Lopez Museum and Library

On View: Deleted Scenes Revealed

2009-12-07T19:59:00.015+08:00

Deleted Scenes Revealed

Lopez Memorial Museum's latest Zero-In exhibit, Deleted Scenes, gathered artists and art enthusiasts in opening ceremonies that saw the performances of Mideo Cruz, Kleng de Loyola and Tapati, doing a collaborative trilogy of performances.

The exhibit brings together the works of contemporary artist Lyle Buencamino, filmmakers Sari Dalena and Camilla Griggers with Dada Docot and pioneering social realist Al Manrique, alongside seldom shown works from the museum's collection.

Buencamino's three large-scale paintings, were based on photographs of LVN productions which are in the archive collection of the Lopez Library. Dalena and Griggers' hour-long film called Memories of a Forgotten War looks into the Philippine-American war, taking off from the personal recollection of Griggers about her Filipino grandmother being abandoned by her American grandfather. Personal stories like that of her mother's preparing for a visa interview are unfolded in Docot's 30-minute documentary called Baad ng Pauno.

Particularly rare are activist Manrique's works, on loan from his widow Malou and son Dio. These consist of a 55-page pen and ink sketchbook called Book 1: The Decadence and a 22-page charcoal called Book 2. Book 1 is a compilation of sketches that may have been intended by the artist as editorial illustrations of American relations during the Marcos regime. Book 2 contains sketches that depict how people were suffering during Martial Law. Manrique is among the first wave of social realists in the 1970s and one of the first to explore digital media and cyberspace.

Deleted Scenes calls attention to what gets left out in the process of crafting narratives of presumed fact and proposed fiction. The exhibit "modestly explores such omissions both in pictorial and literary accounts of national history hinged on modes of representation that museums invariably lay out," according to LMM curatorial consultant Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez.

The exhibit which runs until January 9, 2010 is part of the annual project Zero In, undertaken by a consortium of private museums composed of Ateneo Art Gallery, Ayala Museum, Bahay Tsinoy, Lopez Memorial Museum and Museo Pambata.

Invitation to Nov 21: Artists In Conversation: Sari Lluch Dalena and Lyle Buencamino

2009-11-15T10:47:00.000+08:00

Filmmaker Sari Lluch Dalena and painter Lyle Buencamino are two of the featured artists in the exhibition, Deleted Scenes and its complementary activity, Artists in Conversation. The said activity will take place at the Lopez Memorial Museum on November 21, Saturday, 2:00 to 4:00 pm. The two artists will discuss each other's works as well as their processes and inspirations.

For more information, call 6312417 or email admin@lopez-museum.org.

On Exhibit: Deleted Scenes at the Lopez Museum

2009-11-12T17:20:00.000+08:00

From the notes of curator, Eileen Legaspi Ramirez:

This exhibition quite simply began with a question: what do I not know? Or what do I stumble upon just on the perchance that I have the time (and certainly the interest) to spare to look up what has been intentionally left out from what will get to me?

In our desperate attempts to wade through the overwhelming amounts of pre-digested information, miscellaneous factoids, and random sets of triggers directed to maneuver us toward particular ways of thinking, feeling, and doing, we far too often forget the tremendous amount of calculated sifting, trashing, and stitching that has transpired behind the slick, packaged versions of the real that finally land within our purview.

Deleted Scenes modestly explores such omissions both in pictorial and literary accounts of national history as well as in purported narratives hinged on representation that a museum such as the Lopez hesitatingly but unavoidingly lays out.

In the end, the intention is to summon the museum's potential as an enabling place—where the visitor-viewer is engaged in a possibly too subtle mimicry of choose-your-own-ending flicks and pop reads. That is, by laying out at least a smattering of what was initially hidden or covered over, the individual thinking agent is prompted to ask: now that I do know, how will it play out because of my knowing, and hopefully...doing.

With works by: Lyle Buencamino, Dada Docot, Sari Dalena, and Al Manriquez

Resource Links:

Sari Dalena's and Camilla Griggers' Memories of a Forgotten War

http://www.21cmagazine.com/filipino_memories.html
http://planznow.com/video_memories.php

Exhibit runs from November 12, 2009 to January 9, 2010

The Mother of Philippine Maps

2009-11-10T00:39:00.000+08:00

Mapa de las Yslas Philipinas

The mother map of all in our history, according to National Artist Nick Joaquin, is the splendid one done by Father Pedro Murillo Velarde, S.J. (1696-1753), and published in Manila in 1734,Mapa de las Yslas Philipinas (Map of the Philippine Islands). The map, a copperplate engraving, 51 x 33 cm, is also a sea chart for pilots and carries a brief legend on the Philippinesjust above that inward thrust of North Borneo into the picture.

It was expertly engraved by a mission-trained Tagalog Indian, Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay. The decorative drawings were done by Francisco Suarez, also Tagalog Indian. This illustration is Murillo’s own reduction, also engraved by Cruz and published in 1744. The map covers the entire archipelago, from the small Babuyan Islands north of Luzon (top) to the south coast of Mindanao and the northeast corner of Borneo (bottom). This classic map of the Philippines was, like the geography it imaged, a Hispano-Filipino creation.

In keeping with a policy of secrecy instituted by Spain to maintain control of her overseas empire, maps of colonial Philippines were rarely published. Father Pedro Murillo Velarde’s masterful creation was the first and most important map of the archipelago compiled on scientific principles. Until that time no map had been drawn with the same meticulous care, appeared on such a large scale, or displayed as much detail as the Velarde map. A more accurate delineation of the complex island group was not published until the nineteenth century. Writing in the 1950s, Carlos Quirino, a Philippine historian, proclaimed Murillo Velarde’s publication “the best-known map of the Philippines.”

While most of the many place-names are along coastlines, numerous interior settlements are indicated. In northern Luzon, towns are shown along the Cagayan River drainage that leads from Manila (middle left) to the north coast. Among settlements and anchorages on the China Seacoast is Bigan (Vigan, upper left). This historic settlement in the Ilocos country served as capital of northern Luzon for centuries and is the oldest surviving Spanish colonial city in the nation.Manila Bay is carefully drafted, including the small island of Corregidor across the bay at the southern tip of Bataan Peninsula.

Many of the islands are represented with an exaggerated east-west dimension, a result of the difficulty in determining precise longitude before the invention of an accurate marine chronometer. Paragua (Palawan), Leyte, Samar, and Mindanao reflect this. The landlocked “Lake Mindanao” (lower right) is nonexistent, and the Davao Gulf extends far inland at this location.

