Art Fair PH 2025: Immersive, nostalgic artworks steal the show
A light shower sprinkles over Ayala Triangle Gardens, but inside the tented area that serves as this year’s new venue for Art Fair Philippines’ 12th edition, there is only frenzied excitement and wonder.
The flat labyrinthine layout that engulfs the fountain plaza and courtyard (with extensions in nearby Tower 2) until today, Feb. 23, may take some getting used to for patrons who have been going on an Art Month pilgrimage to The Link car park for the last 11 years. But the refreshing space actually manages to better communicate the overwhelming breadth, depth, and expanse of Filipino artistry. Getting lost is just an opportunity to give the pieces a second, third, or even fourth closer look.
“It just gives our visitors a new experience of seeing what the galleries have to offer,” says Art Fair Philippines cofounder Trickie Lopa about the new location. “We always try to offer something new anyway. So this time, it is the venue that is the major new thing that we’re bringing out.
“Change is always good. Everybody seems to be happy,” she adds.
Of course, international exhibitors from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Austria, and Spain are also showcasing curated exhibitions, but it’s always exciting to see the imagination and innovation of our local visual artists. The immense variety of art—in terms of mode, medium, and meaning—drives home the fact that art can be anything, and is in everything.
Projects
The highlight for this year, says Lopa, is the Projects section, featuring pieces from artists invited to do work for the fair. “It’s always interesting to see how they respond.”
For Art Fair PH visitors, it’s always exhilarating to experience art, which goes beyond merely seeing the displays with one’s own eyes. It tickles one’s sense of discovery just being in the presence of these magnificent, mind-boggling, sometimes whimsical creations—perhaps not actually able to touch most of them but still feel them and engage with them; in some instances, even smell them.
Goldie Poblador offers a multisensorial experience introducing scents (created by perfumer M Dougherty) into the immersive exhibition that laments the ecological devastation caused by 2023 oil spills. The glass sculptures that fuse the female body with invertebrate forms in themselves are already fascinating spectacles, but they also create grotesque shadows and reflections that glare at the viewer, the unease magnified by the heaviness and stickiness of the atmosphere, and the whiff of oil slick and sea.
Mauro Malang Santos’ “Barrio Fiesta” from 1960 and Vicente Manansala’s “Cat’s Dream” from 1950 get a modern makeover: Using the Artivive app, viewers are able to see elements from the paintings move to music. And in motion graphic artist Isaiah Cacnio’s room, guests are able to step into the artwork, immersing themselves into the projected hypnotic visuals.
In dedMan’s digital art installation, “How much do I spend to return the time I spent?” a camera on the side inserts the viewer into the animation.
Nostalgia zone
Chia Amisola’s “Kakakompyuter Mo Yan,” replicates rundown karaoke bars and internet café—complete with song lists in clear file folder, random litter on the keyboards, and an out-of-order unit. The interactive installation invites guests to try their videoke or “pisonet” machines to experience (or reexperience) Third World internet and networking cultures.
It would be hilarious if Carlo Tanseco’s “Sari-Sari Sabi-Sabi” with its sari-sari store (the niblets are actually free) were nearby so guests could pick snacks and munch on them while they surf the web. But it might be hard leaving the chichirya nostalgia zone, especially with all the surprising details and messages each artwork has in store.
At the Triangulum booth, catch the Bimpoman-E.S.L. Chen collab as they do live portraiture by scanning people’s faces and doodling on the printout. The elusive Bimpoman doesn’t want to divulge anything about using the scanned photos for any other artwork yet, but hinted that the images look pretty similar to the ones at the Fotomoto exhibit.
(And if you happen to get an itch for letting out your own creative juices, the Uniqlo booth in front of the Projects section at Tower 2 lets people do their own doodle, which they can bring to Uniqlo stores for printing their own personalized shirts.)
Visit artfairphilippines.com.
