Lingua Franca

Art in the Midst of Pandemic

Virtual Exhibition

June 16 – 29, 2020

Art Talk
June 16 | 3 PM

Galerie Roberto
Molito Lifestyle Extension Building, Madrigal Avenue corner Commerce Avenue, Alabang, 1776 Muntinlupa City

𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐚: 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜

The internet speaks in tongues, atomized into binary code. The rapid flow of 0’s and 1’s channeled across the air and optic cables has opened up superhighways of communication, altogether demolishing the divide between the real and virtual so that each is embedded in the other. The sudden divergence from physical spaces has presented new paradigms for exhibitions to address.

Lingua Franca gathers 29 works from artists practicing across different locales in Luzon and Visayas. Galerie Roberto’s online space can be navigated with a browser, instead of two feet. Here, it is always daytime, and white light floods in through the high windows. Light, shadow, and space exist. It’s a prompt to reimagine notions of what it means to engage with a work when a virtual image is the art object itself; and what it means to explore the possibilities of a new language channeled through technological pathways.

Amidst the chaos of glossolalia at large, art adapts and resurfaces–not that it has escaped societal collapse unscathed. The structures once thought to be constant have fragmented into cells of isolation. Though the bodies cannot gather at Molito, they are embodied in pixel, and are transmitted nonetheless.

Here, the endless replication and transmission of images can be embraced, leaving the art free to continue treading grounds that resist quantification. Each work still emanates from artistic practices across a range of different disciplines, and these statements happen to precipitate in pixels instead of physical objects. Through the space, these lived realities coexist and are allowed to collide or coincide, or rocket off into a separate plane altogether.

A lingua franca, after all, is still a language that comes with its own parameters. There are notions it may never fully translate–but it has words that only it can articulate as well. Art is able to communicate in ways visually-manifested, while continuing to convey latent meanings that are present even if unspoken. Amongst the white noise and static, a common denominator carves out grounds for deliberation, dissent, and reflection. The resulting imaginings could steer our collective compass past the debris, towards the next horizon.

𝘞𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘺 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘙𝘦𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢

Art Talk

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀 lives and works in Manila, Philippines. Calling his overall artistic practice as “Salvage Projects”. He was part of recent group exhibitions namely Lahore Biennale 2020; Transient Museum of a Thousand Conversations, ISCP, New York (2020); Site-Specific Art in Post LCC Era, Kyoto Art Center (2020); Cue from Life Itself, Metropolitan Museum of Manila (2020) and Entry into a Creature. From Social Sculpture to Platform Capitalism, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin (2020). He is also the co-founder and busy working with Load na Dito Projects, a mobile art site that explores various modes of producing and presenting contemporary art.

Catch him live at 𝟯:𝟬𝟬 𝗣𝗠 𝗼𝗻 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝟲 only here on Galerie Roberto FB page.

𝗝𝗮𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗮 𝗜𝗜 is based in Maginhawa Street, Quezon City, active as a visual artist and as a video director for the advertising and the music industry. He is the founder and creative director of a multimedia art collective for cultural exchange called Bliss Market Laboratory (BMLab). A part-time teacher in Asia Pacific College under the Multimedia Arts Department and the in-house Curator for CANVAS.PH, a Non Profitable Organization that believes that children with art and stories can change the world.

He was a grantee of Jenysys Programme for Creators by the Japan Foundation in 2010, A delegate for Asahi Art Festival Tohoku Study Program and Co-Curator for Alternating Currents Exhibition in PICA, Perth Australia in 2011 under Japan Foundation. A grantee of Arts Network Asia Singapore in 2012, The Asia Center Cultural Exchange Program by the Japan Foundation in 2018 and Rikuzentakata Artist-in-Residence Iwate Japan in 2013, 2016 and 2019.

He is currently writing his first feature film to be realized in Japan under the supervision of the Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop Batch 24. Lastly, he is a father and friend to a 7 year old boy named Sunday.

Catch him live at 𝟰:𝟬𝟬 𝗣𝗠 𝗼𝗻 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝟲 only here on Galerie Roberto FB page.

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