Silver Lens GalleryConcurrent with the exhibition 18 Stations to Death and Dementia, Silver Lens Gallery is hosting an artist's talk by Yason Banal followed by a spirited conversation with Carlos Celdran, entitled It’s a Crazy Planets: Starlets, Dementia and Pop Deathsthetics. The Artist’s Talk & Conversation is on September 10, Saturday from 5 to 8pm at Silver Lens Gallery. The exhibit will run up to September 17 and is accompanied by a catalog. The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm. Please call 8160044 for more information. Admission is free.
“Ceasing to be themselves, people who have become icons eventually become part of a theoretical system with a whole production set of concepts, laws and affects fueled by a life of its own, particularly visual culture.”
Taking off from the real life stabbing of former first lady Imelda Marcos to former first daughter Kris Aquino's horrifyingly acted slasher films, Yason Banal fills up the Silver Lens Gallery this month with an exhibition that weaves illusion and reality as well as fantasy and gore, providing a stage for high art, show business, soft porn and religion to collide in all their glorious mysteries. Entitled “18 Stations to Death & Dementia," the eclectic, often quirky show features film, landscape and performance stills, as well as text, installation and video, fused together into an extravaganza of ideas and colors, stars and starlets, and a suicide note.
Yason Banal worked on a three year art project called Third Space from 1998-2000 and right thereafter headed off to England to do an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London as well as a Certificate in Experimental Fashion at Central Saint Martin’s, The London Institute. He has also worked at the Royal Academy of Art, Proud Gallery, Britart.com and PM Gallery, and served as Artist-in-Residence and part-time tutor at the London Metropolitan University. He has shown his work internationally, including Horniman Museum in the UK, Rijksakademie in Netherlands, Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen in Austria, Akademie Schloss Broellin in Germany and Oslo Kunsthall in Norway . He is currently Artist in Residence at Big Sky Mind Artist Projects’ Foundation, Friday columnist for the Philippine Star and lecturer at De La Salle University.
Carlos Celdran is a Manila based multi-media artist. An alumni of the Rhode Island School of Design, Carlos worked with Blue Man Group, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Ma-Yi Theatre Co. and Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City before moving back to Manila in 1998. He is also the co-founder and artistic director of the performance art company, Walang Pamagat Productions, from the years 1992 to 1999. But for the last three years, Carlos has been performing highly theatrical walking tours of Manila's heritage districts almost every weekend. His most popular performance piece, "If These Walls Could Talk", has even been featured in Time Magazine Asia-Pacific Edition, Australian Financial Review, and The Peninsula Magazine. Log onto celdrantours.blogspot.com for more information.
