Paintings After Compositions, Compositions After Paintings: An exhibit

The following is a press release from the University of Santo Tomas Museum.

The University of Santo Tomas Museum is pleased to announce Compositions after Paintings/ Paintings after Compositions, a musical recital by Kim Nimrod Cruz and an exhibition of new works by Geronimo Cristobal. This is Cristobal’s third solo exhibition and Cruz’s second composition recital.

Both the recital and the exhibition focus on a selection of recent works. Cristobal’s works are from an ongoing series in which he uses images captured from newspaper archives on the internet printed with an HP LaserJet Enterprise M606x printer. The paintings will be displayed as a backdrop to the musical performance of Kim Nimrod Cruz‘s compositions and will be on view from 9 am to 5 pm. The musical piece specifically created after the paintings will only be performed at high noon lasting until three in the afternoon.

Cruz’s compositions are influenced by the avant-garde movements in music: specifically the indeterminacy and non-standard use of musical instruments by John Cage and Wagner’s concept of subordinating individual arts to a common purpose in his essays on “Gesamtkunswerk” in Art and Revolution (1849). In “Noir,” a piece for a prepared piano, Cruz essays notions of “darkness” and “composition,” inspired by the dynamics of a musical performance and conventions observed between performers and audiences in a dark theatre.

Cristobal’s decollages are derived from journalistic images of police violence during the First Quarter Storm. In other works, he superimposed protest flyers over reworked collages by Kurt Schwitters. Cristobal points to the German Dadaist famous for his Merz Pictures, in his ‘Psychological Decollage.’ Like Schwitters, his works attempt to make coherent aesthetic sense of the world around him using fragments of found objects and images on the internet.

The paintings and collages are treated like “time capsules” imbued with the bold, dynamic history in the lens of avant-garde movements. The works illustrate collapsed space and time, in which distant worlds and cultures merge with politically charged mythos.

This recital runs from 1 to 3 pm. The UST Museum Main Gallery is located at the Mezzanine Level, Main Bldg, University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila.

For press inquiries, please contact Julia Enriquez at alleynejulia.enriquez@benilde.edu.ph, or call +639952125498 and 2305100 local 1528. – Rappler.com