This mythical “Lake Mindanao” was a remnant of the tradition of early cartographers of embellishing the map with places and details based on unverified claims of merchants and adventurers. Ferdinand Magellan during his voyage encountered giants in Patagonia (a name from the mythical country in the novel Sergas de Esplandian, written by Garci Montalvo, the author, or recreator , of Amadis de Gaula, and published in Seville by 1510), in South America and often, his men reported, seeing Santo Elmo’s fire, sometimes the body of the saint himself seemed to appear, sometimes birds materialized without tails, sometimes birds of paradise hovered, and sometimes there were flying fish.

At the bottom of the map is a stern view of Magellan’s ship, the Victoria, which had completed the first circumnavigation in 1522.

Hugh Thomas, in his 2003 book, Rivers of Gold, The Rise of the Spanish Empire writes: “Magellan’s ships, which should live in legend as long as Columbus’, were, first, the caravel Trinidad (110 tons), of which the captain was Magellan himself. Antonio Pigafetta sailed as a passenger, as did Alvaro de Mezquita, a cousin of Magellan’s. Magellan arranged for a torch of burning wood, to be place on the poop of his boat so that the others should not lose sight of him. On his ship, Magellan carried good iron guns. Second, there was the San Antonio (120 tons), the captain being the inspector of the armada, Juan Perez de Cartagena, Third, there was the Concepcion (90 tons), whose captain was Gaspar Quesada. The master was a resourceful Basque sailor, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, whose place in history is secure. Fourth, there was the Victoria (85 tons), whose captain was Luis de Mendoza, a protégé of Archbishop Deza. Fifth, there was the Santiago (75 tons), whose captain was Juan Rodriguez Serrano.”

Thirty years after the first expedition of Columbus, Magellan or rather Elcano, showed that a route to the East could indeed be found by sailing west. The sphericity of the earth was demonstrated. It was Elcano’s recollections as one of the survivors of the lone galleon Victoria, which was written down by Maximilianus Transylvanus in his De Moluccis Insulis, published in 1523.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto writes in The Pathfinders, A Global History of Exploration 2006: "Magellan’s journey, for all its heroism, had solved nothing. The Pacific leg of the journey was really important, because it was altogether new and the survivors completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the world. Yet, on the evidence the expedition and the follow-up voyage brought home, the route was unexploitable: it was too long, too slow, and fatally flowed, because it led only one way across the ocean. The task of finding practicable, two-way route across the Pacific remained."

And Hugh Thomas, in Rivers of Gold, The Rise of the Spanish Empire 2003: "The world had all the same been proved to be one planet. No greater achievement has been performed. It has been claimed rightly as a great Spanish triumph, and so it was. All the same, the captain on whom all depended was a Portuguese, and the best chronicler was an Italian, as so often in the case of adventures of the sixteenth century. Most of the crew were Andalusians, but the captain who led the return was a Basque. It is not clear what happened to the English ‘constable’, Master Andres of Bristol who was among those who set out; we must assume, though, that he died in the Philippines. But we are therefore, once again before a European triumph appropriate for one which the greatest of the European rulers, the Emperor Charles V, a European more than he was a Spaniard, a Fleming, a German or a Burgundian, approved."

The large Baroque cartouche, decorated with a crowned lion, scrolls, garlands, and allegorical figures and resting on two terrestrial hemispheres, contains the title, the scale, and a brief account of the Philippines from the time of Ferdinand Magellan.

A vignette at lower left of the map depicts the figure of Saint Francis Xavier, “Prince of the Seas,” holding a Jesuit flag surmounted by a cross and riding on a shell pulled by seahorses and cherubs. An apocryphal crab alongside is clutching a cross. An age-old legend in the Philippines held that St. Francis Xavier, Jesuit Apostle of the Indies, visited Mindanao during his missionary work in Asia. The story included an account of Xavier losing his cross during a storm in the Moluccas only to have it returned twenty-four hours later by a giant crab that emerged from the sea bearing aloft the cross. Although later research disproved the story of Xavier’s visit to Mindanao, it was widely believed in Murillo’s day.

The Society of Jesus or the Jesuits were the major proselytizing force in Mindanao. The account of the giant crab could have come from the legends and beliefs of the ancient Mandayas, who called it Tambanakaua. It lives in the sea. As it scuttles about, it causes the tides and high waves; when it opens its eyes lightning appears. In this connection, it’s interesting to note that the Mandaya’s fellow islanders, the Bukidnon, speak of a giant crab that crawled down the mountains, descended into the sea and plugged the world’s navel, thus causing the Deluge. For some unknown reason, this gigantic crab always seeks to devour its mother, the moon.

The figure of St. Francis Xavier is found facing the peninsula of Zamboanga, in Mindanao. During the 17^th century, the devotion to Our Lady of the Pillar, which was brought by the Jesuits from Zaragoza, Spain (Nuestra Señora del Pilar), miraculously saved the town of Fort del Pilar, Zamboanga against British invaders.

At upper left of the map is an armed Chinese junk from the South China Sea. During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the Jesuits played an important role in introducing new cartographic techniques to China - just as they contributed significantly to the advancement of astronomical, calendrical, and mathematical knowledge of the Middle Kingdom. The pioneer in this enterprise was, of course, Father Matteo Ricci, who arrived in China in 1582.

At right of the map is a broadside illustration of an armed Spanish merchant-man, a Manila-Acapulco Gold Galleon, bristling with guns and flying the arms of Spain on her bow, stern, and topmast.

According to The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia 1999, the Philippines never provided Spain with the fabulous riches which it received from the gold and silver mines in America. But it was perhaps because Philip II of Spain was able to rely on a steady source of revenue from the Americas that he was willing to tolerate the losses sustained in the Philippines and magnanimously offer to make it “the arsenal and warehouse of faith.” With this pronouncement the religious aspect of the colonization now took indisputable precedence in the Philippines.

And this map is the greatest testament to the faith of its makers.

