SALVATION IN A NEST OF VIPERS: LOSTprojects Manila in Y3K
Salvation in a nest of vipers is about the other side of Manila completely opposed to the photorealist trend, and rising above the picturesque. The artists making up the group exhibition are inclined towards the glut of the city, opening up a space where imagination takes a toll from the substance it springs from. It is in this space where the painters exhaust imagery in a primal and sophisticated visual language, and conjures parallel tableaux of blatant debauchery not very far from actual parades of perversions. Photography in Salvation in a nest of vipers meanwhile are straight shots of underworlds and underbellies, marking a horizon line of recoil and attraction.
About LOSTprojects
LOSTprojects is an alternative art space situated in Industrial Vallery Marikina, off track from cultural strips and commercial districts in Metro Manila. LOSTprojects is dedicated to building a more engaged community of artists, curators and alternative art spaces. It is an expanded platform of exchange primarily among artists in Manila and Australia. Likewise it exists to promote artists, who are involved in its projects, within and beyond these two regions.
Founded by Australian artist David Griggs, who has been based in Manila since early 2009, LOSTprojects was officially established through its successful participation in VOLTA6 (Basel, Switzerland) in June 2010. It was inaugurated on 1 July 2010 with its first resident artist, Pow Martinez. Since then, it has held exhibitions by Martinez, Ben Quilty and recently, Sam Kiyoumarsi.
LOSTprojects is run by David Griggs and independent curator/ art writer Siddharta Perez.
About the artists
David Griggs (b. 1975)
David Griggs was born in Sydney, 1975. He currently lives and works in Manila, Philippines. Griggs known best for his paintings, photography and installation projects works closely with various communities and artists. Creating highly active political humorous projects that have dealt with the incarceration of inmates from Manila City Jail to Halloween festivals with street kids in Santa Mesa.
Griggs’ works have been exhibited in major solo and group exhibitions through-out Australia, South East Asia and Europe. Selected exhibitions include “Exchanging Culture for Flesh” (2006) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, “Zombie Kiss” (2009) in Uplands Gallery, Melbourne, “Bastards of Misrepresentation: Doing Time on Filipino Time” (2010) in Freies Museum, Berlin and “Inversion of the Ideal” (2010) in Galerie Zimmerman-Kratochwill, Graz, Austria. He was part of the Primavera 2006 in the Museum of Contempoary Art in Sydney and “Fluid Zones”, the 2009 Jakarta Biennale.
Sam Kiyoumarsi (b.1980)
Sam Kiyoumarsi is a photographer mainly influenced by contemprorary practices in sound and visual expression. He started out as an underground musician and later on developed his interest in films, still imagery, paintings, and the visual arts.
Kiyoumarsi was represented by LOSTprojects in Volta6 Basel, Switzerland in 2010 and was featured in the group show “Absolute Winter” in Charlotte Fogh Contemporary, Denmark. He has participated in exhibitions in galleries and alternative art spaces in Manila since 2006 and recently had his solo exhibitions “A History of Bad Ideals” in Mo_space and “Inalienable Dreamless” in LOSTprojects. Kiyoumarsi runs Light and Space, an independent art space in Fairview, Metro Manila, with Pow Martinez.
Robert Langenegger (b. 1983)
Robert Langenegger studied Fine Arts in Kalayaan College and University of the Philippines. He has had six solo exhibition since 2006. His works have been featured in Freies Museum Berlin, MOP Projects Sydney, VOLTA6 in Basel and Goliath Visual Space in Brooklyn. His exhibition “Irish Bull of the mother and child” was shortlisted in the 2008 Ateneo Art Awards. He was also a Finalist in the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in the same year.
Langenegger's works are described to be “phantasmagoric carnivals of hallucinogenic, carnal carnage.” Gritty imagery are juxtaposed with cool, vapid scenery. The themes in oeuvre run from the “psychadelia of current events and world politics [to] art history, colonial reverberations and religion.”
Pow Martinez (b. 1983)
Pow Martinez studied Fine Arts at Kalayaan College and at the University of the Philippines. He has been involved in the local sound art scene aside from his four solo exhibitions in Manila. His works has been featured in exhibitions in Richard Koh Fine Art, Future Prospects, mo_space, Silverlens Lab and Freies Museum, Berlin. His exhibition in West Gallery in 2009 earned him the 2010 Ateneo Art Awards. He is also the first artist to be bestowed the studio grant in LOSTprojects. Martinez runs Light and Space, an independent art space in Fairview, Metro Manila.
Martinez creates multi-media sound installations as well as expressionistic paintings. He often paints figures in a fetishistically naïve style exploring the terrain of man’s inhumanity to man and primitive mythologies in a hard-hitting and overtly humorous way. His music and sound installations reflect the same obsession with the outrageous as his music comes from the tradition of the avant-garde.
MM Yu (b. 1978)
MM Yu received her Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Painting, from the University of the Philippines in 2001. The 13 Artists Awards was bestowed unto her in 2009 and the Ateneo Art Award and Common Room Bandung Residency Grant in 2007. She has held solo exhibitions in Metro Manila and her works have been featured in group and survey exhibitions such as “Bastards of Misrepresentation” (2010) in Freies Museum Berlin, “Inversion of the Ideal” (2010) in Galeria Zimmerman-Kratochwill in Graz, Austria, “This and That” (2009) in Triple Base, San Francisco as well as in the travelling exhibitions “CUT09: New Photography from Southeast Asia” (2009) and “Beyond Frame: Philippine Photomedia” (2008)
Austria, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, San Francisco and Singapore.
Yu's photography-based works embark on an experiment where the photograph embodies both the intentional and accidental, the found and the perceived.
