SILVERLENS: Two Perspectives at Taipei Dangdai

SILVERLENS is pleased to present two sequential booth presentations, a selection of artists from our gallery program from the last fifteen years, and a celebration of gallery collaborations we have fostered.

In the first hang, SILVERLENS offers distinct artistic vantage points from artists the gallery has worked with since early in their practice: the first hang, days one and two— Untitled by Maria Taniguchi (b. 1981, Philippines), Our Islands by Martha Atienza (b. 1981, Philippines), I’ve Been Hiding in the Smallest Places by Corinne de San Jose (b. 1977, Philippines), two Still Life series paintings by Patricia Perez Eustaquio (b. 1977, Philippines) and new woven paintings by I-Lann Yee (b.1971, Malaysia)—celebrates these artists practices that have made indelible marks.  Through their respective multi-media art practices, these five female artists have shaped Southeast Asian contemporary in the last ten years, having won global awards and included in important landmark exhibitions. These artists made the jump from the national to the international, by doing so, expanded the vocabulary of art where they are from, and changed the DNA in ways yet to be measured.

The second hang, on days three and four, includes 3 new paintings and 5 flags by Dina Gadia (b. 1986, Philippines), and DMZ by Pow Martinez (b. 1983, Philippines), with the addition of Taiwanese artists from Mind Set Art Center: Jhong Jiang-Ze (b. 1981, Taipei) and Tang Jo-Hung (b. 1975, Taipei). These artists are united by their use of color, albeit very distinct from each other. Gadia’s clean paintings as vintage pop mish-mosh juxtaposed against Martinez’s painterly, almost formalist compositions, on human over-consumption and social media fetish. Both, of the same generation, looking at the contemporary from two sides of the story. Similarly, Jhong Jiang-Ze and Tang Jo-Hung’s works explore tensions of the world surrounding them.

Martha Atienza (b. 1981) was born in Manila, Philippines, to a Dutch mother and Filipino father, has moved between both countries and cultures throughout her life. Boarding ships since 2010, one of her video installations of cargo and fishing vessels in the Philippines, and riverboats in the Netherlands (Endless Hours at Sea, 2014), exemplifies how her continuous single frame long-series videos of oceans, can transfix. Her on-going documentation of the annual island Ati-atihan festival has produced Anito 1 (2011-2015) and Anito 2 (2017), a traditional celebration turned carnivalesque. From the Anito series was borne Our Islands 11°16’58.4 N 123°45'07.0 E (2017) a religious procession passing by as if in an aquarium. Through her cast of characters and choice of setting, Atienza presents a both critical and humorous take not only on the state of society but also on the threat of climate change In the Philippines.

Recent and ongoing exhibitions, 2018, are the 9th Asia Pacific Triennale (QAGOMA, Brisbane) and Taipei Biennale (TFAM, Taipei). Fair Isles (Nassauischer Kunstverein Center, Weisbaden), and 2018 Asia Project: How Little You Know About Me (MMCA, Seoul), Korea. In 2017, Martha Atienza was awarded of the Baloise Art Prize in Art Basel where her work was collected and included in No Man’s Land at the Musee D'art Modern Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg. In the 2016 Singapore Biennale, she was shortlisted for the Benesse Art Prize (Japan). Also in 2016, she received the first Mercedes Zobel/Outset Residency at Gasworks (London). In 2015, she received the Thirteen Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP, Manila). In 2012 and 2016, she received the Ateneo Arts Award (Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila).  In 2006, Atienza received her Bachelor in Mixed Media and Media Art from the Academy Of Visual Arts and Design (AKI, Enschede), Netherlands. 2019 exhibitions include the Honolulu Biennale in March and a Silverlens solo in December.

Corinne de San Jose (b. 1977, Bacolod, Philippines) is an award-winning film sound designer and a multi-disciplinary artist. There’s the overlap where her seemingly divergent modes of creation gains a synergy, a coherence. Her film work draws more parallels with her art than is apparent at first blush, the way in which it is more than a mere enhancement of the narrative. Her work outside of film not only corrals multiple disciplines. They constantly interrogate structure, form, and process as integral to the work itself. The photographic image, regardless whether it’s static or not, is De San Jose’s base matter, but there is both a self-reflexively sculptural and performative aspect to the work. The image becomes a sort of object that undergoes varieties of alteration which she documents. Recurrence and repetition are constant themes and maneuvers in her work, pre-occupied as it is with gender identity, the cyclical nature of time and with tapping into the potency inside clichés and stereotypes.

De San Jose has had several solo exhibitions in Silverlens, Manila, the most recent of which is I’ve been hiding in the smallest places in January 2018. Her works have also been part of group exhibitions in Manila and Paris. Group exhibitions in Silverlens, Manila include Equivalent/s (2018), Translación (2017), The Circle Game (2014), Working in Progress curated by Adeline Ooi (2011) and A Very Short Flowering Season (2010). In 2013, she was among the photographers to have participated in Paris Photo, showcasing New Pairs, a collaborative work with artist Christina Dy.

