VIC DELOTAVO: Posters for Philippine Cinema

Vic Delotavo: Posters for Philippine Cinema
14 April to 9 June 2018
Reception: 14 April, Saturday at 4pm
1F Galleries
UP Vargas Museum

UP Vargas Museum, in cooperation with Archivo 1984, presents Vic Delotavo: Posters for Philippine Cinema on 14 April, Saturday, 4pm, at the 1F Galleries of the museum.

The exhibition trains its focus on the art of the film poster in the Philippines through the prodigious practice of Vic Delotavo (b. 1945). Delotavo studied Advertising in Iloilo and Fine Arts in Manila and started to work for newspapers and magazines in the mid-seventies in Manila. In Iloilo, he was active in the theater scene as a designer of sets and costumes. He began to design and make posters for Philippine cinema in the early eighties. A notable early work was the poster of Peque Gallaga’s Oro, Plata, Mata (1982). He would then become the most prominent designer of film posters for the most prolific studios of the period: Regal, Viva, and Seiko.

The exhibition revisits the work of Delotavo as a way to appreciate the art of the film poster and to understand the contexts of this form: the film industry and its stars, the techniques and styles of graphic design, and the artistic considerations underlying what Delotavo, who was known for his witty catch lines that complemented the images on the poster, calls the “visual telegram.” At a time when the Philippine film industry has radically declined and that the art of the film poster has vanished owing to the ascendancy of digital technology and social-media marketing, this exhibition is a gesture of historical reflection on both the industry and one of its most ubiquitous devices, the poster, through the exemplary body of work of Vic Delotavo.

Vic Delotavo: Posters for Philippine Cinema runs until 9 June.

For more information, please contact Vargas Museum at (+632) 981-8500 loc. 4024 (UP trunkline), (+632) 928-1925 (fax) or send an email to vargasmuseum@gmail.com. You may also check our website at http://vargasmuseum.upd.edu.ph, Facebook via https://fb.me/vargasmuseum.upd and Twitter via @UPVargasMuseum for updates.