Silverlens is pleased to participate in Art Basel Miami Beach for the first time with a solo booth in the Nova Sector by Filipino artist Norberto Roldan. The presentation precedes Roldan’s gallery show opening at Silverlens New York in May 2024, which will mark the artist’s first-ever US solo exhibition.

For decades, Norberto Roldan has worked at the forefront of cultural artistic practice in the Philippines. He founded the seminal artist group Black Artists in Asia in 1986—a Philippines-based group focused on socially and politically progressive practice—as well as the region’s longest-running biennale, Visayas Isalnds Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference, which he established in 1990. Currently, he is the Artistic Director of Green Papaya Art Projects, an independent artist-run initiative and alternative art space that supports collaboration between Asia-Pacific and Filipino artists, which he co-founded in 2000. Within Green Papaya Art Projects, Roldan initiated the Shri Vishayas project, a platform for the intersections of indigenous, rural, and contemporary cultures.

Roldan’s practice delves into the post-colonial conditions of the Philippines, reflecting the tumultuous historical and sociopolitical landscapes of his homeland. His artistic journey is a profound exploration of the struggle for liberation, as well as the notion of history serving not as a factual account but as a narrative manipulated and rewritten by institutional ruling powers. Rather than infusing materials with meaning, he sources and creates assemblages with found objects and ephemera abound insignificance (Spanish Catholic vestments, symbols of the Philippine revolution, photographs of Old Hollywood movie stars, Japanese dollhouses, among others).

Silverlens’ presentation unfolds a powerful story of imaginative retelling and features Roldan’s revered centerpieces from the series 100 Altars for Roberto Chabet (2014–23). In 2020, the building that housed Green Papaya Art Projects’ archival materials and artworks burned down in a tragic fire. Roldan managed to recover a few of the works, which he then restored and renovated with second-hand materials and architectural debris, specifically for Art Basel Miami Beach. The altars’ forms are inspired by Roberto Chabet—widely acknowledged as the father of Filipino conceptual art—and his abstracted collages from the 1970s-80s, particularly the Kong Ziggurats or King Kong Collages (1979-1980). Holding varied dialogues in texture, the altars collectively manifest as symbolic totems reflecting the spirit and struggles of the locales embedded in them. 

The presentation will also include two large-scale tapestries, which take the form of Catholic ceremonial banners. Upon closer inspection, the intricate imagery and found amulets reveal themselves as symbols of Filipino resistance. Roldan pays tribute to revolutionaries who used Catholic iconography as a disguise during the Philippine Revolution against the Spaniards (1896-1898) and as a battle symbol during the subsequent Philippine-American War (1899-1902). By blending diametric elements, Roldan creates a subversive new interpretation of past and present that renders colonial power as a force to be questioned and challenged.

Art Basel Miami Beach will run from December 6 to 10, 2023 at Miami Beach Convention Center.

Norberto Roldan (b. 1953, Roxas City, Philippines; lives and works in Manila, Philippines) has been a leading figure in the artistic landscape of the Philippines for decades. In 1986, he founded the seminal artist group Black Artists in Asia—a Philippines-based group focused on socially and politically progressive practice—and in 1990 he established VIVA EXCON (Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference), the region’s longest-running biennale. Presently, he is the Artistic Director of Green Papaya Art Projects, which he co-founded in 2000. This independent artist-run initiative and alternative art space that fosters collaboration and cultural exchange between artists, and remains the longest running independent and multi-disciplinary platform in the country. His installations, assemblages and paintings of found objects, text fragments and found images address issues surrounding everyday life, history and collective memory. His artistic process engages with ways in which material objects are re-appropriated in another context. He graduated with a degree in BA Philosophy from St. Pius X Seminary and took his BFA in Visual Communication from the University of Santo Tomas. He is represented in several landmark surveys like No Country: Contemporary Art for South/Southeast Asia, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (2013); Between Declarations & Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia Since the 19th Century, National Gallery Singapore (2015); SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, National Art Centre Tokyo (2017); and, Passion and Procession: Art of the Philippines, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2017).