5th July 2022

Dear friends and colleagues

People have been asking me, “You spent a lot of time in Indonesia. Do you know Ade Darmawan, the most prominent of the artists in Ruangrupa who curated Dokumenta” “No,” is the answer, “but I worked with him briefly in a project I initiated eleven years ago. Ruangrupa are...

TUESDAY IN THE TROPICS 168

14th June 2022

Dear friends and colleagues

The intriguing exhibition by Pio Abad in the three rooms at the top of the Ateneo Art gallery that I mentioned last week may be termed an election special as it was all about the...

Dear friends and colleagues

Why?

Once again, we ask why did the lower classes vote for a Marcos rather than for a candidate who would have improved their lot by attacking corruption and making government more responsive to their needs.

Why, as more than one...

Remembering John Milton (1608-1674)

As a dog returneth to its vomit

So a fool returneth to his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)

The dog is turned to its vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in her mire. (2 Peter...

3rd May 2022

NB. I felt it necessary to include more images than normal to give a sense of the noteworthy and unusual event..

Dear friends and colleagues

What is this decayed and crumbling building? Who are these...

Dear friends and colleagues

It has been just over two years since I sent you a Tuesday in the Tropics and the time has come to restart.

In the last two years I have rarely strayed from my home beneath Mount Maculot. I have not been on a single airplane flight and very rarely been to a gallery in Manila, or anywhere else. After 43 years...

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...

Dear friends and colleagues

On Parties and green, growing things.

4th Jan 2020 near Tagaytay

At Gregory Halili’s house. It was a birthday party for Gregory and two other artists – MM Yu and Elaine Roberto Navas. Many other artists that we have mentioned in previous letters were...

Dear friends and colleagues

Of volcanoes and gardens.

Last summer for the first time I went walking in Constable country along the Stour past Flatford Mill to Dedham. It was a wonderfully hot day, but with a gentle breeze. Many people were boating on the river or walking alongside it or having coffee and cakes at the National Trust café...

TUESDAY ON THE TROPICS 160

14th January 2020

Dear friends and colleagues

In the island at the centre of Lake Taal near us is an active volcano. Although it has not erupted for about seventy years, previous eruptions have created tsunamis in the lake or...