Sources:

Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond

2,000 Years of Exploring the East

Kenneth Nebenzahl, 2004

Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724

Liam Matthew Brockey, 2007

The Pathfinders

A Global History of Exploration

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

2006

Culture and History

Nick Joaquin, 2004

Rivers of Gold

The Rise of the Spanish Empire

Hugh Thomas, 2003

Mercator

The Man Who Mapped the Planet

Nicholas Crane 2002

The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia

Volume One, Part Two

From c. 1500 to c. 1800

Edited by Nicholas Tarling

1999

Chinese Maps

Richard J. Smith, 1996

The Soul Book: Introduction to Philippine Pagan Religion

Francisco R. Demetrio, S.J., Gilda Cordero-Fernando, Fernando N. Zialcita

1991

Madonnas of the Philippines

Lutgarda A. Aviado, 1975

Navigating the Underworld: Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s Charon, the Ferryman of Hades

2009-11-02T03:39:00.000+08:00

Felix R. Hidalgo, Study: La Barca de Aqueronte, oil on canvas, 1887, Lopez Museum, Manila

Charon, classical mythology’s ferryman of the dead in Hades, figures prominently in Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo's 1887 academic masterpiece, La Barca de Aqueronte (Charon’s Boat), a work inspired by his reading of Dante’s Inferno during his sojourn in Italy. This god of the Underworld, a son of Erebus (Darkness) (The Genealogy of Greek Mythology by Vanessa James), is represented in archaic and classical Greek art as an ugly old man with a short beard and conical cap, who maneuvers his boat with a pole. He is frequently seen in a series of Attic funerary vases from the end of the fifth century B.C., where he is accompanied by Hermes (Mercury), who brings him the dead. In Etruscan iconography, Charon (Charun) is more frightening and resembles a winged, hook-nosed demon wielding a hammer (Tarquinia, Tomba dell’Orco) (Gods and Heroes of Classical Antiquity (Flammarion Iconographic Guides) by I. Aghion, C. Barbillon, F. Lissarragne).

In the charcoal studies of Hidalgo, Charon is represented in the mold of Renaissance interpreted Greco-Roman divine and heroic nude types. In The Pagan Dream of The Renaissance, Joscelyn Godwin writes, “the nudity of pagan gods and goddesses is one of their essential qualities. In metaphysical terms it symbolizes perfection. Being free of mortal dross, the gods have nothing to be ashamed of, and no need for man-made garments. In the biblical context would have escaped no one at the time, the nudity of the gods is like that of Adam and Eve before the Fall, before they knew that they were naked, and hid themselves (Genesis 3:10).” And in The Mirror of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Renaissance Art, Malcolm Bull writes, “Nobody really knew what the gods looked like. Renaissance artists could base their representation of the gods on the example of antique sculpture. But how had the Greeks known what they looked like in the first place? In the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Philostratus tackles the question head on. Had artists like Phidias and Praxiteles gone up to heaven and drawn the gods from life? No, “Imagination [phantasia] wrought these works, a wiser and subtler artist by far than imitation [mimesis]; for imitation can only create as its handiwork what it has seen, but imagination equally what it has not seen.”

Most accounts, including Pausanias and later Dante's Inferno, associate Charon with the swamps of the river Acheron. Ancient Greek literary sources — such as Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, and Callimachus — also place Charon on the Acheron. Roman poets, including Propertius, Ovid, and Statius, name the river as the Styx, perhaps following the geography of Virgil’s underworld in the Aeneid, where Charon is associated with both rivers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(mythology))

In the same year that Dr. Jose Rizal published his subversive novel, Noli Me Tangere, Hidalgo at age 34 completed his allegorical masterpiece, La Barca de Aqueronte (Charon’s Boat). A stream of nude figures, representing condemned souls, cascades in agony down Charon’s boat to be ferried across the River Acheron and into Hades. A hight contrast of light and dark areas heightens the drama. The turbulent scene is made dynamic by its diagonal composition set out by dark areas. There is a hint of Theodore Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa (1818-19) in its portrayal of helpless victims in a fragile craft tossed by the sea and also Eugene Delacroix’s Dante and Virgil in Hell (1822) also known as the Barque of Dante. Evident too, is the fact that during his year in Rome, Hidalgo had viewed the subject rendered on the bottom right-hand corner of Michelangelo’s famous Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. (Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo & The Generation of 1872 by Alfredo Roces).

Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, Oil on canvas, 1818–1819, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Eugène Delacroix, The Barque of Dante, Oil on canvas, 1822, Musée du Louvre, Paris

In Pierre Subleyra’s academic painting, Charon Transporting the Shadows, the god is nude, and is shown from behind as he turns toward human forms draped in white cloth (eighteenth century, Paris, Louvre). (Gods and Heroes of Classical Antiquity (Flammarion Iconographic Guides) by I. Aghion, C. Barbillon, F. Lissarragne).

Pierre Subleyra, Charon Transporting the Shadows, Musée du Louvre, Paris

In Encyclopedia of Hell by Miriam Van Scott, Charon on the River Styx, Joachim Patinir’s painting (1524, Madrid, Prado), exemplifies the lasting influence of ancient Greek myths on the art world. Created more than two millennia after the demise of Hellenic civilization, Patinir’s composition employs underworld images and icons that have endured through the centuries. The work is a brilliant blaze of blues and greens illuminating paradise, a stark contrast to the dark and sinister colors of the land of the damned. Patinir offers a naked, gaunt Charon perched in a tiny rowboat ferrying souls across the river Styx to grim fortress of torture. The underworld looms in the background, a burning city choked with black smoke. The gates of Hades await on the opposite bank, guarded by the three-headed beast Cerberus. Broken bodies dangle limply over the walls, still being tormented by demons. Farther on, souls are thrown into a raging fire by gleeful fiends. The faces of the damned are upturned in agony, longing for relief that will never come.

Joachim Patinir, Charon on the River Styx, oil on wood, 1524, Prado, Madrid

Juxtaposing Hidalgo’s allegorical Romantic painting, La Barca de Aqueronte with Rizal’s political novel, Noli Me Tangere would find resonance in the 20^th century’s authoritative mythographical studies of Joseph Campbell. Rizal’s archetypal hero, Crisostomo Ibarra, we could say, also echoed the initiation trials in Campbell’s A Hero with A Thousand Faces. “Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiosity fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of the myth-adventure. It has produced a world of literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. Voyage to the underworld is but one of innumerable such adventures undertaken by the heroes of fairy tale and myth.” Crisostomo Ibarra’s trials in the Noli novel could be analyzed as a “hero’s journey to the underworld”; the same with Dante’s perilous journey into Hades with the poet Virgil.

