends. How can one continue making unique items when uniformity proves to be more effective from a market standpoint– as mass production and mediatization supersedes singular experience? Since art has always been a medium of representation, a critique about its continued role as mirror of reality has become a constant companion if not a thorn on its side. It is no surprise that instead of pictures of nature directly observed, what we commonly have are depictions of such rendered from photographs. Thus, the practice of photorealism turns into a clever ploy aimed at neutralizing the modernist burden of being original in a time of copies. Gerardo Tan is no stranger to this practice, having explored and pushed photorealism to various logical ends. In This is Not Gregor Schneider’s Room he explored the interstitial space between the original and the copy finding that new iterations of the original could multiply expansively in an endless lateral direction rather than an evolutionary vertical pole limited by the reach of its ideals. In Datum Plane he reached the entropy of images and in particular of the history of painting as a dusty archive comprised of data heaped towards extinction. Here, with the new series of Doppelgängers Tan begins once more to question painting as an ontological practice by creating a series of translations (already a divergence from the source but with a universal premise to achieve illumination through multiple dispersion) based on a seemingly random selection of fragments stitched together to form a body of parts.

above right; Patchwork 10 collage and acrylic on paper 62.5 x 62.5 cm / 2011 below left; This is not Gregor Schneider’s Room Oil and digital print on tarpauline Installation view 2006 (courtesy, Mag:net Gallery, Manila) below right; Datum Plane : Reaction Series Oil and digital print on canvas Installation view 2009 (courtesy, Mag:net Gallery, Manila)

As legend has it the modernist avant-garde was inspired by the burgeoning machine age and the dynamic cacophony of war, the representation of the zeitgeist finding its way in the form of collage - a manner of re-contextualizing existing material conditions into relations that are at once incomprehensible yet indispensible to the human imagination, producing a perfect mirror image to the new age. Regardless of the modernist penchant for the machine aesthetic and its distant subjectivity, the (modernist) drive is primarily about the desire for authentic experiences, towards purity, and being, wherein any mode of expression would aim to depict life in the moment, capturing its essential nature. Today, such authentic programs are no longer viable, with all manner of capitalist enterprise having co-opted every revolutionary agenda, the liberating nature of art all but turned into a ghost of its departed aura, as simulacra. Tan understands this dilemma and has explored the postmodern condition of the copy through many guises of reproduction that transform into autocritiques about the structure of ontological meaning. Tan continues to question the uncertain valuation of experiences through signs not in terms of its continuous tonal rendition as photographic facsimiles, but in the form of the cut-up as the perfect image for the fragmentary conditions of today. Using the process of collage has allowed Tan to investigate another medium of representation, one that jettisons the recognition of signs in favor of cognitive signification. He challenges his viewer to complete the picture, so to say, providing an abstract constellation of disparate and incomplete signs. By doing so, Tan relieves the work from the task of establishing meta-narratives through pictures as signs tend to do, and gives the viewer instead the power to make meaning for themselves as facilitated by the designs of his work. So here, a reading of a typical picture would follow a description of an event being depicted accompanied by the work’s implied purpose (object/subject, figure/ground).

In Tan’s new paintings, a variety of language games operate in the picture to determine the construction of interpretation about the work’s meaning. Tan seems to say accordingly, for example (in Patchwork 10; pictured above) an uneven brushy pink stroke with strains of white on its back that function as highlight to give form, rests on top of a black rectangular ledge protruding from the left corner midway through the picture. Hovering on the top right of its arching back is a shape with grey wing-like shapes, figured in the center with another pink U-like shape outlined with a linear graphic set against the coarse gesture of its pink counterpart. The meaning constructed through the event in relation to other events operating within the picture itself. Through these works Tan seems to remind us of the double nature of meaning, as each reading constitutes its own original meaning as singular event. – Arvin Flores


