EXHIBIT REVIEW: LOOB by Renato Habulan and Alfredo Esquillo
1:48 AMRenato Habulan and Alfredo Esquillo were like locals as they talked about their interesting world of Loob. The Loob exhibit centers on the context of the folk religious emanating from the streets of Quiapo. This has been a long overdue sequel to the primary reflections made by the duo in National University of Singapore Museum in 2012-2013.
 |
| Mga Boses ni Alfredo Esquillo |
 |
| Renato Habulan and Alfredo Esquillo |
 |
| Potensiya Series |
 |
| Loob Exhibit |
The indwelling of the artists with loob borders on the nucleus of the soul and the inner nature of the heart. The flesh with which they hinge on is a rather satisfying instrument of their faith. Religion is a painstakingly vulnerable thing. It may lead you to self-donation or self-absorption according to John Haughey. It may well as be considered salvation or damnation.
As you step in Vargas Museum in the University
of the Philippines, you would feel that a whole new milieu unfolds in front of
you just like being in a foreign city. You recognize things and elements but
not quite the way you are used to. The sight of things are exotic yet
pleasurable and it would take an immersion a local could only give you.
Renato Habulan, a graduate of University of the
East Fine Arts, is a storyteller of some sorts. He took religious items like
the anting-anting, tungkod and takatak in such a way that it packages
areas and aspects of people found near the Quiapo church. The andador he considers as a work in
progress narrates perfectly the paces one has to endure to get to finality. His
most priced work, the sagradong pwesto
displays man’s struggle to live his daily life.
Alfredo Esquillo, a degree holder in Painting
from the University of Sto. Tomas, worked with materials like the pineapple fiber
to confine the ray of grace he calls as the potencia.
This thin thread of power harasses the very being of the believer. The frequent
subject of his photographs, Mang Lauro,
claims to be the Kristong Hari of the new Jerusalem. Religion for him is a lived
experience, something to be involved at firsthand. This idea has garnered him a
little following that strengthened his claim on an inexistent place only he
knows. Esquillo believed that this force of the loob manifested its way into the labas, something which you cannot take away from the original self.
Farther away into the corner, the artists
concluded our journey with dyptic forms of art, one that shows Mang Lauro and his entitlement to the
world and the other, the commoner’s way of adoration. The artists have set
different conditions of faith, obviously laying out methods to reach our own
true destiny. The question is which will one lead to salvation and which will
lead to damnation?
Exhibition
runs until August 22, 2014 at the Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines.
0 (mga) komento