Submitted to the Exposicion General de las Filipinas in Madrid, La Barca de Aqueronte was awarded a Gold Medal. Two years later it is shown at the Paris Exposition of 1889 (Paris World’s Fair of 1889). An International Jury bestows a Silver Medal. No other Filipino Artist reaches this distinction in the major arena of art that is Paris. Art critic Andre Michel writes in the Journal des Debats: “On the other hand not enough attention, as it deserves, has been paid to ‘Dante’s Inferno’ by Felix R. Hidalgo. There is nothing banal [but on the contrary] much in that group of nude bodies that clash and twist under the oar of the mournful boatman; between the bloody sky and the green water, in a landscape fantastic and cold despite its reflections of fire, where one discovers the perpetual nostalgia of solar rays. In the factura [manner of doing] specially, although somewhat subtle and with little relief, appear outstanding qualities of modeling, an agile and skillful handling of the brush and a lyricism of a good kind that separate us completely from vulgarity.”

Over the next few years, La Barca de Aqueronte will do triumphant rounds of the Expositions: taking a Diploma of Honor at the Exposicion General de Bellas Artes in Barcelona in 1891, then a Gold Medal at the Madrid Exposicion International de Bellas Artes in 1893 (the 400^th Anniversary of the Discovery of America) where through a Royal Decree dated 7March 1893, it is purchased for 7,500 pesetas. First hung at the Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar, it soon finds a permanent home at the Museo Nacional de Pintura de Madrid. (Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo & The Generation of 1872 by Alfredo Roces).

Robert Rosenblum and H.W. Janson wrote in their book, 19th-Century Art, “Yet looked at from its past rather from its future, the 1890s can also be thought of as a last and summary chapter of the nineteenth century, in which the Romantics’ legacy of introspection and imaginative wanderings in the domain of of remote myth and history attains perhaps its last gasp, and in which the century’s recurrent efforts to make grand, public statements of mural proportions that might synthesize questions of religion, of philosophy, or society reached a climax. And it was no less a time of art-historical retrospection and the swelling of national pride."

Charon has hardly been represented in modern time because competing Christian figures of death received more attention. (Gods and Heroes of Classical Antiquity (Flammarion Iconographic Guides) by I. Aghion, C. Barbillon, F. Lissarragne).

Finally, The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology gives us this overview of the Underworld:

In Greek mythology the Infernal Regions were the mournful abode where, separated from their bodies, the souls of those who has finished their earthly existence took refuge. There were two successive conceptions of where the afterworld was situated. “The Afterworld,” says Circe to Odysseus, “lies at the extremity of the earth, beyond the vast Ocean.” The earth was thought of as a flat surface limited by an immense encircling river Ocean. One must cross this river in order to reach the desolate and uncultivated shore of the infernal regions. There few things grew, the soil was barren and no living being could survive, for the sun’s rays could not penetrate so far. Black poplars were found there, and willows which never bore fruit. The ground supported asphodel, a funerary plant of ruins and cemeteries.

This was the tradition of the epic poems. It was altered with the progress of geography when navigators discovered that very far to the west – where the infernal regions were supposed to be – there existed lands which were in fact inhabited. Popular belief then placed the kingdom of Shadows elsewhere: from then on it was situated in the center of the earth. It continued to remain a place of shadows and mystery, of Erebus. Its approaches were no longer the Ocean. The Underworld communicated with the earth by direct channels. These were caverns whose depths were unplumbed, like that of Acherusia in Epirus, or Heraclea Pontica. Near Cape Taenarum there was one of these entrance gates and also at Colonus in a place dedicated to the Eumenides.

In the same way certain rivers whose course was partly underground were through to lead to the infernal regions. Such was the Acheron in Thesprotia into which flowed the Cocytus. It must be remarked, moreover, that the names of these rivers were given to them because they were believed to flow into the underworld. Acheron derives from the word which means “affliction”. It was the river of sadness and Cocytus was the river of lamentation.

Though the ancients carefully described the exterior appearance and approaches of the underworld, they were vaguer about its interior. On the aspect of the Infernal Regions we have little information. According to what we have, the actual Underworld was preceded by a vestibule called the Grove of Persephone. Here the black poplars and sterile willows were again found. It had to be crossed before reaching the gate of the Kingdom of Hades. At the gate was posted Cerberus, the monstrous watch-dog with fifty heads and a voice of bronze. He was born of the love of Typhoeus for Echidna. Cerberus was variously represented. Sometimes he had only three heads, sometimes he bristled with serpents and his mouth dribbled black venom. He was always to be feared. When entering the underworld, to be sure, the terrible beast would appear prepossessing, wagging its tail and ears. But never again could one come out. Cerberus, however, could be appeased by tossing to him cakes of flour and honey. Hermes could calm him down with his caduceus and Orpheus charmed him with his lyre. Only Hercules dared measure his strength with Cerberus and, vanquishing him, carried him for a moment up to earth. Cerberus infected certain herbs with his venom which were afterwards gathered by magicians and used in the preparation of baleful philters.

Within the Underworld flowed subterranean rivers: Acheron with its affluent the Cocytus swelled by the Phlegethon, Lethe and, finally the Styx. Acheron was the son of Gaea. He had quenched the thirst of the Titans during their war with Zeus and been thrown into the Underworld where he was changed into a river. To cross Acheron it was necessary to apply to old Charon, the official ferryman of the Underworld. He was a hard old man, difficult to deal with. Unless before embarking the shade of the deceased newcomer presented Charon with his obolus, he would mercilessly drive away an intruder so ignorant of local usage. The shade was then condemned to wander the deserted shore and never find the refuge. The Greeks therefore carefully put an obolus into the mouths of the dead.

The Styx surrounded the Underworld with its nine loops. The Styx was personified as a nymph, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She was loved, as it was said, by the Titan Pallas and by him had Zelos (Jealousy); Nike (Victory); Kratos (Force); and Bia (Violence). As a reward for the help she rendered the Olympians during the revolt of the Titans it was decided that the Immortals should swear by her name and such vows were irrevocable.

Those who drank of the waters of Lethe forgot the past. Lethe flowed, according to some, at the extremity of the Elysian fields; according to others at the edge of Tartarus. The Elysian fields and Tartaus were the two great regions of the Underworld.

Tartaus with its gates of bronze was the somber gaol of those who had committed crimes against the gods. It was surrounded by a triple wall and bathed by the waters of the Phlegethon. The avenue which led to Tartarus was closed by a diamond gate. Here the most notorious prisoners were the Titans and the giant Tityus on whom two vultures fed because he had attempted to violate Leto. Tantalus could also be seen, eternally tortured by hunger and thirst; Sisyphus, who without respite rolled his rock up a steep cliff; Ixion, bound to his flaming wheel spinning in the air; and the Danaids, condemned eternally to fill a bottomless barrel.

In Elysium, on the contrary, snow and rain and tempests were unknown. Soft breezes forever refreshed this abode of happiness which was at first reserved for the children of the gods, but later opened to the favourites of the Olympians and the souls of the just.

