Lani Maestro and Manuel Ocampo for the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017

May 13, 2017

The Drawing Room congratulates artists Lani Maestro and Manuel Ocampo and curator Joselina Cruz!

 

“The title of this exhibition The Spectre of Comparison is drawn from the novel Noli Me Tángere by the Filipino National Hero Jose Rizal. Originally written in Spanish as “el demonio de las comparaciones,” this enigmatic phrase is a framework for the practices of Lani Maestro and Manuel Ocampo, artists representing the Philippine Pavilion.

 

The phrase encapsulates the experience of Rizal’s protagonist, Crisostomo Ibarra, when he gazes out to look at the Botanical Garden of Manila while simultaneously remembering the gardens of Europe. This double-vision of experiencing events up close and from afar, no longer able to see the Philippines without seeing Europe nor gaze at Europe without seeing the Philippines, was pointed out by historian Benedict Anderson in his essay “The First Filipino” (1997): “Here indeed is the origin of nationalism, which lives by making comparisons.” Rizal, the nineteenth century indio from the colony, with some melancholy, comprehended the colonising European other.

 

With this as pivot, Lani Maestro’s and Manuel Ocampo’s practices, aesthetically worlds apart and produced through a multiplicity of contexts, have at their core this “spectre of comparison.” Both artists were politicised by the specific moments of their departure from the Philippines: Maestro leaving at the height of the Marcos dictatorship, Ocampo during the 1980s, after the Marcos regime was ousted in a revolution mounted by a society deeply dissatisfied with the ensuing corruption that followed Martial Law. Although their practices developed at different moments, they were forged within the “collective” experience of the émigrés spectre.”

 

 – Excerpt from e-flux

 

Lani Maestro and Manuel Ocampo
The Spectre of Comparison
May 13–November 26, 2017

News

Highlights at Frieze Seoul 2024

Frieze Seoul returns to COEX in Gangnam, 4 – 7 September 2024, with more than 110 galleries offering an in-depth view of Korea’s art scene alongside that of Asia and the world. This year’s fair also coincides with major art biennials in Gwangju and Busan.

Read More »
News

Leeum Museum of Art 2024 Art Spectrum: Dream Screen

Leeum Museum of Art proudly presents 2024 Art Spectrum Dream Screen, bringing together works by 26 Asian artists in the Millennial and post-Millennial generations to navigate the generation’s facilitated perception of the body from experiencing the world mediated through screens.

Read More »