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FATHERS OF INVENTION Currently on show at the Ayala Museum, the exhibit Pioneers of Philippine Art brings together three painters considered as trailblazers of Philippine art: Juan Luna, Fernando Amorsolo, and Fernando Zobel. Distinguished for being the "first" in their respective careers, their interesting juxtaposition is a history lesson in itself. (Read more?)

CCP REDUX With its sweeping wave-like curves overhung by a monolithic slab and set against the backdrop of Manila Bay, the Cultural Center of the Philippines easily inspires awe, if not trepidation, in the ordinary passerby. This was quite the intended effect, as it was envisioned by then-First Lady Imelda Marcos to be the "Cultural Pantheon" of the Philippines. Besides the classical allusion, the fortress-like structure was also conceived as "the repository of the Filipino soul" (a somewhat disturbing image for those who believe in an after-life). (Read more?)

BEHOLD, REJOICE! MARKUS HIGHWAY IS HERE NAH One month after The Reunion that plunged legions of music lovers into a bipolar disorder--swinging from breathless anticipation to defensive incredulity--that ended only with a mad scramble for tickets at the 11th hour, it's surprising how calmly the Eraserheads fans have gone back to their lives. (Read more?)

THIS WORLD IN PHOTOGRAPHS In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, photographer Walker Evans, along with writer James Agee, traveled across the American Midwest, documenting the lives of impoverished sharecroppers. The result was the collaboration called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men which was both a paean and a dirge to the lives of the toiling masses. (Read more?)

MAN OF THE GOLDEN HOUR Dappled in golden sunlight, a bedimpled girl smiles at us. The green mangoes that she seems to be coyly offering echo the shape of her face. With her full lips, pert nose, and eyes that hint of mischief, she could be the girl next door but for her clothes and accoutrements. (Read more?)

THE SECRET LIFE OF CHAIRS A chair is still a chair even when there's no one sitting there goes an old song but a rock can also be a chair--for as long as there's somebody sitting there. It is a linguistic fact that we have no single word for a piece of furniture fitting Webster's "a seat typically having four legs and a back for one person"... (Read more?)

MORE THAN SKIN DEEP Of all subjects in art, the nude has long been considered as one of the mainstays and a genre unto itself. Academically speaking, skill in depicting the human form is part and parcel of earning one's chops as an artist. In many cases, the resulting combination of lines and curves is not much more than an exercise in topographical draftsmanship... (Read more?)

LOOKING FOR LEE Say "Pinoy punk" and one of the first names that come to mind is Romeo "Wild Thing" Lee. Ever since he first made it to the cover of WHO Magazine back in the 80's in full punk regalia, Lee has been the posterboy of doing things "My Way," the Sex Pistols version. (Read more?)

DONG ABAY IS BACK And how. At a packed gig at mag:net Katipunan last October 22, Dong Abay showed everyone that, really, he never left. With the same passion that drove him and his music to the forefront of the 90's Pinoy rock scene with the now-legendary Yano... (Read more?)

THE DIGITAL FILM REVOLUTION When one speaks of a "Golden Age" of Philippine cinema, one invariably looks back with nostalgia at the Seventies and Eighties when the likes of Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal made films that mirrored the realities of those troubled times. Now, over twenty years later, Brocka and Bernal have long been gone and the times are troubled still. (Read more?)

OF MERMAIDS AND EMPIRES Back in 1574, when the roundness of the world was hardly more than an obscure piece of information, a map was not just a scaled correspondence on paper of actual geographical features--much as if one had taken a piece of tracing-paper to the world--but a record and promise of adventures not for the faint of heart. (Read more?)

SITTING AMOK AND MORE It is almost conventional wisdom frequently mentioned among certain circles that nobody writes poetry anymore or, in the case of writers who feel that they are not getting their due, that nobody reads poetry anymore. If one were to take them at their word, it is as if there existed a time when people spoke in iambic pentameter and went around with a book of poetry in one hand and a lily in the other. (Read more?)

BOYS DO CRY Valentine's Day, for those of us who haven't had it dinned into our heads often enough, is not just a day. It is the entire month of February if not the "season" between New Year's Day and school graduations. It is when the malls break out in a red rash and... (Read more?)

GETTING DIRTY Ang Pamilyang Kumakain ng Lupa, as the opening credits would have you believe, is not a film by Khavn de la Cruz. It was introduced at its premiere, however, by someone who looked and sounded suspiciously like Khavn in a yellow raincoat but who called himself "Bembol Brocka" of the Brockas... (Read more?)

A WORTHY PROJECT 1936: Federico Garcia Lorca is executed, his body thrown into an unmarked grave. 1937: Picasso begins painting Guernica a week after German bombers wipe out the defenseless Basque town. 1939: Miguel Hernández is sentenced to death. Who is Miguel Hernández? With grace and honesty, Dulaang UP, in cooperation with Instituto Cervantes, introduces us to the life, poetry and struggle of the man whom Neruda called "the face of Spain"... (Read more?)

THE OPEN THEATER AND THE THEATER BENEATH THE SAND The theater in the open air or the theater beneath the sand? Thus Federico Garcia Lorca in his long-suppressed play, El Publico, presents the difficult if not painful choice between living in self-deception and truth, illusion and reality. The open air seduces us with its languid ease... (Read more?)

OF GHOSTLY CHAIRS, INFLATABLES AND CR GRAFFITI It was with some trepidation that I went to the opening of an exhibit Wednesday night at Crowded House, Vinzon's Hall, University of the Philippines-Diliman. A friend of mine was one of those exhibiting and the prospect of having to rethink a friendship because of artistic differences is never pleasant to contemplate. (Read more?)