Genius Loci and the Recent Visitors to the Museum

2009-10-26T18:32:00.000+08:00

Our featured photos for September and October months: Museum Visitors with a little help from the resident Genius Loci.

Netherlands Ambassador Robert Brinks

Montessori Students taking notes

Montessori Students and a lurking genius loci

Montessori Students: contemplating a Luna

Evidence that word about the Lopez Memorial Museum is spreading is the new set of visitors the museum had for the first week of September. The Ambassador of the Netherlands, accompanied by Ms. Sheila Nicolas of the Pasig Museum, visited the museum last September 2. He was particularly interested in the Coordinates exhibition.

Hearing about Book Matters' creative writing workshop, Mr Joseph Alcantara of Don Bosco Canlubang arranged to have a creative writing workshop with Ms Carla Pacis in the Lopez Museum. 13 college students enrolled in a creative writing subject took part in the workshop.

As a result of Book Matters, the Lopez Museum partnered with the National Book Development Board for the latter's Book Club Session. Last September 5, "Cory: An Intimate Portrait" edited by Margie Juico was the subject of the Book Club session held at the Lopez Library.

Also, a throng of Montessori students dropped by and viewed the exhibition and an animated discourse ensued with the docents.

More photos can be found on our Facebook page

Juan Luna's 152nd Birth Anniversary (Oct 23)

2009-10-24T10:19:00.000+08:00

October 23, 2009 is Juan Luna's 152nd Birth Anniversary, and Inquirer.net reports activities on Saturday at the Juan Luna Shrine in his hometown Badoc, Ilocos Norte, include a memorial mass, flag-raising and wreath-laying ceremonies, and a commemorative program that will highlight the celebration.

To know more about this great Filipino painter and patriot, please visit our website

> Juan Luna Biography

> Hidalgo and Luna: Vexed Modernity

> The Role of Luna and Hidalgo in Philippine
History

> Juan Luna: A Collection

Likhang Habi:Market Encounter 2: The Best of Philippine Textiles

2009-10-20T09:06:00.000+08:00

Invitation to Oct 24 Artist Talk: Pinoypoet Conchitina Cruz

2009-10-16T11:03:00.000+08:00

The Lopez Memorial Museum invites you to a talk by poet Conchitina Cruz on Oct 24, 2pm at the Lopez Memorial Museum. This event is free and open to the public, in cooperation with Pinoypoets. For more information call 6312417.

www.pezseum.blogspot.com/2009/10/mind-gap-work-of-fragments.html

www.pinoypoets.com

Blog Action Day: Climate Change: Meditations on Chief Seattle and Father Blanco

2009-10-15T20:47:00.000+08:00

Whatever befalls the earth

befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

We did not weave the web of life;

We are merely a strand in it

Whatever we do to the web,

we do to ourselves…

Chief Si’ahl (Chief Seattle) (1788-1866)

Native American (Suquamish) Leader

It must have been serendipity; for when the Native American Chief Si’ahl (Chief Seattle, 1788-1866) contemplated about the web of life and of nature; and humbly expressed that as humans we are merely a strand in it; a vast expanse of ocean away in the Philippines; a contemporary Friar Francisco Manuel Blanco (1778-1845); diligently authored what was to become a pioneering scientific work on the flora of the Philippines: Flora de Filipinas. Según el sistema de Linneo (Flora of the Philippines according to the system of Linnaeus), 1837.

Whatever we do to the web of life; as Chief Seattle exhorted; we do to ourselves. A deeply spiritual leader of his Native American tribes; he made a pact and accommodated the white settlers into his lands. In contrast, the Spanish friar, Blanco labored to describe the Flora: the taxonomic, economic and medicinal properties of each of the 903 species and variants identified which the colony could benefit from.

Both undeniably great men; one spiritually attuned to the land of his birth but who welcomed foreign settlers in peace; the other a religious colonist and adept; who scientifically explored his adopted land; and whose accumulated botanical knowledge benefited both masters and natives. Both men unequivocally brought healing to their lands.

We did not weave the web of life; but as keepers of its wisdom both Chief Seattle and Fr. Blanco understood the implications of meditating on and studying its strands. The former, a wise leader who had gone through life preserving the sacred and natural laws of his ancestors; while the latter, who thorough in his observations; and meticulous in his studies; echoed the philosophy of his muse, Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778): nature does not proceed by leaps.

The understanding and love of nature connected these two great but disparate men; both products of their time and circumstance. But they knew the healing of their people could come from beneath their feet and the nature that surrounds them. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

To take inspiration from another contemporary, this time an English poet, mystic and artist, William Blake (1757-1827) :

Chief Seattle saw a world in a grain of sand

Father Blanco, a heaven in a wild flower

They held infinity in the palm of their hands

And eternity in an hour

Likhang Habi: Market Encounter 2: The Best of Philippine Textiles

2009-10-15T13:55:00.000+08:00

For information, please call Cherry Alanguilan or Carla Martinez

(+632) 889.1234 or email marketencounter2@museumfoundationph.org

THE BEST OF PHILIPPINE TEXTILES IN LIKHANG HABI: MARKET ENCOUNTER 2

The best of home-grown textiles will be up for grabs in LIKHANG HABI: MARKET ENCOUNTER 2. This 2-day event will be hosted by the Yuchengco Museum on October 23 and 24, 2009 from 10am to 7pm at the RCBC Plaza Courtyard in Makati City. The market encounter will bring a mélange of traditional and contemporary indigenous textiles from weaving communities all across the country—loom woven cotton inabel from Northern Luzon, various blends of piña silk from Palawan, yakan material from Mindanao, t'nalak from dream-inspired patterns, banana fiber and silk items by Dita Sandico-Ong, embellished textiles, and other hard-to-find, one-of-a-kind clothing items.

HABI, the Philippine Textile Council, has arranged for Dr. Norma Respicio, leading textile expert, to talk on local weaving traditions on Saturday, October 24, 3pm at the Yuchengco Museum’s Masters Gallery. An exhibition of rare home-grown fabrics from private collectors will open simultaneously with the bazaar. A minimal fee of Php50 entitles the visitor to the bazaar and free admission to the museum and lecture.

LIKHANG HABI: MARKET ENCOUNTER 2 is a joint undertaking of the Museum Foundation of the Philippines (MFPI), the Yuchengco Museum and the Lopez Memorial Museum in celebration of Museum Month this October. It also celebrates the United Nations proclamation of 2009 as the International Year of Natural Fibers. LIKHANG HABI is an offshoot of Market Encounter initially launched at the 2nd ASEAN Traditional Textiles Symposium held last February at the National Museum. For information, call the Yuchengco Museum at (+632) 889 1234 or email marketencounter2@museumfoundationph.org.