After Patchwork 11 oil on canvas 183 x 137 cm / 2011

After Patchwork 5 oil on canvas 183 x 137 cm / 2011


e d u c at i o n

s e l e c t e d

1992 M.F.A. State University of New York at Buffalo, Major in Painting 1982 B.F.A. University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, Major in Painting

2011 BISA/Potent Presences Metropolitan Museum of Manila Roxas Boulevard, Manila VIENNAFAIR 2011 Messe Wein 1020 Vienna, Austerllungstrasse, Austria Complete and Unabridged La Salle (SIA) Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore 2010 Painting with a hammer to nail the crotch of Civilization Manila Contemporary, Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati City Inversion of the Ideal Galerie Zimmerman-Kratochwill Graz, Austria Bastards of Misrepresentation: Doing Time on Filipino Time Freies Museum, Berlin, Germany Free-range Aesthetics: Pussyfooting through the Detritus Mind Field of Reality Skyline College Gallery, San Bruno, CA, USA The Unamable Manila Contemporary Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati City 2009 How’s My Painting? MOP Projects, Gallery 1 Abercrombie Street, Sydney, Australia. Beyond frame: Philippine Photomedia Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon City/ La Trobe Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo/ UTS Gallery, Sydney Seeing You, Seeing Me: Contemporary Portraiture Manila Contemporary, Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati City 2008 Inaugural Show, Part 3 Finale Gallery La Fuerza Compound, Pasong Tamo Makati City 2007 “I have nothing to paint and I am painting it” MoSpace. Fort Bonifacio High Street, Taguig, M.M. 2006 “Indiscrete Charm of the Burlesque” Finale Gallery, SM Megamall. Manila Envelope John Worth Ryder Gallery UC Berkeley, USA 2004 Other Matters Future Prospects, Marikina Shoe Expo Cubao, Quezon City. Picturing Painting Vargas Museum, UP Diliman 2003 Cut: New Collage Mag:net Gallery, Quezon City, M.M. Divine Intervention: A collaboration with Gaston Damag and Manuel Ocampo Vargas Museum, UP Diliman, Quezon City 2002 Pause Project 1, Gwangju Bienniale Hall The 4th Gwanju Biennale, Korea Xs-XL, Expanding Art Sculpture Square, Singapore 2001 Guilty Pleasures Art Center, SM Megamall Faith and the City Singapore Art Museum, Singapore 2000 Cracks and Abysses SM Art Center, SM Megamall Mandaluyong City, M.M. Peripheral Visions Ayala Museum Gallery III Makati City, M.M. 1999 Philippine Pavilion: The Golden Cargo Trading Company Ian Potter Museum University of Melbourne, Australia The First Melbourne International Biennial 1997 Ground Zero Art Center, SM Megamall West Gallery, Quezon City, M.M. Perishable Goods 1996 Dangerous Metaphors Art Center, SM Megamall Unglued West Gallery, Quezon City 1995 Ako: Self-Portrait Metropolitan Museum of Manila Painting by Numbers Cultural Center of the Philippines Measure and Metaphor Art Center, SM Megamall

