(UP TO JANUARY 1, 2024) TANGKA NG TANGLAW (THE POSSIBILITIES OF LUMINANCE) TAO AT KALIKASAN (MAN AND NATURE)

The exhibition on the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ 21st Century Art Museum (21AM) Collection will cover two pocket exhibitions which explore key movements and figures in the themes of abstract art, and the artistic expressions and sensibilities of nature. The selected paintings and sculptures are largely focused on the art practices within the Philippine contemporary art scene between the 1970s and 1980s, featuring paintings of cultural significance and key figures such as National Artists for the Visual Arts. This exhibition aims to initiate conversations regarding the collecting impulses of the Cultural Center of the Philippines as a historic cultural institution whose museum directorship supported visual artists that experimented on conceptual thought and the gravitas of new material and media.

The exhibit Tangka ng Tanglaw features Philippine abstract art that is anchored on the concept of brightness or luminance as an artistic expression that ties across visual characteristics and affinities found in the artworks of the CCP’s 21st Century Art Museum (21AM) collection. The term tanglaw, or light, connotes the visual perception and traversal of lightness and darkness. It also presents an understanding and control of light that is expressed through the intensity of its light source. As a curatorial prompt, Tanglaw seeks to explore the passages and evocations of lightness present in these artworks which are confined within the dense colors from black to white, or the excess or emptiness of its value. It also brings together meditations of forms and new media, such as shape, material, textures, translucency that is evocative of its time.