Amakan-woven cushions from Tadeco.

Salvaging Photographs & Artworks from Flood, Fire, and other Disasters

2009-10-10T17:03:00.000+08:00

Info collated by Mr. William Hernandez, Patron and Donor of the LMM

"How to Salvage Flood Damaged Photographs:

http://www.vimeo.com/1417232

"Emergency Salvage of Wet Photographs":

http://www.sos.louisiana.gov/Portals/0/archives/pdf/emergency_salvage_wet_photographic.pdf

Here is an excellent site for referencing the conservation of all materials in an emergency situation.

http://www.aiccm.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=588:disaster-preparedness-and-salvage&catid=145:disaster-preparedness-and-risk-management&Itemid=74

Salvaging belongings damaged in a disaster

Fire, water, dust and mould can all badly damage collection materials. While a damaged item may never look new again, sometimes it is possible to preserve what remains.

Download AICCM's brochure After a Fire [PDF file - 401.29 KB] to find out what you can do to salvage fire-damaged possessions. Please feel free to print, copy and distribute this flier.
Download AICCM's brochure Salvaging keepsakes after a disaster [PDF file - 137.76 KB] to find out more about disaster preparedness and how to salvage collections damaged by water.

Fire damage

Bushfires...Protect Your Precious Possessions (Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation University of Melbourne). The CCMC received funding from Emergency Management Australia to produce a booklet aimed at assisting people to prepare for and protect their precious possessions in the event of bushfires.

First Aid for Fire Damaged Audio Visual Material (National Film and Sound Archive). The NFSA site also contains information about salvaging damaged photographs.

Fire damaged memorabilia: advice for bushfire victims (Australian War Memorial)

Caring for your mementos – Cleaning soot damaged objects (Australian War Memorial)

Fire damage (Chicora Foundation - USA). After a fire you will likely have several types of damage... Some items will be heavily damaged by the fire — exhibiting ashing, charring, melting, or other distortion from the heat. Much of this material is likely not salvageable. The remainder may be lightly scorched, covered in soot, and have a strong odor of the fire...read more. Chicora is a non-profit heritage preservation organization founded in 1983.

Heritage Emergency National Task Force (USA). This site offers some tips for cleaning up after a fire, safely.

Flood and water damage

How do I salvage flood-damaged records? (National Archives of Australia)

Flooding (Chicora Foundation, USA). Water can come from exploding toilets, leaky roofs, or hurricane flooding, but you should always remember that water is never just water. Depending on the cause of the flooding and the source of the water, it may contain chemicals, pollutants, micro-organisms, and mud. As a result, it can cause a variety of problems and wet paper or collections may be the least of your concerns...read more. Chicora is a non-profit heritage preservation organization founded in 1983.

National Park Service (USA) Conserve-o-grams. These help sheets focus on the salvage of water-damaged material.

Heritage Emergency National Task Force(USA). This site offers a 10-minute video about Coping with water damage.

The Library of Congress (USA) offers information about Emergency Drying Procedures for Water Damaged Collections.

FEMA's Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation (EHP) Program (USA) has an online version of the Emergency Response Wheel about Recovering From and Coping With Flood Damaged Property. You can access information about salvaging books, heirlooms, mouldy items, photographs, textiles, currency and valuables. Other information pages include:

Mould damage

FEMA's Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation (EHP) Program (USA) has information about Removing Mould From Your Home.

Photo Gallery: Lopez Museum + Yuchengco Museum: Collections Management Series Module Two

2009-10-10T16:04:00.000+08:00

View our Facebook Photo Gallery of the speakers and participants of Lopez Museum + Yuchengco Museum: Collections Management Series Module Two. The seminar was held at the 4/F, Podium, RCBC Plaza in Makati last October 8 and 9, 2009.

Mind the Gap: The Work of Fragments

2009-10-06T12:12:00.000+08:00

Pinoypoets, in partnership with the Lopez Memorial Museum and Library, presents "Mind the Gap: The Work of Fragments," a lecture by poet Conchitina Cruz. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held on October 24, Saturday, 2:00 PM at the Lopez Memorial Museum and Library. This event is the fourth of a series of lectures celebrating Pinoypoets' fifth anniversary.

Visit www.pinoypoets.com for details, or contact Pinoypoets through mail@pinoypoets.com or 0917-6934821 for inquiries.

Intermediate Collections Management Seminar, October 8-9

2009-10-05T19:35:00.000+08:00

Private art collectors and professionals who wish to explore the world of museums, galleries, archaeological artifacts, relics, and mementos will benefit immensely from the Intermediate Collections Management Seminar organized jointly by the Yuchengco Museum and Lopez Memorial Museum on October 8 and 9, 2009.

The program, which began with the Basic Collections Management module on June 18, aims to develop skills and encourage adherence to internationally accepted standards, policies, and procedures for those managing collections such as museums, galleries, and private and corporate collections.

The Intermediate Collections Management module will be held at the Yuchengco Museum from 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The intermediate module will cover collections management policy (e.g. acquisitions and inter-institutional loans); the value and significance of objects in the collection; insurance; condition reports; object care; and exercises on cataloguing, photo documentation and condition report preparation.

Because each module covers a different set of skills and topics, the intermediate module is of interest to art professionals, even if they have not attended the basic module.

The Advanced Collection Management module, the last in the series, is scheduled in November 2009. The fee of P3,500 per person includes snacks, lunch, seminar kit and certificate.

The seminar series will be complemented by readings and hands-on activities designed to make the concepts understandable and easy to apply. There will be interaction with practicing museum registrars and collection managers. Slots limited to only 25 participants. For registration and details, contact Yuchengco Museum’s Elma Abrina at 889-1234 or Lopez Museum’s Fanny San Pedro at 631-2417.

ABS-CBN: Tropical Storm Ondoy: How you can help

2009-09-29T13:49:00.000+08:00

This material was taken from http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/09/27/09/tropical-storm-ondoy-how-you-can-help

abs-cbnNEWS.com has compiled a list of ways on how you can help thje victims of tropical storm Ondoy (international code name Ketsana).

