RSH Gab Co 6 AIG Geeinace QTRnED AIRAED CNRS Cae TEBE Theo 1 Oo tea) me Nd Tips to Overcome c c J e cy The Financial Crisis A oe See Trig eer ket tres ACAF 08 New York a Jakarta Biennale Sue Laci) Ay Tjoe Christine - Chang Chien-Chi - Dolorosa Sinaga Melati Suryodarmo - Patricia Eustaguio - Yoko OnoPatricia Eustaguio Death To he tor Wea Wr at Stab JAUNTS THROUGH TIME AND SPACE iipin artist Patricia Eustaquo’s Death to the Major Vira Minor at Slab, Silverens Gallery (16 October to 22 November 22} comes at a curious juncture in the Philippine contemporary art world. Couched inthe daily headline grabbing bemoaning ofa global financial cash, it tempts at what rmght be accidental parallels—of validation processes made up of leavings and takings, hollawed out cavities once brash dedicated to blue-chips now playing sanctuary to the hurled but fil marginally insolent specular Yet thor i none soinhesently angry nor contentious about Eustaquio’s recent outing though it clearly ings with a subtle tenor cof a manifesto resolutely elevating viualty and voids, With the exhibition's musical references appearing more as mere subterfuge than direct allusions to aural experience, viewers encountering this choreographed mélange may soon enough find themselves stopped in thir tracks, not aking too long to igure out that none of it~ notwithstanding the leather keyboard, the ghost ofan upright piano et al - i actually about. S. Bach's music referenced through so 1 SPECIAL EDMON ZEN 1 ARs Elen LegospiRamier the citation of the late composer's collection of solo keyboard music, Well Tempered Clavie in both catalogue and press. Eustaquio herself ‘quickly confesses that “he works in a way are an homage to music, ‘though perhaps it ic with sight mockery that Id ths: act justified ‘only by my absolute ignorance of it” Hers is an avowedly surface- level, user's take on a reference set deliberately chosen because it ',ineffect, inaccessible Death to the Major Viva Minor simultaneously hints at the way the visual has historically been lesser regarded for its reliance ‘9m mimesis whereas music has theoretically been regarded as more agential and thus accorded undeniable specificity Pavia Fustaquio's underhanded posing ofthese distinctions imaginably stands asthe un-making of a sactalized musicological manuscript, made up ofa set of preludes and fugues easly recognizable fo those within the amt of basic music education. On an arguably, subtle level, the motley crew of objects in allusive rigor morts (a crochet caver sans piano, a violin with its innards bared, moeose images transposed from two-diension to three ot.) hints atDesh To the Mor Vis Mins tab how spaces and things variably shed off and don consequence in various sensate planes Indeed eons ago, before desktop computers and television sets bbecame the nada points that they have since become in Filipino homes, pianos were one ofthe surest indications that a family had surmounted the dass divide, Time was when any upwardly mobile ‘middle-class Pinoy parent subjected their children (musically-inctined ‘or otherwise) o a thoughi-to-be rite of passage—the learning of ‘music as cvlizing some would say hornogenizing tool with its grueling scales, finger exercises, and numbing cepetitions. All these ceremonial bouts with tuelage culminated in the seminal event of at least one public recital where both students and parents dolled up in finery cominiscent of other liesmarkes ke flamboyant debuts and weddings. Itis perhaps inthis igh thatthe reference ro Well Tempered Clavier (WTC) becomes doubly facinating evento the nompianst. Since it .was the pantonal using all 24 keys ange and summoning of abroad span of techniques and modes of expressions in its fugues that gave it «2 particularly pedagogic functionality, WTC’s Books | and Il brought the aspiring artist to reckon with the breacth and depth of music that could be cnxed out ofthis boxed instrument. Interestingly, mach has already been sad about how Bach left out prescriptive elements such as tempo in most of the pieces making up WC, thus leaving room forthe tension between the pianist playing the correct notes and interpreting the suggested emotional character or composer's intent, The term welltempered has silly sparked debate on the composer's tuning logic and has even given rise to advanced mathematicians drawing up sknulative algorithms to figure out the ‘workings of Bach’s mind inthis respect. And yet fr this particular visual spread that Eustaquio has served up ll these wiki factotds remain mere asides as she underlines instead Bach’s deliberate issolution of categories of major and minor in deference to such heuristically pertinent constructs as latitude and mulipicy. Refering back to the exhibition’ allusive tile as a einsttution of the other ars that make no claim tothe divine that musicality has canonically been accorded, we quote the artist further “Hierarchies ae inevitable and they change with time; this is what eas reminded of in my process of investigating music and the sublime. To pin weight on one over the other is commén but rot necessary. Sl ie pictures and landscapes revered in past ‘centuries are now called ‘low ar while lace-making and ceramics just never made the cut. My works therefore are also as much lanes 1 Pec eDIMON ZEEE 1121 SPEOALEDMONcmNW7 1 (AA‘about the materials they come in and the processes involved in ‘creating them, as well asthe subjects they portray” Patricia Eustaqui’s own notes and show catalogue reveal SLab the new ste which her exhibition inaugurated) vas indeed a forner piano school and this literal and metaphorical taking ver ofthe visual where classical music used to roost further allows Death co the Major Viva Minor to come across as imaging the categorical demise of stigma and hubels—the up-ending of venerated hierarchies where music’ ubiquity ironically makes it ss precious and desirable, thus leting art gt its ast laugh. Tangertilly but tingly enough, vistors to the exhibition taok home bits ofthe old plano school floor which had leen turned into funky wooden keychains by opening night. The artist's own discards-turd-ke keys which would have gone unto, the mini leather piano were also passed along to guests during the samme evening) It isin trawling through these emptied then refilled shells and carcasses, these debris come upon ingenious re-functionality laced in incongruities of material form) and signifier that allows Death to the Major to make possible a harking back to her previous explorations. We find within the adroit misusehe-use traces not only of earlier object troves but of her own process in resolving design questions. Having proven she can deftly feet tt chen 106122 108m < seta Foreground encveren, 2008 Ure Pen, 2008 Siem ino Cove at Seetdinber/2eexzivem S308 Wield the tls of couture as she can pen and brush, Patricia Eustaquia here becomes textbook illustration of forms and ideas casvally migrating across platforms. ln openly declaring her being enamored by surface, she demonstrates how the wayward cut, the seemingly misplaced seam, the disjunctive bauble paves the \way for orthodoxies to be eclipsed and new ways of perceiving 10 ‘occur, And yeti is in nodding recognition to the seductive pull of totalizing claims that the artist proposes this prettiied depiction of an otherwise traumatic toppling ofa sense of order stubbornly clinging to charged notions of history and values lean Legato-Ramitezis a writevedtorcaratc based in Mila lanes 1 SPECIAL EOTON zoOwP 1