Dear friends and colleagues
Today I want to talk about the two art fairs Manila now has and which were both prese ted in February. Why two? Is the art market here big enough to justify two art fairs? Apparently so.
I also want to talk about why this will be the last Tuesday in the Tropics – or at least in its current form – and what will take its place.
As related in Tuesday in the Tropics 8, 10th February 2015, Art Fair Philippines (AFP) was initiated in 2013 by a trio of young collectors who were weary of the stodginess of the current art fairs in Makati, a chic area of Manila next to the prestigious Greenbelt and Glorietta shopping malls. Initially it was received with great enthusiasm. It seemed such a breath of fresh air. Foreign gallerists loved the informality of it, the party atmosphere. It was very popular: often on the Sunday they had to close the entrance as there were so many visitors inside. Set in a multi-story car park in the centre of town it seemed very radical chic.
However, after a few years several of the galleries began to weary of the venue. Irritation at the low ceiling grew each year. It was claustrophobic to work there for five very long days. For this and other reasons nine of the leading Manila galleries decided to no longer show in the fair but set up their own art fair instead.
This was held inside the Mall of Asia in the equally chic area of BGC (Bonifacio Global City) often referred to as “the fort” as this was where the US had its base and where the soberingly large American war cemetery is. The gallerists entitled their new fair “ALT”, as they saw it as an Alternative.
Certainly, this venue had a higher ceiling and the booths were hexagonal rather than square and it had an unusually large and useful catalogue, but otherwise it was not radically different from AFP. It did not seem all that “alternative.” Hopefully, having worked out the logistics of doing a fair, future manifestations will be more adventurous. However, the gallerists judged it a success: they felt happier working there and the collectors supported it.
For some people AFP that followed a week later seemed thin without the nine galleries who had absconded, but some said they liked it that it gave space for other lesser-known galleries who exhibited artists they did not know. The main difference from previous AFPs was that the special projects – art especially made or curated for the show – were gathered in one area. It was all OTT, lurid and seemed very popular. Trickie Lopez, one of the organisers, found me there and asked what I thought of it. I, rather lamely, replied that I was thinking about it. In retrospect I didn’t like it, but thought it was a good idea.
As far as I was concerned the most important element of the two fairs was that I conducted five one-hour long interviews with artists at ALT: Geraldine Javier, Juan Alcazaren, Jill Paz, Mark Justiniani and Ling Quisumbing.
More of that in a few paragraphs. First let me wind the clock back just over two year. In the early morning of the last day of February 2018 I was flying out of Jogjakarta to Kuala Lumpur. I had already been to Singapore. I was trying to clear my decks so I could work unimpeded on the book I had been commissioned to write by Thames and Hudson. I had a hectic two days in Jogja meeting people and seeing art. I was very exhausted and a little fractious, irritated by the people around me, irritated that the plane was nearly two hours late leaving, irritated by the bad coffee. Once on the plane I was further irritated by the person sitting next to me who had his elbows periodically sticking it into my space – and my ribs. That always annoys me! Soon after we took off, I began to have severe chest pains, was gasping for breath and felt really awful.
I was still feeling weird when I got to KL I went straight to my hotel and collapsed. The next day the person I had arranged to meet cancelled – which was a relief. I felt weak, indeed fragile as if I was about to collapse. The next day I flew back to the Philippines, feeling a little better and went straight to a hospital. “Was that a heart attack?” I asked. “It sounds like one,” the doctors agreed but the tests showed no cardiac damage. “I think,” they said, “Your body is telling you to slow down. Please cancel any travelling for a bit. Relax!” It seemed like good advice! I cancelled my visit to Art Hong Kong and tried to slow down.
If 2018 ended up as a year dominated by subsequent hospital visits and medical tests, last year was a year of writing and completing books: all three – Ding Yi (co-written with Wang Kaimei) published by Lund Humphries, The Story of Contemporary Art published by Thames and Hudson and the book-length catalogue of the exhibition of contemporary Filipino artists I curated last year, Far Away but Strangely Familiar, should be available very soon. If you are interested in getting a copy of the latter please let me know and I will find out where you can get it.[1]
Now I don’t travel so much – I haven’t even been to Indonesia since I was taken ill. I don’t feel able to sustain a diary any more. I don’t even go to Manila that often. I won’t be travelling anywhere whilst Covid 19 is at large – as a sixty-eight-year-old whose lungs were once damaged by sarcoidosis I feel vulnerable. My life has changed. As you may have noticed, I rarely get a letter ready for Tuesday. Indeed, I am often not sure what day of the week it is! I am working with a different more extended rhythm on long term projects, one (fictional) that I started in July 2006, one a book about painting, perhaps, and an on-the-internet magazine of interviews with artists.
More and more I have a horror of speaking for others.
Artists from South-east Asia are rarely interviewed and rarely quoted. My experience when researching my T&H book was that you could google “Janet Cardiff interview” – or any established artist in the West and you would get quite a few things, some substantial. But do the same for an artist in this region and you are unlikely to find anything. Therefore, I thought I should try and do something about this: that I should produce interviews with the artists about me whom I respect. Interviews that are serious but readable, that both inform readers about what is happening now and that will act as a record of what is going on for readers and writers in the future. The five interviews we made at ALT, once edited, will act as the first issue.[2] If I have any other thoughts or observations to make, I may include them as an editorial – a continuation of what Tuesday in the Tropics was doing.
I plan to get a website for all this set up, the interviews edited and agreed on by May – at which time I will send you information on how to get at it.
I hope we meet again there. Many thanks for following me so far on this journey!
Tony
PS. The Story of Contemporary Art is, as you might expect, meant both as a riposte and a homage to Gombrich’s book. I have tried to make a book that is (a) as readable as Gombrich’s but not as patronising, that (b) sees the last forty of years globally, that (c) is based on art I have mainly experienced directly myself, and that (d) does not bore the reader with lists of names.
- Alas, it was never printed but the introductory essay can be found on this website. All other elements of the catalogue plus installation slots will eventually be added. ↑
- Alas, the people who had promised to tape and transcribe the five interviews did not do so. The interview with Mark was transcribed by other and will appear in a catalogue of his work. The interviews with Juan Alcazaren, Jill Paz and Ling Quisumbing were remade and can be found on this website, along with a. very different one with Geraldine Javier. We hope to make another interview with Mark soon. ↑