In this series, we take a look at some of the critical discussions art. "Role of the Gallery in the Art Ecosystem" was one of the talks in ALT Philippines 2024.

Artists, art enthusiasts, and curious visitors converged at the recent ALT Philippines 2024 where nine renowned local galleries offered an expansive and carefully considered range of artists, showcasing work with curated deliberation to enable deeper connections with collectors and the art public. An estimated 8,000 foot traffic throughout the three-day public viewing, which was held at the SMX Convention Center in the SM Mall of Asia Complex.

The galleries included Artinformal, Blanc, The Drawing Room, Galleria Duemila, Finale Art File, Mo_Space, Underground, Vinyl on Vinyl, and West Gallery.

For this special talk held last February 23, 2024 was moderated by Father Jason Dy, with the following gallerists: Tina Fernandez of Artinformal, Silvana Ancellotti-Diaz of Galleria Duemila, Gabby Dela Merced of Vinyl on Vinyl, Manny De Castro of Underground, Jun Villalon of the Drawing Room.

In the conversation, they discussed the role of art galleries in the Philippine art ecosystem. One of the highlights for us was how they gave a brief history of their gallery from how they started and how it evolved. 

On the moderator: Father Jason Dy

Father Jason D. is a visual artist, who lectures at the Ateneo de Manila University, Fine Arts Department. He’s the founder of Alternative Contemporary Arts Studio in Cebu City. In 2013, he presented a solo exhibition, the testimony of what remains at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. After this, he pursued his graduate studies, MA in Creative Practice, and MA in Art History and Curating at Liverpool Hope University. He has participated in group shows at local commercial galleries, including MO_Space and Artinformal. Notable projects include Procession de los Camareros, commissioned for the Manila Biennale Open City, and Not One Less, held at Kecamatan. Imogiri and Bantul Yogyakarta, and Project Space Pilipinas in Lukban Quezon. His major curatorial project, Yellow Ambiguities, curated with Carlomar Arcangel Daoana, was held in the Ateneo Art Gallery in 2019.

These series of floral arrangements part of the art project, arranged and likened, became part of his solo show, Nature’s Never Spent, at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum, UP Diliman. 

FATHER JASON: Thank you. So first of all, thank you for inviting me to moderate this panel. I’d like to have some disclaimers. 

(1) I felt intimidated actually when you invited me to moderate this panel because we know that this panel consists of seasoned, reputable, and credible galleries in the Philippines. I brought my students, Arts Management students from Ateneo, Fine Arts. 

(2) And secondly, aside from being intimidated, I really felt humbled and grateful to be here. To discuss the role of the gallery in our Philippine Ecosystem. We want this discussion to be more experiential, based on your long experience, as well as your learnings, struggles, and recommendations, but we need to frame it in such a way that we look at the ecosystem and the different roles within our society. That’s why we’ll be presenting some diagrams later, please don’t get intimidated by the diagrams, I just illustrate to us the complex and interrelated networks. But we are focusing on the role of art galleries, especially here in the Philippines.

So first of all, I would like to give a panelist a chance to give us a quick overview in terms of history—the inception and the development of the art gallery so that their context will give us a glimpse of the galleries from your context that have evolved and responded to different situations. Very interesting if you read their history, you’ll realize that you’ve evolved from different points. So maybe we can begin with Tina, so the inception, the idea behind Artinformal, and how it developed, and progressed til now. 

Tina Fernandez of Art Informal: Artinformal was established in 2004, so we’re 20 years old. When we started, it was not yet a gallery, it was a school where experts in their field—teachers, were teaching those who wanted to learn the process of art making, genuinely wanted to learn. So these were not young students, they were people who have the capacity to purchase art but some of them didn’t even know why something was beautiful, so we said maybe if they learned the process of art making, they would be able to make their own choice of artwork to purchase confidently.

So that’s how we started. The reason why we became a gallery was that obviously we were successful in imparting knowledge to the students that they were buying the artworks of their teachers that were hanging on the walls. Soon enough we became a gallery and we’ve always made education a part of our exhibition and purchase. That was in Greenhills, and then we opened our second branch in Makati, Karrivin Plaza. 20 years later today, we’re so happy that we have influenced a few people to purchase art based on what they like and not because what other people say is nice. 

Father Jason: It’s interesting that the starting point is your education and ideal sharing of knowledge about art. Precisely, we brought Art Management students to you and had a chat about the role of your gallery in this Philippine Ecosystem. So we might wonder from the part also, Vana in terms of  Duemila, what would be the inception and how it developed. We acknowledge that you started in 1975. 

Silvana Diaz of Galleria Duemila: Yes, my point of view when I started, I met Tiny Nyuda and Onib Olmedo. I realized that Filipinos did not have a really great history. We Italians, are accustomed to great data. I realized that art was not being conserved well, history was not written well, and so I started to document. I put up the first document in painting in Philippine history. I had an expert from England, who I employed and I wanted my children and everybody to be proud to be Filipino.

So this is the concept of Galleria Duemila. The concept of Galleria Duemila is to preserve the art. So I got involved in documentation, and I documented. I got involved in creating and researching artists that disappeared, they were not here, and they had great work. I created work with the National Society to preserve documents, monuments, and art because our comment unfortunately does not conserve monuments. 

