THE Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) opened the 2018 Thirteen Artists Awards (TAA) exhibit alongside a formal awarding ceremony on October 18, 2018, at 6pm. Since 1970, the TAA has been said to foster, promote, and usher in new forms of contemporary art. For the past 16 iterations of the award, a total of 185 artists have been given this critical recognition. The 2018 Thirteen Artists awardees are Zeus Bascon, Bea Camacho, Cian Dayrit, Janos Delacruz, Doktor Karayom, Carlo Gabuco, Dina Gadia, Guerredro Z. Habulan, Eisa Jocson, Raffy T. Napay, Archie Oclos, Lynyrd Paras and Shireen Seno.

This year’s exhibition is curated by Ronald Achacoso, a past TAA awardee (2000). The roster of awardees represents a wide range of artistic practice, including artists dealing with print, dance, film, and photography alongside painting, performance, and sculpture. Their new work will be seen for the first time at the Bulwagang Juan Luna (Main Gallery), Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino (3F Hallway), and Pasilyo Vicente Manansala (2F Hallway). This year also marks the first year of outdoor TAA interventions, with works installed on the CCP Power House and the Pasay side lawn. The formal recognition of winners will take place in the Main Theatre Lobby, and each awardee will receive a trophy designed by past TAA awardee (2003) Eric Zamuco.

The TAA is administered by the CCP Visual Arts and Museum Division (VAMD) under the Production and Exhibition Department. Nominations were received from museum directors, independent curators, heads of art and cultural organizations, gallerists, and former TAA awardees. From the 59 nominated artists, 58 qualified and 5 artists did not submit their portfolios. This year’s panel of jurors included past TAA winners Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi (1972), Leonilo Doloricon, (1990), Noel Cuizon (1994), Yasmin Sison-Ching (2006), with Rica Estrada, Officer-in-Charge of the VAMD, representing the CCP.

The TAA exhibition is on view at Bulwagang Juan Luna (Main Gallery), Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino (3F Hallway), Pasilyo Vicente Manansala (2F Hallway), CCP Power House, and the Pasay side lawn from October 18, 2018 to December 23, 2018.

For details, contact the CCP Visual Arts and Museum via email at (ccp.exhibits@gmail.com).

Press release from the Cultural Center of the Philippines

Dina Gadia on her works for the 2018 Thirteen Artists Awards

My works are a deliberate use of existing images and text often found in outdated local and imported publications, advertisements, and other disparate sources - recycling and reframing their original context to elicit new and possible meanings and generate an entirely different picture. I am attracted and interested in the strange, flawed, common, and unconventional imagery and in the image's capacity to stimulate visual relationships and ideas.

Going back to the works I have produced for this show made me recollect the origins and decisions on each work and the constant and persistent question on why we do things. As it is now, it was a tough time to be making art, but I chose to see it as a chance to put into visual the weight of thoughts that delight and bother me even if ridiculous.

Such delight is an image of a floral display, which to me resembled a puppy. On other occasion, exercise in strength and flexibility of an image haunt like ghost. In Presses and Pushes, its elements also appear in several of my work.

Land Poetics is a series that started with Land Poetics (Nourishing Fruit) after a holiday spent in the province. This prompted me not only to look again but to look very closely at the features evident and inherent in what surrounds me. An admiration perhaps if not realization. I don't know poetry, but I have my senses to tell me I'm in one.

One time I came across a photo from a birthday celebration posted by a distant relative - hotdogs on sticks with marshmallows pushed into a whole young banana plant placed center in a table, different from usual banana trunk used. For the unfamiliar, it is a Filipino birthday staple. It made me think limitations can reach far. That image did not leave me since.

All States No State is an ongoing series of works with the idea of flags, its symbols, decorativeness, identity and representation in mind. It is executed by the oldest flag-makers in the country whose business history spans generations. I have been playing with banners since 2011, but the idea rang again when I saw flags in a graduation ceremony arranged in a stage. At the same time, news about politics are all over wherein the photos and clips are of world leaders in offices, or addressing their speech and the representing flag or flags are naturally part of the interior and setting. I thought to make narratives that reflect the signs of the times and not necessarily the political weight in our air. Right now, it is difficult to overlook the political weight in the air, and much more.

The Thirteen Artists Awards is a then-biennial, and now triennial event, founded by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1970 to give recognition to exemplary artists in the field of contemporary visual art.