About face exhibitExploring the idea that the face represents the persona with which one confronts the world and how penetrable these public facades can be, Lopez Memorial Museum features works by contemporary artists xVRx, Renan Ortiz, Louie Talents and Alvin Zafra.

These include works by Juan Luna, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Macario Vitalis, Fabian de la Rosa, Vicente Manansala, Juvenal Sanso, Fernando Amorsolo, Benedicto Cabrera, Fernando Zobel, and the extensive Rizaliana holdings, especially in light of the 150th birth commemoration of Dr. Jose Rizal.

As the museum has established a reputation for being a repository of Lunas and Hidalgos and rare Black and white Chess ColonyFilipiniana, museum curatorial consultant Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez said that the artists were asked to “consider images within the museum and library archive collections in taking on the proposed theme.”She added: “The intention is to have contemporary artists look upon the practice of pictorially rendering personage as a means of circulating a persona or a public face, as opposed to a repressed alter ego or possibly a totally fictitious avatar.”

The four featured contemporary artists used and incorporated portraits, including the less explored aspects of the collection such as its Rizaliana holdings and its LVN still archives, among others.

Nail portraitsZafra, who has exhibited his work in various galleries in the Philippines as well as in Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore and Hong Kong, did a portrait of President Emilio Aguinaldo that he found in the book “I Shot the Presidents” by Honesto Vitug.

Ortiz, who received the Sinugdanan Grant by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in 2007, takes on Rizal and Indio-Spanish dialectics in three multimedia installations cutting across the museum’s galleries.

Talents, who was awarded a scholarship grant from the Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Beaux-Arts and the University of the Philippines Playing with matchsticksCollege of Fine Arts Best Thesis Award, also mounted a multimedia work exploring notions of itinerancy and registration of self in relation to sacred verse and texts by Rizal.

Old ManCoronel aka xVRx has participated in arts festivals and residency programs such as Outlooke Pointe Foundation and AX (is) Art Project Baguio City. He shows a stenciled portrait of an old man, dually alluding to images of everyday life repurposed and sited surreptitiously in luminal urban space.

For inquiries, call Fanny at 631-2417 or visit www.lopez-holdings.org. Lopez Memorial Museum and Library is located at the ground floor of Benpres Building.