Down the Rabbit Hole

The four moons have aligned and cast a shadow of darkness over the land. The ancient gods have gathered to give the mortals a chance to save their world from destruction. They will open a portal at the Ayala Museum on October 27 and they are calling for brave heroes to go on a quest to save the world! (snapshot from Ayala Museum's I nstagram account )  That was how the mystery began at our night at the Ayala Museum this year. Instead of being detectives in a whodunit mystery thriller, we were heroes out to save the Philippine-centric world... from what, I wasn't sure because I wasn't listening too closely to the voice-over when the activity started. What we learned when we started our quest, though, was that we (once again) had to search for clues and puzzles to solve in the four public floors of the museum. And because I was at the museum a few days before this event, the possible locations of the different clues were fresh in my mind. For instance, the lo...

The Ayala Museum is one of the most accessible spots of culture for me because it's right smack in the middle of Makati's central business district. So naturally, when I meet a friend in Makati and he blurts, "Talk nerdy to me," how can I resist the pull of the museum, right? Heiko and I went to Ayala Museum one Sunday afternoon, before he left for Hanoi, Vietnam. It's certainly a different experience from when I'm touring museums with the museum hoppers. It was refreshing. Finally, I was with someone who reacted with the same flabbergasted expression I always  have when I "educate" myself on contemporary art. We both went, "That's art?!" when we saw scribbles on canvas, before moving on to the next art piece. This reaction is typical of me when I go to museums of modern art alone and don't get what the pieces are saying. I just found it surprising that someone else reacted the same way... and there's no need to act a...

Finally found the time to visit the Ayala Museum ! Thanks to the APAIR NatCon organisers for inviting me to speak on a Friday because I could go to the opening reception of Rodel Tapaya's Urban Labyrinth after my talk. Check out our new digs! Rodel Tapaya's Urban Labyrinth finally opening this Saturday, Feb 24. See you! A post shared by Ayala Museum (@ayalamuseum) on Feb 20, 2018 at 8:58pm PST Neil tagged along because his classes were already finished for the day. When we got there, there were quite a few journalists (and their staff) taking videos and interviewing people (the artist himself, in particular). We saw Aga Muhlach and Fernando Zobel de Ayala  mingling with the crowd as well. I leafed through the exhibit brochure and was quite shocked that the artist is in his 30s. He is very young and so accomplished, achieving international renown and solo exhibits around the world. It literally made me question what have I been doing in my life (for ...

Another weekday holiday brought me and my museum-hopping friends Mary, Bing, and Man to the next museum/art gallery in our checklist: the Ayala Museum ( http://www.ayalamuseum.org ). I've been there twice before (both as a student) and there were instances when Noah and I were staring at the entrance but didn't have the time to go in. Today, I had the luxury of spending an afternoon viewing dioramas that showcase snippets of Philippine history. Photography is not allowed, just like in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, so I am not posting any here. --- The 60 dioramas at the Ayala Museum divided Philippine history into various stages but not necessarily in the way it was taught to me in school. Philippine history was defined, in my history classes, based on who had occupied the Philippines at any given time: the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Japanese. Instead, the dioramas and a multimedia exhibit showed history based on how Filipinos viewed it: before colonizers, the ...

Another weekday holiday brought me and my museum-hopping friends Mary, Bing, and Man to the next museum/art gallery in our checklist: the Ayala Museum ( http://www.ayalamuseum.org ). I've been there twice before (both as a student) and there were instances when Noah and I were staring at the entrance but didn't have the time to go in. Today, I had the luxury of spending an afternoon viewing the various exhibits that showed how strong Philippine international trade relations were with the rest of the world, a common theme I have observed previously in exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum and the National Museum. The Ayala collection further showed how rich the foundations of Filipino culture are. Photography is not allowed, just like in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, so I am not posting any here. --- Gold of Ancestors. Gold has always been one of the most expensive metals worldwide. But it's not only valued by contemporary people. Even in pre-historical periods, Fili...

Intrigued by articles about the Ayala Museum, I decided to go there myself to check it out on March 31… and to try to absorb as much culture as possible. :0) Anyway, as luck would have it, I got in with a discounted admissions fee because some of the exhibit areas were closed. The only open exhibits were the dioramas about Philippine history and the paintings by Fernando Zobel and his nephew, Jaime. On the 2nd floor…  I thought I’ve seen the dioramas before (was it in fourth grade?). The gallery started with the prehistoric tableaus like the Tabon men in Palawan. Then, the arrival of Chinese and Arab merchants were protrayed in separate viewing areas. After them came the early explorations of Spaniards. The rest of the exhibits were quite predictable because they spanned the Spanish period until the Japanese occupation in the 1940s. What made that part of the museum unique was the multimedia segment. This was about the EDSA revolution in the 1980s. It featured the newspaper clips...

