PRONOUNCED IDENTITIES
(special exhibit)
James Fowler
Bulacan, Philippines
James Fowler
Comedy wearing the mask of tragedy
2020
As seen in the photograph, a shrouded man is holding a circular mirror that serves as a mask. It represents that the form of comedy reflects on tragic realities. When comical acts gets bleaker and exhibits absurd statements that tackles real world issues and happenings, this only states the level of our world’s cruelty and tragedy. That’s why the mask is a mirror, comedy reflects tragedy, hence the title of the work “Comedy wearing the mask of tragedy”.
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James Fowler (b.1997) is a visual artist based in Bulacan, Philippines. He also works as a curator and director. His works exhibits surreal images, objects, and/or minimalistic abstraction. Fusing reality and abstract vision to form a conflux that best translates his notions in visual form. His art is a reflection of his conflicts and notions formed from his observations of his surroundings. His art practice extends to different mediums as he wanted to avoid constrictions on appositely executing his ideas.
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James Fowler (b.1997) is a visual artist based in Bulacan, Philippines. He also works as a curator and director. His works exhibits surreal images, objects, and/or minimalistic abstraction. Fusing reality and abstract vision to form a conflux that best translates his notions in visual form. His art is a reflection of his conflicts and notions formed from his observations of his surroundings. His art practice extends to different mediums as he wanted to avoid constrictions on appositely executing his ideas.
Mondrian Fan Club
global
Mondrian Fan Club
New Year’s Eve 2014
photograph, 2013/2014
Mondrian Fan Club is David Medalla and Adam Nankervis.
Photo by Daniel Kupferberg.
David Medalla
Philippines
David Medalla
Mirages
2013
Photo by Adam Nankvervis.
Adam Nankervis
Adam Nankervis
(i am a passenger)
2020
international co-ordinator
Adam Nankervis
found another vacant space.
found another vacant space.
Adam Nankervis is an artist and curator who has infused social, conceptual and experimental practice in his lived-in nomadic museum, museum MAN, and his ongoing project ‘another vacant space.’. His immersion into the experimentation of social sculptural forms and aesthetic collisions are a trademark of his art.
His ongoing project ‘another vacant space.’, re-manifested in Berlin, Wedding in 2011, since first being found in an abandoned shoe shop on Mercer Street NYC in 1992. The project focuses on the re-emergence of the hidden in subject, content and theory, the ephemeral, exploring the art of creative destruction and reconstruction, inviting both contemporary artists and the historical.
His curatorial practice is infused within his own projects, and singularly, Johannesburg Biennale 1997,curated by Okwui Enwezor and Gerardo Meesquera, LIFE/LIVE Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville Paris, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Los Angeles Biennale 2001, curated by Koan Baysa, Museum MAN/ Blurprint of The Senses Liverpool Biennale, 2004/ 2006, aFoundation and Arts Council England. Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda, Santiago, Chile, curator, Isa Garcia. A Spires Embers, Arsenal Kiev 2009,’ iIsolation’, Izolyatsia Donetsk, Luba Mikhailova, Ukraine 2010, A Wake, Dumbo Arts Center, NYC November 2012. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection 2015, Foundacion Joan Miro 2017, Venice Biennale 57, 2017.
Nankervis, in collaboration with David Medalla, formed The Mondrian Fan Club, & is the International Coordinator of the London Biennale 2000–2020 which was founded as a free-form artist initiative.
Arvinder Bawa
India / London, UK / Spain
Arvinder Bawa
feat. Marisol Cavia & Marko Stepanov
2020
London Biennale Extraordinaire
London Biennale 2020 Masks Dedicated to Africa (also Marisol Cavia & Marko Stepanov whose work is featured) and thanks to Adam and David for keeping the LB flame alive.
Avinder Bawa
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Arvinder Bawa, also known as Dicky, was born in India but left at the age of sixteen to start a life that took him to several continents, and he now lives in Spain.
Marta Leite
Portugal / Berlin, Germany
Marta Leite
Bulbs, Tubers and Rhizomes
Vegetable colours on paper, 2020
Bulbs, Tubers and Rhizomes were done during the pandemic lockdown period in Berlin.
Because most of the shops were closed and I didn’t wanted to order many things online, I started making experiences, doing my own colours using vegetables.
Soon my room got full of colour studies made of vegetable roots self made painting. After getting your invitation for the London Biennale and inspired by your photo, I thought about doing a mask using vegetable root paint. All 3 masks were done with vegetables I also consumed in my food, the paper is from the bags I bought the vegetables, as well as left overs from other works, the brush I used is from the 60s and belonged to my mother when she was on primary school.
