Continuing with our programming this year, Artemis Art will be soon be heading to Manila, where we will be participating in Art Fair Philippines 2020, which celebrates its 8th edition this year. Held at The Link, a multi-storey car park facility completely transformed for the fair, our participation this year will feature six artists from Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines: Ajim Juxta, Dedy Sufriadi, Dennis Bato, Gatot Indrajati, Ronald Apriyan, and Taufik Ermas.

Our appearance this year marks the third time that Artemis Art is participating in this art fair, which takes place from Friday, 21 February until Sunday, 23 February, with the preview and vernissage taking place on Thursday, 20 February, 2020. This year, Artemis Art will be exhibiting at booth 27, located on Level 6, one of the 50 or so Filipino and international galleries that will be participating.

Visit Art Fair Philippines 2020’s website for a full listing of galleries taking part this year.  

Getting There

Art Fair Philippines 2020 takes place at The Link, Ayala Center, Makati (link opens in Google Maps). Every year, the multi-storey carpark complex is transformed into an art venue, making AFP a somewhat unique art fair in the region. This year, Artemis Art will be at Booth 27 on Level 6 of The Link building.

Use the location map (shown on the right) or visit Art Fair Philippines 2020’s Visitor Information page for details on how to get to the venue and for ticketing information.

click on the image to view a larger map, or visit Art Fair Philippines 2020’s visitor information page.

Art Fair Philippines 2020 marks Ajim Juxta’s second appearance at the art fair, and his first as a main booth participant. No stranger to the Philippines, you may recall that apart from being shown as part of Vinyl on Vinyl’s backroom last year, Ajim also had his solo exhibition shown at VoV in June 2019. 

For his participation this year, we will be showing a mix of the artist’s acrylic painting and ink on paper works. The Dystopians, “inhabitants” of Ajim’s Arcology universe, will be the focus of his works for this year’s participation, a critique of humankind today, cloaked in the mysterious environment of a possible trajectory the world may find itself in the future.

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Unlike many artists whose works change in style over time, abstract artist Dedy Sufriadi has several concurrent series and groupings that he has maintained across his career as an artist. For this year’s Art Fair Philippines, Dedy revisits his Childish Series and presents four artworks from this ongoing visual style. 

Art Fair Philippines 2020 marks Dedy’s third appearance at the fair, where he debuted in our participation back in 2018, followed by a solo showing in last year’s edition. The artworks exhibited in this year’s edition are among the first the artist has produced this year. Although the artist is best known for his text-based works, abstract figurations are also a prominent component of his art overall. The collection of works selected for this year’s AFP introduces another facet to the multifarious visual styles that form Dedy’s repertoire. 

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Our participation in this year’s Art Fair Philippines marks the first time we are directly exhibiting Dennis Bato, a young artist from the Philippines. Similar to Ajim Juxta, Dennis received his tertiary education in the field of architecture, a field that has given the artist a unique way of looking at and assessing the world around him, deconstructing what is obvious to uncover insights and questions that allude to how society works. Or more succinctly, doesn’t work.

I Really, Really, the installation artwork Dennis will be exhibiting with us, takes a critical look at consumerism, the obsession many in society have of acquiring stuff, often not because of real need, but because of perceived wants, and the idea that without these objects, life will somehow not be complete. Do expensive designer products or gadgets become necessary to make our lives whole? Or have we in fact played into a social order that demands us to consume and procure more, an order that ultimately is designed to benefit the producer, not the consumer?

Hard questions such as these are the hallmark that underscore Dennis Bato’s artistic practice, as the artist attempts to deconstruct societal phenomena, to arrive at the root of what makes us what we have become.   

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Gatot Indrajati’s affinity for wood is something that has its roots from the time he was a young child. Growing up, he fashioned his own superhero toys from wood that he found, unable to afford the ready-made plastic ones like what his friends possessed. His love for wood stayed with Gatot until adulthood, playing an important role in the artist’s practice. 

Artemis Art’s participation in this year’s AFP marks the first time Gatot’s works are being shown in the Philippines, and also the first time we will be featuring his Acrylic on Pine Wood paintings in an art fair. Accompanying this will be a couple of his wooden sculpted toys.

His depiction of wooden toys are playful social critiques, the subjects of the artist’s works metaphors for those whom have become playthings of the more powerful people society, a phenomenon that exists in may societies the world over, but something that is not often acknowledged. 

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Originally from Prabumulih in South Sumatra, Ronald Apriyan’s artworks articulate the artist’s own experiences and observations, through the lens of children’s innocence and joyfulness expressed in the drawings and paintings they create.

The colorful artworks by Ronald, rendered in his unique style, borrow from current pop culture and often contain interesting takes on very recognizable icons, are subtle critiques about human nature as observed by the artist. Ronald sees a certain truth in rudimentary drawings and paintings created by children and is frequently left in awe by the colors and lines expressed by them. This observation has become an inspiration for the artist in his own paintings, creating his own fantastical scenes elicited from the innocent imaginative creations of children.

For Ronald, his canvas becomes a diary, his stories told in colors, forms, and lines. His art evokes pure joy, an expression of his own joie de vivre, created to be shared with art lovers, in their own quest to find morsels of joy and happiness in life.

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In 2006, Taufik Ermas almost lost his life in the tragic earthquake that shook the city of Yogyakarta, where he lives and works. He was rescued from the rubble in which he was trapped when the structure he was in collapsed, but the experience of being trapped within treacherously constricted space during his ordeal, not knowing whether he would survive, has become an important driver in the development of his work. The trauma of this ordeal is something Taufik continues to grapple with today, many years after his near-death experience. It has led him to reevaluate his outlook to life, and in relation to this, his approach to art.

Taufik’s current series of paintings utilizes a technique the artist calls Contoured Relief, a method of modifying canvas surfaces, creating physical contours on the surface of the canvas. These traces resemble silhouettes that are incorporated into his paintings, in addition to paint and brushstrokes. Ideas that the artist wishes to convey are physically manifested in the works, an added dimension to the area and depth common to paintings, producing a new take on what “painting” is all about. 

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The eCatalog for our participation in this year’s Art Fair Philippines may be read online below, or if you wish, it may be downloaded via this link (compressed lo-res PDF format). Should you wish to have a high-resolution version of the catalog you may request a copy by contacting us at in**@ar***************.com.