The Ateneo Art Gallery has named its winners for this year’s Ateneo Art Awards! Three (3) winners were chosen out of the 12 shortlisted entries for the Prizes for Visual Art, while two (2) winners were chosen out of the four shortlisted entries for the Prizes in Art Criticism. Meanwhile, there were special awards for the visual artists as well, including People’s Choice and Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize.
Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art Winners
- Keb Cerda – “Super Nardo: False Profits”
- Costantino Zicarelli – “Years of Dust Will Build A Mountain”
- Archie Oclos – “Lupang Hinirang”
The three artists will be eligible for international artist residency grants funded by Ateneo Art Gallery and its partner institutions.
Zicarelli is the recipient of the La Trobe University artist residency grant in Australia, and actually also won back in 2017. His winning piece, “Years of Dust Will Build A Mountain,” is an amalgamation of different practices and media he explored in the past, this time creating from graphite-rendered illustrations as well as making use of glass and random objects he found and collected.
As for Cerda, he receives the Liverpool Hope University grant in United Kingdom. “Super Nardo: False Profits” is a parody of Super Mario. His exhibit comes with its own mobile game that is integrated to his works. The game and the paintings show viewers an interpretation of the financial industry.
Oclos receives the Artesan Gallery + Studio grant in Singapore. Aside from his Fernando Zóbel Prize for Visual Art, Archie Oclos has also won over museum visitors’ hearts with his “Lupang Hinirang” and is the recipient of the People’s Choice award. “Lupang Hinirang” is Oclos’ depiction of the social injustices and oppression brought about by the Philippine government’s war on drugs.
Aside from the three winners, the Ateneo Art Gallery also awarded Doktor Karayom with the Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize. His work, “Isla Inip,” a game about Doktor Karayom’s homeland, will be bought to build the Embassy of Italy’s collection of Philippine contemporary art.
Purita Kalaw–Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism Winners
- John Alexis Balaguer – Everywhere is Here: The Museum as Heterotopia in Mark Higgins’ Gold in Our Vains
- Mariah Reodica – Saltwater Trajectories: Bisan Tubig Di Magbalon, and Viva Excon as Cartographer
According to Ada Ledesma-Mabilangan of the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation, Inc.: “The prize honors excellence in writing, research, analysis, and knowledge of the art.”
The Prizes in Art Criticism has propelled the careers of its winners in the past six years and this year, the winners will write for The Philippine Star and ArtAsiaPacific Magazine.
Balaguer will write six articles within a one-year period for the bi-monthly publication, ArtAsiaPacific Magazine, while Reodica will have a regular column under “Platforms” in the Arts and Culture section of The Philippine Star.
Both Balaguer and Reodica will also contribute to the 9th edition of Perro Berde, an annual publication of the Embassy of Spain and Instituto Cervantes. Perro Berde provides Spanish and Filipino artists, writers, and researches a venue for interaction and cultural dialogue.
After more than a decade since the inception of the awards, the set of winners for the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art is now on its 16th batch, while the Purita Kalaw–Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism is on its 6th.
Congratulations to all the awardees! For those who want to see the winning works as well as those that made the shortlist for the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art, you can still catch them at the Ateneo Art Gallery in Areté until the 27th of October, 2019.