Because most of the shops were closed and I didn’t wanted to order many things online, I started making experiences, doing my own colours using vegetables.
Soon my room got full of colour studies made of vegetable roots self made painting. After getting your invitation for the London Biennale and inspired by your photo, I thought about doing a mask using vegetable root paint. All 3 masks were done with vegetables I also consumed in my food, the paper is from the bags I bought the vegetables, as well as left overs from other works, the brush I used is from the 60s and belonged to my mother when she was on primary school.
Photos: Francisca Villela
Gerome Soriano
Manila, Philippines
Gerome Soriano, with Kolown
performance, Art Fair Philippines, 2020
A collaboration I did with Kolown during the 2020 Art Fair Philippines. Which seems like another world compared to the times we are living in now. Now indeed caution is needed, even more, especially when it comes to our face.
Jessica Bailey
Chelmsford, UK
Jessica Bailey
Shedding Skins
2005/2008/2015/2020
Shedding Skins; Many Lives, Many Masters, Many Masks Later
Throughout my life I have worn and created masks, any excuse or invite to a fancy dress party was a good opportunity to get creative and make a mask. There have been several masks but these were my favourites and told a narrative. The remnants of the past boxed and stored away, revisited for the mirrored masks, reflecting back on life and its journey of consciousness awakening.
Clockwise from bottom right;
Shadows and Light (2005) mask saw me sewn into a costume, head to toe in black so I became the shadow, depending on where I faced the light caught the crystals. Only the whites of my eyes were on show at the party. Duality, elusiveness and invisibility was the theme I went for at the birthday Halloween party it suited me as was looking into shadow side of things also as a natural introvert it allowed me to be an uninhabited extrovert as nobody could see or guess who I was. It has had some alterations as I wore it one other time (2015) and added reflective blue fabric and a glue that is now peeling off.
Butterfly Face Belly Dancer (2008) undulating to the music and rhythm of life. At this stage in life I was interested and focused on cause and effect. Walking gently on the earth and using words to heal. This is how masks can shape who we become transforming and metamorphosing what we turn out to be, if our heart and desire is there to put in the effort to grow, resilience to endure the growing pains and tenacity to see it through to manifestation.
Reflectivity the Art of Learning; Reflective Empathy, All Things to All People (2020). This mask is a reflection of how I have lived my life, l have not worn it to a party, it is rather symbolic of being able to recognise and step aside from it for respite. I created this as a mirror of who and where I have been, the map of bridges and connections, the directions, choices, opportunities and relationships their frequency energy levels in a spectrum of colour, emotions, intelligence, deeds and thoughts that shaped me to who I am today. The pollination of influences, inspiration and ideas that take seed and blossom throughout life and our connection to ourselves and others we meet along the way, paying good deeds forward, the currency of learning and growing wise.
I created this mask for the London Biennale 2020, working to theme and brief are always a good way to grow and develop work in a way that it is unexpected and it helps to read work through its developments like a conversation and reflection of it and listening to the inner artistic voice learning to be heard and stripping back doubts and becoming certain and confident.
Child’s Play, Seeing the Potential in Everything; Without the Limitations of Failure or Fear (2016) This mask was the most fun to make with my niece as we love working creatively together, it was a mixture of materials and upcycling, using wrapping paper we made our own stickers. Free from the conflicting conventions of the world we had fun creating our masks for nobody but ourselves, to just enjoy the making of it, tapping into our innate creativity.I have used hair, wigs and braids as a way of drawing and animating the masks, to give character and a sense of a group of friends having their picture taken together in societies constant documentation of events and happenings. I do not own any photos of my creations at any parties and have never seen them and don’t know if I was successful in what I was trying to communicate, mirroring life itself.
These photos created for the submission were sharp and crisp using a regular camera, without a necessary cable to upload, necessity the mother of invention dictated that I take pictures of the photos using a borrowed iPad. To me the pixels represent the digital faces we wear as way to hide and mask our lifestyles and emotions and are a reflection of modern day society’s fascination with documentation and filtration of information. The traces we leave of ourselves, digital footprints in a virtual world to mask and to hide nature and the natural order of things.
This lone mask, Hirsutism, Is a Mask; Something we Wear or Remove? (2001-2020). It speaks of the isolation and angst associated with Hirsutism and for those with Alopecia, the two extremes can place the female ideals at odds with the individual as this infringes on sexual identity, societies female beauty ideals and self esteem. Much like this lockdown it can place those who have these conditions and suffer from it side effects on the fringes of society in isolation. It can feel like a dirty secret that nobody ever speaks about in conversation and conceals the fact that we are all born with hair on our bodies, just some are more obvious than others although there are exceptions to this fact it is not a normality the beauty conventions lead us to believe.