How to help

Ways to donate to the Philippine National Red Cross via the PNRC web site

DSWD donations drop-off points

1. National Resource Operations Center, Chapel Road, Pasay City
Contact: Mrs. Francon Favian

2. Quezon City Area Disaster Resource Operations Monitoring and Info Center (DROMIC) DSWD Central Office
Contact Rey Martija or Imee Rose Castillo, Tel Nos. 951-7119, 951-2435 or Assistant Secretary Vilma Cabrera Tel No. 0918-934-5625

3. Manila Area (DSWD-NCR)
San Rafael corner Legarda Streets, Quiapo, Manila
Contact: Dir. Thelsa P. Biolna, Dir. Delia Bauan Tel Nos. 734-8622, 734-8642

Manuel L. Quezon's blog: How to help (original on Quezon.ph | Tumblr.com mirror link)

Google Docs: Rescue InfoHub Central | List of Places where to donate (check out one nearest your area, or add a donation center that is not on the list)

Another list of where to donate goods via Bury Me In This Dress blog

Google Maps: Ondoy situation map for Metro Manila, by KaninLamig

Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System http://sahana.kahelos.org/

ABS-CBN HOTLINE
416-36-41

SAGIP KAPAMILYA
413-2667 / 416-0387
No 13 Examiner Street, Quezon City, Look for Ms Girlie Aragon

Bank: Banco de Oro, Mother Ignacia branch
Acct name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.
Acct no.: 5630020111

ABS-CBN Foundation Inc for overseas donation: 1-800-527-2820 or www.abs-cbnfoundation.com

Routing code for international cash donations
BNORPHMM ABS-CBN Branch

In kind donation:

Drop off sites are at 13 Examiner Street or at Scout Bayona in front of Rembrandt Hotel.

ABS-CBN Foundation US Office Toll-Free 1-800-527-2820

Negros Navigation

from Mr. Edmund Gawchua, Manager

Negros Navigation is now accepting the transfer of relief goods from Mindanao to Manila for free for aid to victims of Ondoy.

Donations can be sent to Negros Navigation stations and offices nationwide.

Reach ABS-CBN via these channels:

Multiply: botomoipatrolmo.multiply.com

Twitter: twitter.com/botopatrollers

Facebook: Boto Mo, Ipatrol Mo official page | abs-cbnNEWS.com

Email: ireport@abs-cbn.com

SMS/MMS reports: IREPORT to 2366

Bayan Voice BMPM Voice SMS: 411-BMPM (411-2676)

9th Teacher-Librarian Seminar

2009-08-26T11:57:00.000+08:00

9th Teacher-Librarian Seminar

Lopez Memorial Museum and Ortigas Foundation Library

August 18, 2009

Seventy-five public school teacher-librarians from Pasig, Quezon City, Bulacan, Cavite and Manila took part in the 9th Teacher-Librarian Seminar last August 18. Support for the seminar from Jollibee Corporation, Adarna House, Hot Loops, Universal Robina Corporation, Robinsons Malls, Gokongwei Brothers Foundation enabled the participants to attend for free. With the theme “Equipping Teacher-Librarians Today Build Our Libraries For Tomorrow”, the seminar aimed to impart knowledge and develop skills in the participants so that they will be better able maximize their resources and develop life-long users of such resources in the students and the colleagues they serve.

The morning session was held at the Lopez Memorial Museum while the afternoon session was held at the Ortigas Foundation Library. In these locations, the participants were also able to see the operations of the libraries. They heard about book conservation from chemist-conservator Maita Reyes and from National Artist for Literature Francisco Sionil Jose. Managing the Library Collection in general and the possibilities of the internet were also discussed, the latter by Mr Fernan Dizon of the Ateneo de Manila University Library.

The Teacher-Librarian Seminar is an annual seminar spearheaded by the Robinsons Children’s Library, with partners Lopez Memorial Museum and the Ortigas Foundation Library, to provide free lectures and workshops to elementary and high school public school teachers-librarians.

National Book Development Board (NBDB) Book Club reads Cory: An Intimate Portrait

2009-08-22T11:52:00.000+08:00

The NBDB Book Club pays tribute to the Mother of Philippine Democracy. For September, we are reading Cory: An Intimate Portrait, edited by Margie Penson-Juico and published by Anvil Publishing.

Cory: An Intimate Portrait portrays President Cory Aquino in different facets of her life, as told by those who served in her government and others whose lives she had touched. Ms. Margie Juico, the book’s editor and Pres. Aquino’s former Appointments Secretary, will be joining the discussion.

The NBDB Book Club session will be held on September 5, 2 pm, at the Lopez Memorial Museum and Library, G/F Benpres Bldg., Exchange Road cor. Meralco Ave., Ortigas, Pasig City.

Cory: An Intimate Portrait is available in major bookstores for P160

For RSVP 926-8238 (Dianne S. Mendoza) National Book Development Board 2/F NPO Bldg. EDSA cor. NIA Northside Road Diliman, Quezon City

For Lopez Museum, please Call Fanny or Jane at 631-2417. Lopez Museum located at the ground floor of Benpres bldg., Ortigas Center, Pasig.

Classical bookbinding Workshop @ Lopez Museum

2009-07-31T14:10:00.001+08:00

Make your old books look like new. Restoring old books can actually pare down your book budget for younger children or siblings.

As part of its advocacy to teach techniques on preservation and conservation, the Lopez Memorial Museum is offering a Classical Bookbinding workshop for three Saturdays on August 8, 15 and 22, from 9am to 12 noon. Fee is P5,500 including materials.

Facilitated by Loreto Apilado of the Cottage Industry Technology Center, the workshop includes the proper use of hand tools and basic equipment and the correct application of raw materials. The total duration of the course is nine hours, 80% of which is for the development of applicable skills and 20% for the acquisition of knowledge, latest trends on designs and applications.

Apilado conducted seminars on papermaking, book arts and conservation here and abroad. He has been in charge of teaching papermaking, paper crafts, bookbinding; designing tools and equipment for such workshops; and researching on and disseminating information on matters related to such topics.

The workshop will be held at the Lopez Museum located at the ground floor of Benpres bldg., Ortigas Center, Pasig. Call Fanny or Jane at 631-2417.

Update: The Chabet Archive: A Conversation

2009-07-31T13:43:00.000+08:00

Last July 28, The Chabet Archive: A Conversation took place at the Lopez Memorial Museum. This event marked the turn-over of the digital copies of the materials on artist Roberto Chabet, gathered by Ms. Ringo Bunoan. Ms. Bunoan is researcher for the Philippines of the Asian Art Archives. The Asian Art Archive and the Lopez Memorial Museum jointly manage the archive. The materials are available in the Lopez Library (telephone number 6312425/ library@lopez-museum.org), the Asian Art Archive in Hong Kong (info@aaa.org.hk) as well as online.

