Curiosities | Geraldine Javier

Curiosities | Geraldine Javier
13 February – 15 March 2013
3F Galleries and Library

Opening cocktails
13 February 2013, Wednesday, 4PM

The Vargas Museum opens Curiosities, the first solo exhibition of Geraldine Javier in a Philippine museum on 13 February 2013, Wednesday, 4PM at the 3F Galleries and Library of the museum.

Madame A and the Hungry Bear (detail), 2012, Intermedia

In Curiosities, Geraldine Javier explores the idea and process of collecting as a form of a human-object relationship. It focuses on the ties a collector creates with artifacts, relics and artworks Javier as an artist has collected, a condition that blurs the boundaries between collecting and art production. This relation is further illustrated in the juxtaposition of Madame A’s collection and Jorge Vargas’s memorabilia in the Museum. Their collections are representations of themselves as these objects play out as bearer of agency as construed by the artist.

Collecting in museums has always been about recalling memories and interpreting the past through the re-contextualization of objects.  The pieces in Javier’s works do not merely function as evidence of the past but also as materials that convey the future. The exhibition does not reminisce a bygone time; instead it creates a transformative storytelling in which the cabinets of curiosities, framed items, and dioramas all serve as cues and references for the viewers’ own narratives.

Geraldine Javier (b.1970) studied painting at the College of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines. She received the 13 Artists Awards of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003. She has been part of exhibitions in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Italy, Germany and Czech Republic, among others. Her recent projects include Museum of Many Things for Valentine Willie Fine Art and Playing God in an Art Lab at Singapore Tyler Institute.

Curiosities runs until 15 March 2013.