Art Fair 2018 kicked off this year’s show at The Link in Makati City from 1st to 4th March. For the past 6 years, Art Fair Philippines has brought the best of modern and contemporary art to interested individuals and discerning audiences. In the hustle and bustle of busy city life, a trip to Art Fair gives one a chance to unwind, soak up the pieces’ sublime messages, and be absorbed in the culture that is art.
Exhibit-goers were treated to no less than what could be the best of art in the Metro but this year, with one additional attraction: a section dedicated to the automobile industry, its intrinsic value, and its connection to the world of art.
Nilo Ilarde's die-cast cars insinuate that "The spectators are also part of the landscape navigating the traffic and terrain of the art world"
This year, AC Automotive, a member of the country’s oldest business house, Ayala, under its industrial technology arm, AC Industrials, tapped four visual artists to showcase their re-imaginations of contemporary automotive architecture by rendering and defining the “melding point” of science, art, machine, humanity and technology. From its four strong brands, namely Honda and Isuzu (dealership networks), Volkswagen (distribution) and KTM (manufacturing and distribution), works by Reg Yuson (Honda), Dan Raralio (Isuzu), Art Lozano (Volkswagen), and Pete Jimenez (KTM) were put on exhibit. These maestros showed us their take on blurring – no, erasing - the line and putting art and autos together in a tangible, and visual masterpiece.
Yuson’s work is a presence in the landscape of public built environments, lending a fresh and witty concept in architecture of open space
Lozano translates “Urban Progress,” a multi-hued 3-dimensional painting using an actual Beetle hood and parts of Volkswagen vehicles
Jimenez’s “Racing Heart” focuses on the KTM big bike’s orange frame, pounding it into the shape of a heart, and encasing motorcycle parts into it—the sculptor’s visual gem of a pun
Raralio’s “Abstract out of Concrete” assembles Isuzu truck parts embedded in concrete blocks, representing the artist’s creative fingerprint traversing the figurative to abstract, classical to modern, interspersed with subtle word play.
Looking ahead to the 7th annual Art Fair next year, we can only hope that more such pieces will be put on exhibit for everyone to see and appreciate. Perhaps 2019 will bring us closer to the heart of of autos and art combined.
