Silverlens is pleased to announce At First Sight, Leo Valledor’s (b. 1936 - d. 1989, San Francisco, USA) first solo exhibition in Manila, opening 25 July 2024. Widely acknowledged as one of the most influential Filipino American artists, Valledor played a pivotal role in the development of his community’s burgeoning art scene in the 1960s while establishing a life-long artistic practice later recognized to have expanded the lexicon of American Modernism.  

Valledor was a founding member of downtown Manhattan’s trailblazing Park Place Gallery, an artist collective and exhibition venue founded by ten emerging artists in the 1960s, many of whom are now recognized as among the most influential Modernists in American history. Valledor’s co-founders include Dean Fleming, Mark di Suvero, and Robert Grosvenor. Park Place Gallery also provided a space to exhibit the works of their friends who are now considered icons of American Art: Sol LeWitt, Eva Hesse, and Donald Judd, among others.

In the exhibition At First Sight, we are surrounded by highly finessed canvases of almost pure color, organized in terms of geometric fields. They are very nearly flat, with barely a tone to suggest an illusion of dimension, denying the lyricism of gradation that validates skill or simply the realism that gives pleasure. The seeming flatness may trick the eye though, making us ask if the color is the very support of the painting, or if it is, in fact, the layer of painting. Where is the medium here? And how does the paint work? The stature of painting may be betrayed by drips on the margins, index of material life beyond the control of even the most exacting artist; or by a slight shift in the hue of the dominant palette. Color is a kind of all-over sublimation; and yet it is a clearing as well, a refuge in an existing— or another— state of nature. As Valledor himself puts it: “By four-dimensional color I mean the notion that it exists within time. And I have this idea about time being part of all these ambiguities that we see in dimensions, like the idea that you read a line two-dimensionally.”

Rounding out the exhibition in the gallery’s front room are studies and drawings, demonstrating the calculated intention and precision integral to Valledor’s practice.

Leo Valledor: At First Sight will be on view from 25 July to 17 August 2024 at Silverlens Manila, with an opening reception on 25 July from 4 to 7 PM.

Words by Patrick Flores, courtesy the Estate of Leo Valledor

Leo Valledor (b. 1936 - d. 1989, San Francisco, USA) was a San Francisco-born, New York- based abstractionist and founding member of downtown Manhattan’s trailblazing Park Place Gallery, an artist collective and exhibition venue founded by ten emerging artists, many of whom are now recognized as among the most influential Modernists in American history.

Valledor’s strong understanding of color optics, geometric planes and dimensional illusion combined with shaped canvases to engage the viewing space in powerful ways. Influenced by luminaries such as Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella, Valledor’s work resonated with the color- field and minimalist aesthetics, distinguished by his inventive manipulation of space, shape, and color.

Valledor’s artistic legacy continues to reverberate through collections nationwide, with works in prominent collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Leo Valledor’s work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.