All Hallow's Eve... the best time to spook each other, right? Well, the Ayala Museum upped the ante by collaborating with Mystery Manila for a very memorable evening: the museum was open til midnight and visitors were turned into detectives; they were supposed to solve the mystery of the murdered curator. I was last here during the day ; I wondered what the experience would be like as a visitor at night. Fresh from solving the crime of the Century , I was raring to solve another mystery! Good thing newlyweds Noan and Joven, and their friend, BJ, were in for an adventure-filled evening. Otherwise, I'd be playing this game by myself; not as much fun as with a group.  We started off with a tour of the museum, my first time with a tour guide, starting from the third floor. As we wound through the Lunas, the Amorsolos, and finally the Zobels, we heard a shout... the tour guide has discovered the curator's body! A voice recording made by the curator...

I'm lucky that I have friends who share my enthusiasm on learning more about Philippine culture and who love to visit museums. And we do it every June 19, so far, complete with a stop over at Jose Rizal's monument at the Luneta. This year, aside from dropping by the museum at the CCP, we looked at the various art exhibits there and dropped by the nearby Metropolitan Museum in Manila. Just by looking at so many artwork from a wide range of genres, I could say (not being an expert at all) that the Philippine visual arts scene is thriving. When I first saw copies of Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo's paintings " La Barca de Aqueronte " and " Las Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho ", I understood why he won reknown as an artist: I was blown away by his depiction of adversity and discomfort and by his play with light and shadows. These paintings, including Juan Luna's " Spolarium ", are some of the best I've seen. They're priceless! As...

On my latest visit to the Ayala Museum this year, I was able to catch the exhibit curated by Federico de Vera. I haven't heard of him, most likely because I'm not part of the art circles. I'm just an occasional museum hopper who likes to visit beautiful art pieces. This time, I was about to learn what beauty is, in the eyes of famous curator de Vera. I was blown away by how he presented art pieces he picked up from other art collectors. Some of these pieces I've seen in other museums before. BUT, these are presented in a more striking manner... Instagrammable being the first word that comes to my mind. Spot lighting and subtle backgrounds really make the artworks pop. Walking through the different sections of the exhibit, I kept saying wow to myself. I liked the way that the curator presented every piece... he succeeded in putting the best face of each piece on display. There was a sense of meticulousness in the detail... not just dumping pieces together on a tab...

Still at the Living Architecture exhibit at the Ayala Museum, I was surprised to see (in an architecture exhibit) chairs that are prominently displayed. Two were by the windows, where the lighting was really good, and one had warm spotlights trained on it. I wondered, given that these chairs were treated as art pieces, were they more special than other chairs? They were given prime positions in the exhibit space, after all. The first chair I encountered was what is known as the Calvet armchair, designed by Antoni Gaudì, Spain's most famous architect (he designed the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona). I liked how this chair looks because of the colour, the finish, and the heart-shaped back. But I wondered if it's comfortable to sit on. A chair is still a chair, after all, and if I were buying this, I had to try it to see if I could sit on it for hours. It's a good thing that the Ayala Museum allowed people to try the chair. I sat on it, of course. And I foun...

The de Young Museum is one of the biggest fine arts museum I have ever seen. I felt that compared to the Ayala Museum , the de Young Museum is practically sprawling. One collection that blew me away contained the paintings from the Impressionism and the Realism schools. My absolute favourite among the paintings is the one featuring rainbows above a tropical valley. I learned that this painting, entitled "Rainy Season in the Tropics", is by Frederic Edwin Church. It's such a showstopper because it fully captured the iridescence of the rainbow and the vibrance of the tropical landscape while raining. The tropical feel is further enhanced by a zoom-in into the forest. The painting below is of a flower and a hummingbird sitting nearby. I didn't take note of the artist, unfortunately. What I like about the painting is the vividness of the colours in the flower and in the hummingbird, compared with the rest of the painting.  This sunset painting was cr...

Within the John Muir national historic site was the Juan Bautista de Anza national historic trail exhibit. I was interested in it because it's about the Spanish history of California. I was hoping to find parallels to Philippine history. After all, both the Philippines and California used to be ruled by the viceroyalty of New Spain (Acapulco). I doubted, however, that I had enough time to scratch the surface. If the Ayala Museum has dioramas , the Juan Bautista de Anza exhibit has miniatures too. These were much smaller than the dioramas so it was more challenging to take photos... I had to set my Canon Powershot  to macro mode for this. Anyway, the miniatures depicted the Spanish colonists, led by de Anza, going north to Alta California (encompassing present day California, Nevada, and Utah) through a land route. Along the way, they were able to establish settlements and missions in San Francisco , Monterey, and San Diego (among others). This expedition...

On an earlier visit to San Francisco, I visited the Museum of African Diaspora  (MoAD). This time, my cultural education took me to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). It has got to be the biggest museum of modern art that I've visited; the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad came second. For my SFMOMA trip, I was with Hanna and Dede; they were both in UC Berkeley this summer for a short course.  Dede and Hanna amidst Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing SFMOMA has seven floors filled with artwork made mostly in 1860–1970 (the modern art period). I have always found appreciating the pieces from this period challenging and I'm happy that I wasn't alone. Hanna and Didi were on the same boat. But that did not stop us from enjoying our visit to the museum. After all, aside from seeing artwork, we also had good views of San Francisco's skyscrapers. From an upper floor, we could clearly see the Salesforce Building (currently the city's tallest) towering ...