CEBU ART FAIR. Presidential Assistant for the Visayas, Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino (right), Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia (center), and Cebu 3rd District Rep. Pablo John Garcia check out some of the art pieces exhibited at the ongoing 1st Visayas Art Fair held at the Montebello Hotel in Cebu City on Thursday (Nov. 25, 2021). The art fair that will run until Sunday features about 1,000 artworks from more than 400 Filipino artists. (Photo courtesy of PJ Garcia)
CEBU CITY – About a thousand artworks from more than 400 artists in the Visayas and the National Capital Region (NCR) are being showcased at the ongoing 1st Visayas Art Fair dubbed as “ArTabang 4”.
In a statement on Friday, the Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation said they organized the ArTabang 4 as a unique silent art auction where bids are written on the title card and the bid sheets that are on the table next to each piece.
The bids can also be submitted off-site by calling or sending a text message to the phone operator assigned to the bid number of the art piece.
Presidential Assistant for the Visayas, Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino said the activity was initiated by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, with his office, the Cebu Design Week, Inc., Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation, and the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation.
The event, launched at the Montebello Hotel here Thursday night, runs until Sunday.
Dino, an art patron himself, cited Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Kenneth Cobonpue for championing the conservation of culture and the arts, as well as industrial designs geared towards nation-building.
Garcia and Cobonpue were joined by Mayor Michael Rama, Chinese Consul Jia Li, Japanese Consul Toshide Kawasaki, and Korean Consul Om Won Jae in a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the opening of the art fair.
Lorenzo Miguel Uytengsu, a member of the foundation who helped organize the event, said the art fair has become a convergence of artists from the NCR and the three Visayan provinces so that they could learn from one another’s skills and practices.
The artists and their works
The participating artists include Dino Gabito, Randalf Dilla, Ronald Ventura, Adrian Evangelista, Joel Chavez, and Cebuano Mark Copino. Collaborative pieces by groups of seven to 10 artists are also featured in ArTabang.
Gabito, 31, is known for his monochromatic paintings of shrouded figures. An oil painting of his fetches a starting bid of PHP350,000.
Dilla is known for his hyper-realistic, socially conscious paintings that are strongly influenced by the human condition in modern conflicts. His “Untitled” charcoal and water on paper has a starting bid of PHP200,000.
Ventura has set the record for the highest-ever paid Southeast Asian contemporary artwork when his painting “Grayground” sold for USD1.1 million at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings auction in Hong Kong in 2011. Ventura’s “Zoomanity 3/5” has a starting bid of PHP350,000.
Evangelista showcases a pair of luscious desserts, which seem to be a feast for the eye but unmasks the struggles to cope with and compensate for lonesomeness. His “Love Sick Girl 1” fetches a starting bid of PHP100,000 and a minimum increment of PHP10,000.
Chavez’s painting “Scent”, which is among the artworks up for auction, has a starting bid of PHP150,000 and a minimum increment of PHP25,000.
The starting bid for Josue Mangrobang Jr.’s “Heir Apparent” is PHP350,000 with a minimum increment of PHP25,000.
Copino, more popularly known as “Kidlat”, is a well-known contemporary stencil artist whose thought-provoking work shows symbolic subjects in minimalist compositions. His “Adjacent Lines to the Horizon” has a starting bid of PHP100,000 and a minimum increment of PHP10,000.
The other art pieces for auction are “Strategy Analysis” by Keb Cerda, with a minimum bid of PHP150,000; and “Storytellers’ Chair 3” with a starting bid of PHP150,000 and a minimum increment of PHP25,000.
Collaborative art pieces
Some of the artworks are collaborative pieces by seven to 10 artists.
One of these is “The Acts of Seven” oil on canvas by the Portrait Artists’ Society of the Philippines. It has a starting bid of PHP300,000 and a minimum increment of PHP25,000.
Another collaborative artwork is the “Nostalgia 3” acrylic on canvas by the Artists Association of the Philippines. The starting bid for this is PHP250,000 with a minimum increment of PHP25,000.
The acrylic on canvas “Sayaw sa Pangaliya” by the Cebu Artists, Inc. has a minimum bid of PHP300,000.
Southwest Art Club’s “Behind the River” oil on canvas has a starting bid of PHP300,000, while the “Collaboration Functional Sculpture” by the Orange Project fetches a minimum bid of PHP500,000.
The “Nostalgia 1” acrylic on canvas by the Artist Association of the Philippines has a minimum bid of PHP500,000.
Straight sale
The art pieces for straight sale are “Buffalo Soldier” by Loise Go (PHP130,000); “Libakera” by Wyndelle Remonde (PHP40,000); “Woman Ate Too Much Dick” by Chalk Zaldivar (PHP80,000); “Papa Legma” by Miguel Paulo Borja (PHP80,000); “Fractal 5” by Dennis Bato (PHP100,000); “Nocturne Variations” by Mark Bumgarner (PHP30,000); and “Face to Face” by Jheco Lorica (PHP100,000).
The ArTabang 4 art pieces will be displayed at the Glass House, Montebello Villa Hotel from Thursday to Friday.
The deadline for submission of bids will be at 9 p.m. on Friday. The winners of the auction will be announced one hour later.
The Sacred Heart School Batch 85 Foundation is committed to promoting, developing, and enriching Visayan, Art Culture and History through various projects, among them the ArTabang, an art auction for charity, Visayan Music Awards, a Visayan songwriting competition, Binibining Cebu, and Baladhay Music Festival.
The foundation has been assisting the rehabilitation of communities in various areas, giving a PHP2 million donation to Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. for Northern Cebu, which was devastated by Typhoon Yolanda, as well as a PHP1 million donation to the Roof Relief Project of Gawad Kalinga for Ormoc City that was affected by an earthquake and other areas affected by calamities. (PNA)