s e l e c t e d

s o l o

e x h i b i t i o n s

2011 New Works Total Gallery Alliance Francaise de Manille, Makati City 2009 Datum Plane: Reaction Series Mag:net Gallery Katipunan, Loyola Heights, Quezon City Recent Paintings and Collages Pablo Gallery Fort South of Market Condominium, Fort Bonifacio Taguig, Metro Manila 2008 Theatre of Disguise Finale Gallery Pasong Tamo, Makati City Ellipses Mag:net Gallery Katipunan, Quezon City 2007 Flatbed Stories Mag:net Gallery Katipunan 2006 “This is not Gregor Schneider’s room” Mag:net Gallery Katipunan, Quezon City 2004 Doing Time Mag:net Gallery Paseo, Paseo Center Makati City, Metro Manila 2003 Scanning the Mall Finale Gallery, SM Megamall, M.M. Fast-food Cotan Magnet Gallery and Kitchen a two-venue exhibition, Quezon City & Mandaluyong City 2002 Mirror Painting Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall, M.M. 2001 New Work: Lost Regions Big Sky Mind New Manila, Quezon City Instructions Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila Access/Deaccess DLSU Art Gallery De La Salle University, Taft Ave., Metro Manila 2000 Meetings Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall The Golden Cargo Trading Company: Import/Export Australia Cultural Center, Makati City, Metro Manila (Objects from Manila & Australia) 1999 New Works Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall Code Brix Gallery, Makati City, M.M. 1998 Not A Trace Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall 1997 Recent Collages Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall 1996 14 Works Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall 1995 Index La Gallerie, Alliance Francaise de Manille Makati City, M.M. Collage West Gallery, SM Megamall 1994 Recent Diggings Small Gallery Cultural Center of the Philippines Collages Finale Art Gallery, SM Megamall 1993 Whole Objects West Gallery, Quezon City, M.M. 1992 Just Gerardo Just Pasta Restaurant, Buffalo, New York MFA Thesis Exhibition Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, New York

g r o u p

e x h i b i t i o n s

All rights reserved. No part of this brochure may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior consent from the artists and gallery.

1993 Facts and Figures Main Gallery Cultural Center of the Philippines 1992 X Sightings Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY The 44th Western New York Exhibition Albright Knox Art Gallery. Buffalo, NY The M&T Bank Collection for Burchfield Art Center: 1990-1991 Acquisitions Burchfield Art Center, Buffalo, NY Expose Yourself Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center Buffalo, NY 1991 The Graduate Show Bethune Gallery SUNY at Buffalo Art Department Recent Works (Arvidson, Perdiguero & Tan) Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, NY Fire and Ice Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY, USA 1989 Sikat: Two Decades of Philippine Art Main Gallery Cultural Center of the Philippines Small Works Finale Art Gallery, Makati City, M.M. 1988 13 Artists Exhibition Main Gallery Cultural Center of the Philippines. 1986 Contemporary Asian Art Show National Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, Korea The 3rd Asian Art Biennial Bangladesh Osmani Memorial Hall, Dhaka, Bangladesh 1985 Recent Abstractions Pinaglabanan Gallery, San Juan, M.M. Object/Non Object Small Gallery Cultural Center of the Philippines The 2nd Asian Art Show Fukuoka Art Museum Fukuoka City, Japan 1983 6 Young Artists Museum of Philippine Art, Manila awa r d s

a n d

d i s t i n c t i o n s

1999 Philippine Representative The 1st Melbourne International Biennial The Philippine Pavilion, Ian Potter Museum University of Melbourne, Australia 1997 Juror’s Choice Art Association of the Philippines Annual Competition, Manila. 1992 The Barbara Schuller Art Associates Award Albright Knox Art Gallery, The 44th Western New York Exhibition, Buffalo, NY 1990 Fulbright-Hays Fellow State University of New York to 1992 at Buffalo, M.F.A. in Painting 1988 13 Artists Awardee Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila 1986 Best Entry Award Osmani Memorial Hall, The 3rd Asian Art Biennial Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh 1982 Participant Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka City, Japan The 2nd Asian Art Show c o l l e c t i o n

Cultural Center of the Philippines Philippines Metropolitan Museum of Manila Philippines Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Foundation Philippines Osmani Memorial Hall Bangladesh Singapore Art Museum Singapore Burchfield Art Center Buffalo, New York U.S.A Castellani Art Museum Niagara, New York U.S.A Various private collections

Brochure © 2011 TAKSU Artworks and Images © 2011 Gerardo Tan Essay Arvin Flores Catalog Design Jeffrey Lim / Studio 25 Printer Unico Services


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front cover detail of Patchwork 10 / collage and acrylic on paper / 62.5 x 62.5 cm / 2011 back cover detail of After Patchwork 10 / oil on canvas / 183 x 137 cm / 2011

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