In 2001 interim show, as a first year at RCA I created Salome’s Emotional Baggage as a response to an extract from Richard Strauss’ Opera, an archival recording which I drew by sound the turbulent energies and etched onto silver sheet. This became the large emblem on an old leather handbag I had bought from a charity shop and polished. It had the contents of what I considered a ‘Sloan Ranger’ to have in a bag, perfume, lipstick alluding to the translation of the opera extract. I also had a vanity mirror and a packet of cigarettes. I used my long hair and silk thread to embroider a veil which was also in the translation but in an exaggeration on natures veil which for the hirsute is obvious because of pigmentation and coarseness of hair.
I have used this veil as a backdrop for the lone white mask, written in black nail varnish to convey how most people see this issue and beauty in black and white. It either lives up to the beauty standards and is perfect and desired by the majority or repelled and seen as failure. Although in these changing times from when I first tried to tackle Hirsutism with the Virtue of Imperfection, beauty ideals are being explored and new alternatives are being created as to what beauty is. Questioning; what it is and at what cost to whom!
This mask has tormented me for most of my life. As a reflection of the aversion we hold to hair in unwanted places. It is a mirror and reflection on societies contradictions of social conventions; To love and be yourself yet remove and distort who we are, with painful, time consuming and poisonous corrosive chemicals. It is so universal and unanimous in many cultures that no one recognises or at least speaks up about the contradictions of advertising companies who create Hegelian dialects. That create the disgust or at least magnify it and promotes their products with slogans of ‘...just be free to be who you are…’.
With this in mind of the time, money and erosion of having a normal relationship with our bodies on our quest to live up to impossible ideals generated with the male gaze throughout the ages, edited and airbrushed in Photoshop, peddled in magazines, movies and music videos and omitted from the arts in many cultures, suppressing beauty to a physicality of something prepubescent.
So from an early age we celebrate our bodies changing, this small window of appreciation to our bodies, then all most instantly try to control and remove our bodies natural processes. We distort our reality and question our femininity, we spend hours in fact years of our lives trying to hold back the tide like King Canute. What could we have become or achieved if we just allowed ourselves to be natural - probably less distorted and fractured and more in time and in tune with nature and it’s cycles.
I created this piece for the hirsute, their femininity is questioned daily, if not adhering to the social conventions. It psychologically carries a heavy weight and just removing the hair doesn’t solve the problem as it feels like colluding with the delusional mythical ideals of beauty which so many feel that they fall short and leaves the next generation with an even more distorted view of female beauty if left unchecked. Of course it could be their generation that gets fed up of this and over throws the rules on beauty and its fickleness.
My conditioning means it has taken over two decades to be at this point to speak up about it and I am far from the freedoms of liberated minds. Perhaps it is the isolation in lockdown which has given me the space to be honest free from the everyday life of conforming to society and social conventions of beauty and its repercussions if we stray too far.
Only the courageous, the brave, the balanced, the deviant and the natural feel comfortable in their own skin, just as is – unmasked and uninhibited, free to be themselves.
They do exist and they are beautiful and magnificent!
Throughout my life I have worn and created masks, any excuse or invite to a fancy dress party was a good opportunity to get creative and make a mask. There have been several masks but these were my favourites and told a narrative. The remnants of the past boxed and stored away, revisited for the mirrored masks, reflecting back on life and its journey of consciousness awakening.
Clockwise from bottom right;
Shadows and Light (2005) mask saw me sewn into a costume, head to toe in black so I became the shadow, depending on where I faced the light caught the crystals. Only the whites of my eyes were on show at the party. Duality, elusiveness and invisibility was the theme I went for at the birthday Halloween party it suited me as was looking into shadow side of things also as a natural introvert it allowed me to be an uninhabited extrovert as nobody could see or guess who I was. It has had some alterations as I wore it one other time (2015) and added reflective blue fabric and a glue that is now peeling off.
Butterfly Face Belly Dancer (2008) undulating to the music and rhythm of life. At this stage in life I was interested and focused on cause and effect. Walking gently on the earth and using words to heal. This is how masks can shape who we become transforming and metamorphosing what we turn out to be, if our heart and desire is there to put in the effort to grow, resilience to endure the growing pains and tenacity to see it through to manifestation.
