The Vargas Museum's new exhibit opens the door to questions on displacement, belongingness, and the status quo
There's a certain abstraction that comes with the new exhibit at UP Diliman, one that can be hard to grasp, at least at first.
At the entrance, guests are greeted by a litter of sculptural sea urchins both antagonistic and plentiful. They are black, sharp, and obviously out of place. Bree Johnson, an artist known for incorporating ferocity into her work, has created these as a disorienting centrepiece to "Displace, Embody", a new exhibit now being hosted at the Vargas Museum.
Walking through the spacious rooms of the museum itself, one will notice that its current artworks are rebellious and challenging of perspectives. They evoke a feeling of disorientation, one that is akin to the feeling of staring at an Escher for a minute too long. There's an uncertainty about how to understand the subject at hand, leading one to wonder: why has it been placed this way and what comment does it make about society today?
The two keywords presented are, obviously enough, "Displace" and "Embody". But to shorten it further, Vargas Musuem has put it in a context of prefixes: "Trans", which speaks of time and space, and "dis-" which is the "inflected resistance" to the forces of a supposed society. In other words, it is the displacement of an object and how such—whether human, animal or mere thing—relates or rebels to its new surrounding. Some pieces speak on "transborder sex work", others in mutated animals, and one on mutilated fruits.
Patipat Chaiwitesh's Surgery Project features bananas that have been assaulted by corkscrews, nails, springs, and metal. It's a thought-provoking piece, one that carries a striking contrast (the sweet, soft fleshiness of a banana and cold hard metal) that it cannot be ignored.
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