It’s not really a confabulation (if you believe it)
Gajah Gallery opened a rather spacious new gallery recently, a short walk up a loading dock on Pioneer St. leading to the opening exhibit, “Confabulations: A Fantasy of the Real,” curated by Joyce Toh. Fittingly, it was mix of Filipino, Singaporean and Indonesian artists filling the new space, including BenCab, Charlie Co, Erizal As, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih, Jemana Murti, Kawayan de Guia, Kiri Dalena, Leslie de Chavez, Mangu Putra, Marina Cruz, Mark Justiniani, Nona Garcia, Rosit Mulyadi, Rudi Mantofani, Suzann Victor, and Yunizar.
Since its founding in 1996, Gajah’s strategy has been to deepen artistic networks across Asia. The gallery has earned a reputation for nurturing long-term relationships with artists, staging museum-quality exhibitions, and fostering critical discourse through collaborations with leading curators and institutions worldwide.
We’ve seen the cross-pollination of artists from Manila and Singapore to Yogyakarta’s sculpture labs to galleries in Jakarta. It’s part of what Toh calls “opening up a conversation between art and artists of Southeast Asia.”
Now they have a new home in Manila, which can only increase the dynamic exchange.
“I work with Philippine artists, but it made more sense to ask: what is Gajah doing here?” says the Singapore-based curator, noting that Makati is already “art central” while this Mandaluyong area—hough close to Kapitolyo—is still less explored. “I think we wanted to bring much more of a conversation about Southeast art to this space, rather than just showing Filipino art.”
For Toh, the title “Confabulations: A Fantasy of the Real” undercuts the idea that a personal vision of the truth is necessarily a “lie.” “The word is actually a kind of malfunction of memory,” she says. When someone tells a story that’s a false memory, like, “Yesterday I bought apples at the market,” it’s not meant to mislead. “I’m not actually lying to you, because my mind actually believes it to be true. So it’s not a deception or a lie, but it is a falsehood.”
That kind of open-ended approach to reality, she feels, applies to the Philippines a lot.
“There is something very fantastical about the realities here. Living conditions here can be harsh or difficult, but there is something fantastical” in the ways of dealing with it. A kind of magical thinking.
“This idea started to bounce around in my mind. I felt the Philippines could embrace a lot of ‘isms.’” She felt Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines “vibe quite well in terms of energies. But they don’t have the opportunity to speak that much.”
She points to a large panel by Java artist Rosit Mulyadi, “The Unfinishable,” that takes off from a Hidalgo work showing a young girl painting. The canvas image and deep background colors are scrubbed, leaving ample space to overlay messages such as “SURPLUS TRAGEDY MINUS EMPATHY” and “MORE FORMALISM TO DISTRACT US FROM REALITY PLEASE.” It does vibe well here, as much as Java.
Toh leads me around to a pair of Charlie Co works side by side—“Mother and Child” pieces, a consistent theme for this Filipino artist, yet almost unrecognizable in style: completely abstract, using thick impasto modeling paste set into boxes. It’s Co’s reflection on war conflicts and its effect on those on the ground. “It doesn’t look like the Charlie we know,” Toh says, “yet he’s still experimenting, able to surprise us and himself.”
Gajah has always been able to pair artists and pieces you wouldn’t necessarily connect. Curation is the key. “Usually, I’ll come up with a curatorial concept, ask what artists they respond to well, kind of just to start a conversation, then a sort of ping-ponging goes back and forth.” There are 3D-printed works in an immersive cobalt blue by Jemana Murti that feel almost uncanny; a Mark Justiniani zoetrope called “Fluxer” where the image never quite resolves into clarity; a thick impasto rectangle called “Red, I Am” by Singapore’s Jane Lee that is both flag and huge cake; and a bemusing Leslie de Chavez bronze of a corpulent figure on a throne called “Coat of Arms.”
Based on this cross-pollinating opening, Pioneer Street could become the next art hub in Metro Manila.
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“Confabulations: A Fantasy of the Real” is at Gajah Gallery, 125 Pioneer St., Mandaluyong. Visit www.facebook.com/gajahgallery/ or Instagram @gajahgallery.