Reflectivity the Art of Learning; Reflective Empathy, All Things to All People (2020). This mask is a reflection of how I have lived my life, l have not worn it to a party, it is rather symbolic of being able to recognise and step aside from it for respite. I created this as a mirror of who and where I have been, the map of bridges and connections, the directions, choices, opportunities and relationships their frequency energy levels in a spectrum of colour, emotions, intelligence, deeds and thoughts that shaped me to who I am today. The pollination of influences, inspiration and ideas that take seed and blossom throughout life and our connection to ourselves and others we meet along the way, paying good deeds forward, the currency of learning and growing wise.
I created this mask for the London Biennale 2020, working to theme and brief are always a good way to grow and develop work in a way that it is unexpected and it helps to read work through its developments like a conversation and reflection of it and listening to the inner artistic voice learning to be heard and stripping back doubts and becoming certain and confident.
Child’s Play, Seeing the Potential in Everything; Without the Limitations of Failure or Fear (2016) This mask was the most fun to make with my niece as we love working creatively together, it was a mixture of materials and upcycling, using wrapping paper we made our own stickers. Free from the conflicting conventions of the world we had fun creating our masks for nobody but ourselves, to just enjoy the making of it, tapping into our innate creativity.I have used hair, wigs and braids as a way of drawing and animating the masks, to give character and a sense of a group of friends having their picture taken together in societies constant documentation of events and happenings. I do not own any photos of my creations at any parties and have never seen them and don’t know if I was successful in what I was trying to communicate, mirroring life itself.
These photos created for the submission were sharp and crisp using a regular camera, without a necessary cable to upload, necessity the mother of invention dictated that I take pictures of the photos using a borrowed iPad. To me the pixels represent the digital faces we wear as way to hide and mask our lifestyles and emotions and are a reflection of modern day society’s fascination with documentation and filtration of information. The traces we leave of ourselves, digital footprints in a virtual world to mask and to hide nature and the natural order of things.
This lone mask, Hirsutism, Is a Mask; Something we Wear or Remove? (2001-2020). It speaks of the isolation and angst associated with Hirsutism and for those with Alopecia, the two extremes can place the female ideals at odds with the individual as this infringes on sexual identity, societies female beauty ideals and self esteem. Much like this lockdown it can place those who have these conditions and suffer from it side effects on the fringes of society in isolation. It can feel like a dirty secret that nobody ever speaks about in conversation and conceals the fact that we are all born with hair on our bodies, just some are more obvious than others although there are exceptions to this fact it is not a normality the beauty conventions lead us to believe.
In 2001 interim show, as a first year at RCA I created Salome’s Emotional Baggage as a response to an extract from Richard Strauss’ Opera, an archival recording which I drew by sound the turbulent energies and etched onto silver sheet. This became the large emblem on an old leather handbag I had bought from a charity shop and polished. It had the contents of what I considered a ‘Sloan Ranger’ to have in a bag, perfume, lipstick alluding to the translation of the opera extract. I also had a vanity mirror and a packet of cigarettes. I used my long hair and silk thread to embroider a veil which was also in the translation but in an exaggeration on natures veil which for the hirsute is obvious because of pigmentation and coarseness of hair.
I have used this veil as a backdrop for the lone white mask, written in black nail varnish to convey how most people see this issue and beauty in black and white. It either lives up to the beauty standards and is perfect and desired by the majority or repelled and seen as failure. Although in these changing times from when I first tried to tackle Hirsutism with the Virtue of Imperfection, beauty ideals are being explored and new alternatives are being created as to what beauty is. Questioning; what it is and at what cost to whom!
This mask has tormented me for most of my life. As a reflection of the aversion we hold to hair in unwanted places. It is a mirror and reflection on societies contradictions of social conventions; To love and be yourself yet remove and distort who we are, with painful, time consuming and poisonous corrosive chemicals. It is so universal and unanimous in many cultures that no one recognises or at least speaks up about the contradictions of advertising companies who create Hegelian dialects. That create the disgust or at least magnify it and promotes their products with slogans of ‘...just be free to be who you are…’.
With this in mind of the time, money and erosion of having a normal relationship with our bodies on our quest to live up to impossible ideals generated with the male gaze throughout the ages, edited and airbrushed in Photoshop, peddled in magazines, movies and music videos and omitted from the arts in many cultures, suppressing beauty to a physicality of something prepubescent.
So from an early age we celebrate our bodies changing, this small window of appreciation to our bodies, then all most instantly try to control and remove our bodies natural processes. We distort our reality and question our femininity, we spend hours in fact years of our lives trying to hold back the tide like King Canute. What could we have become or achieved if we just allowed ourselves to be natural - probably less distorted and fractured and more in time and in tune with nature and it’s cycles.