Patricia Perez Eustaquio (b. 1977, Cebu, Philippines)  is one of the leading artists of her generation. In the past year, exhibitions included the Mind Set Art Center in Taipei and the Art Fair Philippines. A recipient of The Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Awards, she also gained recognition through several residencies abroad, including Art Omi in New York and Stichting Id11 of the Netherlands. Notable local and international shows include The Vexed Contemporary in Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Volta Basel in Basel, Switzerland; and Credit Suisse’s Chimera in Singapore Art Museum, Singapore. She has exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and was part of the 2016 Singapore Biennale. Patricia lives and works in Manila.

Dina Gadia (b. 1986, Pangasinan, Philippines) artistic practice are mostly based on the mediums of collage, paintings, and textile. Most noted for her comic book aesthetics, Gadia’s works play with signs and language culled from popular printed matter. Featuring collaged realities and altered bodies, Gadia’s approach to her practice involves a deft handling of cut-up elements disposed in unorthodox settings. These then brings about the distortion and détournement of its content into discomfiting subject matters such as gender issues and sexuality, fine art and lowbrow culture, among others.

Gadia has exhibited extensively since 2005. She has had solo and group exhibition in New York, Miami, Taipei, Singapore, and Tokyo. She received a bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts Major in Advertising and Design from Far Eastern University. Gadia was shortlisted twice in the Ateneo Art Awards, first in 2012 for her Regal Discomforts (2011, Blanc, Manila) solo exhibition and most recently in 2018 for her Situation Amongst the Furnishings (2017, Silverlens, Manila). In 2018, she was also awarded the 13 Artists Awards of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Her work has been the subject of numerous publications, and her interest on the creative output and history of print design and illustration extends to her collaborative publishing project in Saturnino Basilla.

Pow Martinez (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines) is a recipient of the Ateneo Art Awards for his 1 Billion Years exhibition at West Gallery, Philippines. He exhibits internationally and has worked with different media, including sound. His recent group exhibitions include Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 with Silverlens; Art Taipei 2017; WASAK! Reloaded (2016) in Arndt, Singapore; and WASAK! (2016) in Arndt, Berlin. Martinez has also held a number of solo shows in major galleries in Manila, the most recent of which is Techno-Utopian (2017) in SILVERLENS. Early in 2018, Martinez had his first solo exhibition in Indonesia. Titled Aesthetic Police, the exhibition is an outcome of his month-long residency program at OPQRStudio in Bandung.

Maria Taniguchi (b. 1981, Dumaguete, Philippines) won the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award in 2015 and was a LUX Associate Artist in 2009. Recent exhibitions include the 12th Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders, Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Centre, South Korea (2018); 21st Biennale of Sydney, SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (2018); History of a vanishing present: A prologue, the Mistake Room, Los Angeles (2016); Afterwork, Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); Globale: New sensorium, ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (2016); The vexed contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (2015); and the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2015). Her work is held in a number of collections including the M+ Museum, Hong Kong; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; QAGOMA, Brisbane; and the K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai. Maria Taniguchi is represented by Silverlens Galleries, Manila; carlier|gebauer, Berlin; and Ibid, London and Los Angeles.

Yee I-Lann (b. 1971, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo) lives and works in Kota Kinabalu. Her art practice is to speculate on issues of culture, power, and the role of historical memory, in our social experience. Exploring such layers of meaning necessitates an extensive and multi-layered visual vocabulary drawn from research, historical references, popular culture, archives, and everyday objects. Yee graduated in 1993 from the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia, with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) with a major in Photography and a minor in Cinematography. She has in recent years incorporated indigenous media, such as batik, as well as bamboo, mengkuang and pandanus weaving into her artwork. Yee has exhibited extensively worldwide and her artworks are in major public, corporate, and private collections.

Jhong Jiang-Ze (b. 1981, Taipei, Taiwan) where he currently works and lives. He graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts with a BA in 2006, and received his MA from the same university in 2009. JHONG received the First Prize of 2008 Long Yen Foundation Art Scholarship, and was the winner of 2005 Outstanding Art Prize of Fine Arts (Taipei National University of the Arts). Apart from Taiwan, his work has been shown in the Philippines, Singapore, and Korea.  JHONG’s work is included in the collections of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Art Bank (Taiwan), and Long Yen Foundation.

Tang Jo-Hung (b. 1975, Taipei, Taiwan) currently lives and works in Taipei. He graduated with BA from Department of Fine Arts, Tunghai University in 1998. In 2002, he received his MFA from University of Salamanca in Spain (Máster del Arte de la Universidad de Salamanca), and was granted the prestigious Premio San Marco premiere award in the same year. Apart from Taiwan, TANG also has solo exhibitions in China and United Kingdom, and participated in groups exhibitions in Italy and Japan. He received the first prize at the 22nd Kaohsiung Awards in 2005, Liao Chi-Chun Oil Painting Award in 2008, and was the First Prize winner of Taipei Arts Awards in 2016. TANG’s work is included in the collections of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Council for Cultural Affairs of Taiwan, CMC Art Museum in Taiwan, Art Bank of Taiwan, and Universidad de Salamanca in Spain.