PROBLEMS WITH STYLES:
MANUEL OCAMPO / ARGIE BANDOY
COLLABORATIVE WORKS
Opening 6 PM April 5 (Saturday)
GREEN PAPAYA ART PROJECTS
Filipino-American iconoclast Manuel Ocampo and homegrown renegade Argie Bandoy forge a convincing second attempt at creative collusion with Problems with Styles, an exhibition of freshly constructed body of collaborative works. The two artists had previously conspired in Indiscreet Charm of the Burlesque (2006), an exhibition, and a casting coup, that had Ocampo collaborating with some of the creamiest young turks of Philippine contemporary art today, like Poklong Anading, Lena Cobangbang, MM Yu, Robert Langenegger, Jayson Oliveria and Bandoy. While Indiscreet Charm tried to blur such fascist tendencies at authorship sacrificing style in favor of an uninhibited engagement with content, Problems with Styles brings into the fore the term that seemed to have disappeared from art historical vocabulary since thirty years ago implying surrender to the postmodernist streak that has since inundated the art scene.
In this new Ocampo-Bandoy merger, style is employed as a strategy to engage in the politics of social sites and personal boundaries. Manuel Ocampo’s nightmarish visions are rooted in reality and his frightening tableaux become uncanny icons to the brutality of the past and present. His paintings convey such an emotional intensity that his grab bag of leaded symbols, words and imagery are seamlessly joined together in a contemporary twilight zone. With a singularly perverse view of contemporary culture Ocampo makes intrinsically religious paintings that confront the viewer with moral dilemmas, ultimately transforming horror into beauty, and history into art. Ocampo has exhibited extensively throughout the 1990s, with solo exhibitions at galleries and institutions throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. In 2005, his work was the subject of a large-scale survey at Casa Asia in Barcelona, and Lieu d’Art Contemporain, Sigean, France.
Argie Bandoy constantly rummages through his treasure chest of found objects: rotted chicken bones, used rubber tires, rusted cans, knives, hand tools, old blankets, stumped paint brushes, broken mirrors, school medals, abandoned school projects, body fluids, all finding their way into a field of well-designed and orchestrated chaos. His paintings are attempts at concretizing his thoughts. But as thoughts are ephemeral, they take on new meanings once they touch paper or canvas. He further stresses his distrust for studies as bearing false promise of intended results, that objects are at times more reliable for being as they are. But still what happens to them is really left much to chance. Bandoy, who studied Fine Arts at the University of the East, holds a distinct reputation as a member of the seminal artists collective Surrounded by Water, composed mainly of graduates from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts.
Problems with Styles opens on April 5 and will run until April 30, 2008 at Green Papaya Art Projects along Maginhawa St., Teachers Village East, Quezon City. Gallery hours: 6 PM-11 PM, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday only. Open by appointment Saturday and Sunday. For inquiries please call 0918 9457387, or email greenpapayaartprojects@gmail.com Site under repair, for updates: http://papayapost.blogspot.com
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