The shoppping mall as a site for contemporary art has a certain resonance in todays society, especially in Southeast Asia where the emergence of such mega structures of identity consumerism are the signifiers of economic prosperity and stability. ARTERI wanted to share with our readers a recent project by multi-media Philippino Artist Claro Ramirez that combines Conceptual practice, the act of looking and consumption of both art and commerce into one interactive platform. (EM)

After focusing on curation and art directorial duties at the Lopez Museum and other institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and most recently at the National Museum for Sungdu-an 5, Thirteen Artist Awardee Claro Ramirez presents his newest work in the solo exhibition, No Pay Per View. Punning practices of looking and conventions linked to visuality and cognition, the multimedia artist references both iconic and everyday occurrences and draws upon images taken in and out of context to effect a more engaged viewing.

The project took shape when Crucible Gallery owner Sari Ortiga invited Ramirez to show a year ago, resulting in the first visual art video projections to be installed in any of Megamall’s galleries along its Artwalk. With No Pay Per View, the artist hopes to bring a stream of work more commonly associated with international art venues into a larger and local public context. Keenly cognizant of its own siting within a mall and in close proximity of cinemas, fitness and gaming centers; these visual signifiers find a powerful resonance in the installation.

With his most immediate visual references being the pay-per-view screenings of Manny Pacquiao’s fight with Oscar dela Hoya in December 7, 2008, multimedia artist Claro Ramirez wryly comments on how individuals willfully withdraw from routine and render the metropolis desolate and motionless, almost like the Good Fridays of yore in the Philippines where everyone was supposed to be off the streets.   In capturing this void on video, then underlining the surreality by stripping the running image of natural color, the artist renders the scene more unreal and foreboding.  On another level, the exercise (pun intended) alludes to being taken-for-granted and ritualized practices of looking at art, which like most sensory stimuli these days hardly gets masticated before being washed down by a diluted drink masquerading as hip and healthy.  In alluding to the encountering of the unfamiliar  and potentially difficult as akin to virtually immersive gaming, Ramirez attempts at visual-verbal subtexts, thought-balloons that remain heavy in the air amidst such fleeting exchanges as finding something numbing to do in the confines of the ultimate escape palace that is the mall.

“bawal mag-isip” means “don’t think” or “you are forbidden to use your brain”.
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The exhibition ran alongside the mall’s teasers of past Pacquiao boxing matches (running on TV screens a floor below the gallery).  These were promoting the next fight scheduled as a pay per view event that will run in several of the mall’s cinemas on Nov. 14.The crowd scenes are people bunching up in front of the gallery and emulate the same behavior displayed in front of the mall teasers of Pacquiao’s next match, thus creating obvious and important parallels.

(EL)

No Pay Per View was on view until November 3, 2009.