Solo exhibition by Poklong Anading
22 June to 3 August, 2019
1335MABINI Gallery
C1B Karrivin Plaza, Chino Roces Ave., Extension
Makati City, Metro Manila, the Philippines
Poklong Anading’s spectrum of work ranges from video, installation, photography, drawing and painting. Poklong Anading (Manila, 1975) studied art at the University of the Philippines and he graduated in 1999. Hence, his current show marks two decades of his practice. And it is, therefore, timely that the exhibition centers around a series he started during his final phase at art school: Line Drawing.
Line Drawing is a process-oriented project and each iteration starts as a series of horizontal lines drawn onto a surface. While walking and drawing the lines with one hand, the other hand video-tapes the lines being drawn. The camera thus records what is in effect a performance and at the same time functions as a drawing tool just like the pencil. The resulting video becomes not only a video work but also a virtual drawing.
This doubling effect – of drawing by one hand and recording by the other hand what the first hand draws – questions the power of the eye, naked or not, and the observable. Poklong indicates that to be able to ‘see’ we need to come into direct contact and we need physical interaction to make contact. And for him, drawing is an elementary gesture to establish contact.
Walking, drawing and recording himself drawing is an immersive process. He walks and walks. Perhaps he walks to find an answer to an itching question. Or perhaps he walks to find a question to an answer.
He pauses, ponders and sharpens his dulled pencil – the pencil shavings drop on the floor and gradually accumulate into a sculpture of sorts along the way where he traversed.
Through an embodied intimacy and self-reflexive presence, Poklong responds to the contingencies of his body, place and time. His hands make marks while gesturing towards and embracing of a not-knowing. The instability and fluidity of our current being in the world is signified by one constant: currents of change.
Poklong traces the rhythms, patterns and textures of the hidden structures of flows: sharing an elevator ride with strangers in silence accompanied by a nondescript soundtrack; the city’s sewer system, which only becomes unhidden when it overflows onto the street due to clogging; electricity penetrating walls into our households to serve us until the next black-out; waterways and gateways; service roads, fly-overs and construction sites – the relentless circular movements of our lifelines. How is energy moved through and stored in these arteries of our body and our city?
This exhibition can be considered a stopover platform: an invite to pause and re-think the markers of dis/connections.
Poklong takes part in the most important biennales in Asia and exhibitions world-wide. He is an awardee of the 12th Gawad CCP (Manila, Philippines) for Experimental Video in 2000, of the Thirteen Artists Award (Manila, Philippines) in 2006, and of the Ateneo Artists Awards (Manila, Philippines) in both 2006 and 2008. His works are included in the permanent collections of Singapore Art Museum, Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan) and Guggenheim Museum (NY, USA).
