‘Catch 22’

The Metro Gallery presented Catch 22: Celebrating 22 Years of The Metro Gallery at the ArtistSpace of the Ayala Museum in Makati City.

Irene Cometa started the gallery on the advice of the late National Artist Jose Joya. She worked in various art galleries in the ‘70s and ‘80s, assisting first with Art Association of the Philippines’ Rita Ledesma. She then worked with Carol Guerrero at The Rear Room Gallery and later as manager of the Garden Gallery in Makati. She now manages the Metro Gallery with her daughter Chitty.

The show featured several younger and up-and-coming artists such as Jaime Raphael Atienza, Kevin Balboa, Aiya Balingit, Ronald Caringal, Keb Cerda, Den Chua, Ronson Culibrina, Jayvee David, Dale Erispe, Adrian Evangelista, Pancho Francisco, Dino Gabito, Lino Jamisola, Darrel Dan Lagasca, John Marin, Charmaigne Mendoza, Jessie Mondares, Jett Osian, Tad Pagaduan, Roy Rosatase, Rovi Jesher Salegumba, Randy Solon, Kadin Tiu, Yani Unsana, Cris Villanueva Jr. and Erick Villaruz. Quite a number of artists who participated are members of the 1616 group of artists, touted to be some of the big names in the future of Philippine art.

Everything was practically sold out on the opening night. The paintings were arranged by the much sought-after artist Lynyrd Paras. Joel Consing, who was dragged there by Derek Flores, admitted that he “went to Greenbelt to buy a tie and ended up with a painting.”  I, too, got a painting by Keb Cerda. Guests basically went home hoping to get more of these very in-demand artists. We just have to wait for their upcoming shows.

(The Metro Gallery is located at 455 P. Guevarra St., San Juan City. For more information, call 0917-8115399, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.metrogallery.ph.)

Pocket power

Nokia launched the newest addition to the Asha family, the Nokia Asha 501 Dual SIM, a smartphone built on the new Asha platform.

Nokia Philippines general manager Karel Holub and Nokia PAN Asia head of marketing Gary Chan introduced the newest phone. They enlightened the audience about the features of the newest addition to the Asha family. The event was hosted by Nokia’s senior communications manager Solange Cummins.

Designed to give young people a fun “pocket power” experience, the Asha 501 comes in bright red, yellow and classic black, and later in white, green and cyan.

The smartphone is durable with a removable Nokia shell and a Gorilla Glass scratch-resistant capacitive touch screen. It has unprecedented battery life of up to 26 days of standby time and up to 17 hours of talk time. It has WLAN that easily connects to hotspots in malls, schools and at home and comes with a 4GB memory card that’s easily upgradable to 32GB for lots of space to store pictures, videos and music.

At the launch, cocktails in vibrant colors were served to match the bright colors of the phone. There were free manicure services and T-shirt booths as well. Guests were later given the chance to check out and test the Asha 501’s innovative features such as the Fastlane, which allows users to track their activities in a simple swipe.

Holub said, “Undoubtedly, the Asha 501 is a smartphone that combines an enticing design with performance and a totally new way to stay mobile with Fastlane. Its exclusive Fastlane view provides a timeline of activities and events in the recent past, present and near future. This innovative feature makes it easier to start where you left off and plan ahead with just a simple swipe.” Photos by Pepper Teehankee on a Canon Digital Powershot