I created this piece for the hirsute, their femininity is questioned daily, if not adhering to the social conventions. It psychologically carries a heavy weight and just removing the hair doesn’t solve the problem as it feels like colluding with the delusional mythical ideals of beauty which so many feel that they fall short and leaves the next generation with an even more distorted view of female beauty if left unchecked. Of course it could be their generation that gets fed up of this and over throws the rules on beauty and its fickleness.
My conditioning means it has taken over two decades to be at this point to speak up about it and I am far from the freedoms of liberated minds. Perhaps it is the isolation in lockdown which has given me the space to be honest free from the everyday life of conforming to society and social conventions of beauty and its repercussions if we stray too far.
Only the courageous, the brave, the balanced, the deviant and the natural feel comfortable in their own skin, just as is – unmasked and uninhibited, free to be themselves.
They do exist and they are beautiful and magnificent!
Raffaella Losapio
Rome, Italy
Raffaella Losapio
2020
Mask dedicated to Sri Lanka.
Dirk Sorge
Leipzig/Berlin, Germany
Dirk Sorge
Input / Output
digitized and digital photography, 2020
Dirk Sorge works as artist and cultural educator in Berlin and Leipzig. In his arts practice he inquires how technological artefacts and digital media shape the way we perceive ourselves and our surrounding. His works include videos, computer programs and mixed media installations.
NOEL ED DE LEON
Philippines / UK
NOEL ED DE LEON
Astral Travel & the Death Mask of Aphrodite Pandemos
2011
NOEL ED DE LEON
1976, Philippines
Astral Travel & the Death Mask of Aphrodite Pandemos
Photographic documentation
(C) 2011 noeleddeleonarchives.
Aurora Suarez
Spain
Aurora Suarez2020
Licenciada en Bellas Artes por la Universidad del País Vasco, realizó estudios de postgrado/ Máster en La Universidad de Londres, Goldsmiths´College -London y Visita la RijksAkademie de Ámsterdam para una presentación de su obra. Residencia en Italia. Profesora Asociada de la Facultad de Bellas Artes del País Vasco. Combina su actividad docente con un proceso creativo que amplía con una preocupación por la teoría y la praxis de la cultura y el arte contemporáneo en su proceso de internacionalización.
Iniciada en la pintura, pronto se interesó por una escultura y la instalación fotográfica y sonora, indaga en la función de los objetos cotidianos, su capacidad constructiva y la potencia redefinitoria e interpretativa en contextos variables. El interés por los productos manufacturados, el aspecto feminista en la cultura y los iconos de la sociedad postindustrial señalan otra vía de trabajo en la que introduce elementos claves como la espacialidad y la luz, que se prolongan con el empleo experimental de las nuevas tecnologías en instalaciones y performances en las que indaga en las relaciones entre el concepto de cultura formal , cultura popular mass - media y entornos virtuales y posthumanos.
Iniciada en la pintura, pronto se interesó por una escultura y la instalación fotográfica y sonora, indaga en la función de los objetos cotidianos, su capacidad constructiva y la potencia redefinitoria e interpretativa en contextos variables. El interés por los productos manufacturados, el aspecto feminista en la cultura y los iconos de la sociedad postindustrial señalan otra vía de trabajo en la que introduce elementos claves como la espacialidad y la luz, que se prolongan con el empleo experimental de las nuevas tecnologías en instalaciones y performances en las que indaga en las relaciones entre el concepto de cultura formal , cultura popular mass - media y entornos virtuales y posthumanos.
Paul Meinel
New York, NY / USA
Paul Meinel
From: Sketchbook, May
watercolour and pencil on graph paper, 2020
Kio Griffith
Los Angeles, USA / Japan
Kio Griffith
A Is For Anarchy
2017
A Is For Anarchy
manifesto text, 2017
This is the morning ritual manifesto. The mantra that balances on the challenges, fears, disappointments, glimpse of hopes, realities, hyperrealities, fates and fakes in our daily wakings. I wanted something with a simple friendly structure as in the A,B,Cs that could be read easily and followed through like a menu or a daily to-do list. The text is arranged in a variation of typewritten words in its normalcy and others that are striked-through. It is my organizing and reevaluating of old tropes, ideas and beliefs from the last century. The pain and trauma of suppression compounded with self-cancellation of desires and needs, to a retreat from real-world essentials. This sentiment from September 2017 still resonates now at midnight May 7, 2020.
-Kio Griffith