Mark Salvatus: Courtyard
October 17 – November 14, 2009
PABLO Gallery Fort, Manila

It seems that Mark Salvatus has committed himself to a lifetime project of examining “spaces” – public, private and whatever that are in between. Working closely with the inmates who inhabit them, Salvatus captures the state of these communities through the objects that belong directly to or are loosely associated with the occupants.

In Courtyard, Salvatus provides a semi-fictional version of his Manila City Jail immersion, investigating into cultural elements of the community, such as local gang logos that marked territorial borders in the prison itself and tattoos that designate individual inmates.

A “courtyard” is an enclosed space  that opens out skyward. By mapping the compound using google earth, Salvatus offers an aerial view of the Bilibid (Manila City Jail) prison. Essential to Courtyard,this map serves as a point of reference to the place in question. With an idea of remaking or reinventing the space through his art, he embarks on a whodunit narrative based on historical riots in Manila City Jail between two rival gangs. Working with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology as well as the prison inmates, Salvatus facilitates the birth of  new narratives from within the courtyard.

The aerial view of the compound formed by Salvatus’s ‘wrapped’ drawings conceals as well as reveals the existence of secretly hand made weapons that were used in prison fights. Here, he places them traced and “wrapped” as confiscated objects as an “evidence wall”. The value of objects is once again emphasised as is often the case with Salvatus’ oeuvre. Things are symbols of themselves. Pretty much, an improvised makeshift knife that killed is an improvised makeshift knife that killed.

“Do or die” is far from an existential cry. It is a gang slogan – words as objects/form themselves. It is also much so that an evidence of a crime scene do not say “why” foremost but confirms the “what”. Likewise, Salvatus considers the art objects being constitutive parts of a whole. And in Courtyard, the artworks – adaptations and variants – ultimately hint at and clue us in on the narrative of an existing community that Salvatus has re-constructed and remade.

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Siddharta Perez