Roberto Chabet

Mercedes Lopez-Vargas, Director, Lopez Memorial Museum

Claire Hsu, Director, Asian Art Archive

Ringo Bunoan, Asian Art Archive researcher, Philippines

Students visit the Museum

2009-07-31T13:38:00.000+08:00

Last July 4, the Lopez Memorial Museum hosted first year college students brought by Ms. Geni Psinakis. This was the students' first visit to a museum and they had a wonderful time seeing the works of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, and trying their hand at drawing.

The Chabet Archive: A Conversation

2009-07-13T12:37:00.000+08:00

Co-presented by Asia Art Archive and Lopez Memorial Museum

Date: 28th July 2009 , 4-6 pm

Venue: Lopez Memorial Museum, Philippines

Asia Art Archive (AAA) and the Lopez Memorial Museum are pleased to announce The Chabet Archive, a milestone research and digitization project focusing on the work of The Philippines’ foremost conceptual artist, Roberto Chabet. One of the most influential artists of his generation and a key figure in Philippine contemporary art, Chabet’s work questions fixed notions about art, meaning and modernity. The research is the point of entry into the understanding of Chabet’s vision of art and his impact on the development of the art scene in the Philippines.

The Chabet Archive consists of thousands of documents including unpublished photographs, notes, sketches, letters, invitations, and press clippings, covering the artist’s work from the 1960s to the present day. Aside from his own exhibitions, the Archive also includes documentation of exhibitions he curated and works of other artists close to him. It provides an unprecedented account of his artistic process, the vision that he espoused, and the generations of artists whom he mentored at the University of The Philippines College of Fine Arts.

Initiated in 2008 by Ringo Bunoan, AAA Researcher for The Philippines, The Chabet Archive has compiled and digitized thousands of materials donated by Chabet, various institutions, galleries, collectors, and friends of the artist. The digital files will be part of AAA’s Special Collection in Hong Kong and will also be available to local researchers in The Philippines for consultation through the Lopez Memorial Museum.

In The Chabet Archive: A Conversation, Ringo Bunoan will present a slideshow of selected material from the project, followed by a talk with Roberto Chabet and other artists and introductory remarks by AAA Executive Director, Claire Hsu.

Roberto Chabet (b. 1937, Manila) is a pioneering Filipino conceptual artist. Since the 1960's he has been producing avant-garde works which foreground idea over form. Also a curator, he has organized many exhibitions of contemporary art, mostly by artists who were his students at the University of The Philippines College of Fine Arts, where he taught for more than thirty years. He was also the first Museum Director of the Cultural Center of The Philippines (CCP) and initiated the prestigious Thirteen Artist Award, which gives recognition to outstanding young artists.

Event Details

Co-Presented by: Asia Art Archive and the Lopez Memorial Museum

Venue: Lopez Memorial Museum, G/F Benpres Building, Exchange Road corner Meralco Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City, The Philippines

Date: Tuesday 28th July 2009, 4-6pm

Registration: please contact Ms Fanny San Pedro/Ms Jane Pagkalinawan at lmmpasig@gmail.com or +632 6312417 / 6359545

The presentation will be delivered in English.

For further information please contact Ringo Bunoan at ringo@aaa.org.hk or Janet Chan at janet@aaa.org.hk.

Lopez Museum features indie filmmaker Raya Martin in Artist’s Talk

2009-07-09T15:26:00.000+08:00

Lopez Memorial Museum welcomes acclaimed experimental filmmaker Raya Martin, who will discuss the relation between film and history and other aspects of independent film in the Philippines on July 18, 2009. The 25-year old Martin is the first Filipino to be accepted at the prestigious Cinefondation Residence of the Cannes Film Festival and the first Filipino to have two entries at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival (Independencia and Manila).

Martin says, “The history of our cinema tells the history of our country. Movies become historical accounts of a people’s struggle in a particular period. When a movie studio ceases to exist, it marks the death of an historian. What we are left with are the memories of a memory maker. We only stand before what was there that was not ours.”

His video installation called “WMB” is one of the featured works in the exhibition Double Take, which is ongoing at the Lopez Memorial Museum’s main gallery until September 25, 2009. He will be using Huk sa Bagong Pamumuhay, a production of LVN Pictures, as he goes into the history of film.

Born in 1984, Martin graduated in 2005 from the University of the Philippines Film Institute with a degree in filmmaking.He has been receiving accolades for his work at a very young age. In 2004, his short film Bakasyon won the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the Cinemanila International Film Festival and his documentary on Batanes called The Island at the End of the World won best Documentary film prize at the .mov 2005 film festival. Also in 2005, he completed his first feature film Indio Nacional. In the same year, he was granted a prestigious residency in Paris at the CineFondation, a program for young filmmakers organized under the auspices of the Cannes International Film Festival. In 2007, he was named Best Director for his film “Autohystoria” at the 2007 Cinemanila International Film Festival. His film Independencia was the first Filipino film to be selected to the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, and his film with Adolfo Alix Jr., Manila, was also shown.

Artist Talk on July 18 (Saturday) is from 2-4pm. Fee is P120 per person. For inquiries, call Fanny at 631-2417 or email admin@lopez-museum.org.

Photo Update: Collection Management Seminar

2009-06-20T13:10:00.000+08:00

Day 2 Pictures of the Collection Management Seminar held at the Lopez Museum on Friday, June 19, 2009

Group photo of participants and Lopez Museum and

Yuchengco Museum staff

Ms. Cedie L. Vargas (middle) Lopez Museum Director

Ricky Francisco (middle) Collection Management Consultant for the Lopez Museum

Photo Update: Art Talk with Jeff Khan

2009-06-20T12:54:00.000+08:00

The Lopez Memorial Museum, in cooperation with Art Cabinet Philippines, featured Melbourne-based curator Jeff Khan in a talk on his role as Artistic Director of Next Wave, a multidisciplinary festival with 400 Australian and international artists. 2008 Singapore Biennale curator Joselina Cruz participated as reactor, sharing innovations and developments in the recent biennale themed Wonder and the current Philippine art scene.

The talk was presented on May 22, 2009 with Art Cabinet Philippines, an emerging visual arts organization that envisions the participation of Filipino visual artists in critical exhibitions and interactions and their achievement of international artistic acclaim.

Australian curator Jeff Khan

Australian curator Jeff Khan and Philippine curator Joselina Cruz

Isa Lorenzo and other participants