Art in the Visayas

CEBU, Philippines — Cebuano art lovers of all ages trooped to the Northwing Atrium of SM City Cebu on March 2 for the opening of the art exhibit titled “My City, My SM, My Art,” slated to run until tomorrow, March 8.

It is the Cebu leg of this year’s SM Malls regional art exhibit series. Mainlining the show are artworks by three of the Visayas region’s celebrated talents – National Artist and “Father of Modern Philippine Sculpture” Napoleon Abueva; the “Father of Contemporary Philippine Printmaking” Manuel Rodriguez Sr.; and the “Dean of Cebuano painters” Martino Abellana.

In the exhibit alongside the masters’ works are artists in the Eastern and Central Visayas regions – Leyte’s Dante Enage, Dumaguete’s Kitty Taniguchi, Bohol’s Henri Cainglet and Cebu’s Adeste Deguilmo, Jun Impas and Celso Pepito.

The curatorial scope of the show isn’t drawn from break-time confessionals or outlined by clumsy analogies that dip into the corrosiveness of the signs of the times.

The show very well serves as an introduction for viewers to the actual works of master artists whom they are likely to know only by name and reputation. It’s a kind of a meet-and-greet session to the modernist leanings of Abueva, the process-oriented works of Rodriguez and Abellana’s predilection in painting richly-detailed landscapes from real life.

The art pieces included in the show are quite varied in their approaches – Enage’s multi-layered painting style, Taniguchi’s take on amalgamating Fauvism with surrealism, Cainglet’s broad strokes in the conceptual art movement, Deguilmo’s expansion of the narrative painting form, Impas’ renderings of representational art themes, and Pepito’s leaning towards traditional Filipino life scenes with cubist undertones.

In featuring the works of Visayan artists who stand out in the regional and national art scenes, this year’s Cebu leg of the “My City, My SM, My Art” series indeed serves its very purpose of bringing art and communities together.

The “My City, My SM, My Art” series is a spin-off of SM Malls’ award-winning cultural campaigns: the tourism-directed “My City, My SM,” the culinary fest “My City, My SM, My Cuisine” and the crafts-centered “My City, My SM, My Crafts” campaigns.

The region-anchored nationwide art exhibit series focuses on the creative breadth of established and new artists based in the different parts of the country – whether in painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, or filmmaking.

The first “My City, My SM, My Art” exhibit in Cebu was held in 2016 in SM Seaside City.

Spearheaded by SM Malls, the series is presented in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Shell Companies of the Philippines, and The Philippine Star, with the support of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and Centerstage Productions.