And so I was with another group of Filipinos, all activists in preserving this heritage. Unfortunately, the government has been destroyed. Then at the ecosystem, we work with the community. We had two or three exhibits where it was the exhibit mostly the gallery and outside the gallery. It was created in 2008, what you call Living on Loring, there was a dream of a bunch of 12 girls, who came up with the curator, the idea of the show. 

Also the daughter. We wanted to show them an identity, who they are and they’re not the only poor people in the world. So I have a great collection of national geography. These children were asked to make their own world. We asked “Who do you want to be?” and they wanted to be all billboard models. So they made small billboards. “What house do you have to be?” So we went out from the carton in 2008, we prepared this, as you see *shows visual* they created their own houses, a lot of people lived in cartons, and in fact, with Danny Montelibano, they made a movie about this that now he showed in a project. So my base has been always how to make sure that Philippine history is absolute—that you are proud of what you are, and that is preserved for future generations. 

It’s very important that we are proud of our national artists. I worked for 12 years as a vice chairman for the National Commission of the Art. I was one of the first ones who worked also with Mr. Albano to create the gallery committee because, at that time, nobody knew what a gallery was. So we needed to establish an ethic: What is a gallery? Because at the time, you could paint in a restaurant, you could paint everywhere, but these are not galleries. There has to be a very logical ethic. So that’s part of the history, it will take me all day so that’s it. 

Father Jason: Thank you so much. Just to summarize, the starting point would be really to be concerned with the preservation and conservation of heritage and the importance of that heritage and the culture that you produce through art, and how it developed also in terms of reaching out to committees so that they also share in this history. Thank you.

Gabby de la Merced of Vinyl on Vinyl: Wow. Me coming after Ms. Silvana. It was very well said. With our gallery, it started with uhm a very personal passion. I was working in the U.S. and my exposure to art during that time was really you know, my fascination was street art and there was this underground movement called “The Vinyl Culture” over there and it was a hodgepodge of artists from the low-brow scene, and stuff like that wherein I would go to. I remember we went to San Diego Comic-Con with our do-director now, Pia Reyes, and we met some Filipino artists who weren’t recognized over here. 

That became our dream because we were pretty much exposed to artists abroad where the accents were easily available—you talk to them, you could approach them, you could understand their work, but there was no access over here. So the initial creation of Vinyl was more on, we had the art toys but the toys, the gallery was supposed to support why these figures were this expensive. The creative process of the artists behind it. 

Then, another side was vinyl records. Back in the day, we sold vinyl records, I think it was a little too early! No one was really buying during that time. 2010, we were selling it for like 50 pesos, walang bumibili masyado. ("Not many people were buying.") But now even if the price is like [in the millions]. Well anyway,  since my exposure was over there, a great part of our programming was bringing all these established artists from abroad to infuse it with local artists. So a lot of the first bulk of the scene was extremely underground. We were getting people who were rebels. 

You know, genres were not exactly given specific names during that time but as you can see we’ve evolved into a gallery. We still do keep our music but it’s more on we try to push sound art into our program. 

Father Jason: So, it’s really interesting that they started as a person's passion and exposed showed to the artists in America— especially in the underground movement, especially street art, it was not as popular as now, and then providing that platform for people to appreciate not just about music, but also the art that will also cultivate around the culture. I’m quite happy because you also represented some of the artists whom I met when I was in Cebu and they were very active with the art scene before when I was there. So, thank you! And of course, Manny, now talking about Underground.

Manny de Castro of Underground: Underground was established in January 26, 2015. So unlike Duemila, which was established on a philosophical level, Underground, we had no actual action plan of putting up a gallery. It was purely accidental because we reinvented the space in Makati Cinema Square sometime in late 2014, thinking of selling records, books, and art. That’s why we call it Underground Arts, Music, and Letters. 

But after 3 months, nag iinom lang kami in that 15 square, aquarium light space ("... we were just drinking..." Then finally one of our drinking sessions inside that aquarium said “Manny I’ll organize a group show”. And then after that group show, I said “Okay, let’s do it on January 26.” January 26, Father if you recall, is the first day of the first quarter storm in 1970. 

We called it Underground because we are located underground, and we’re heavily influenced by the music we listen to. One of our idols, Paul Weller, with the song Going Underground. And then we had this wordy shirt, a quotation from Marcel Duchamp that, “The great artists of tomorrow will all go underground”. So we named it Underground and I had it copyrighted. The Underground name is ours. 

Anyway, from then on [he digresses]—I could see Nicole here in front, a favorite student of Jonathan Olazo. So after that group show, Jonathan would frequent our gallery to eat banana cue in Makati Cinema Square and then he would tell us that he has some students that want to have a show here in Underground. 

So we started with the young artist.  Normally we would tell our artists from then on that the gallery is a platform for you to speak. You speak through your art, just make sense. That’s the advice that we would give our exhibitors, especially the young ones. So that’s it, we were established in January and we were on a purely accidental basis. 

Father Jason: So it’s a good accident that the space itself became where you gather, play around with music, and even until now. That is why the hallmarks of underground are where you have turntables, amplifiers, yeah. Thank you, Manny! And…Yes Jun, drawing room. So maybe you can share with us the initial ideas of opening up a gallery and what are some major developments that you could share with us. 

Jun Villalon of The Drawing Room: My name is Jun Villalon, I run the gallery called The Drawing Room. We were established in 1998. So we are a little over 25 years old. I was a corporate guy. I started working with Colgate-Palmolive, and Johnson and Johnson for a total of 10 years, selling soaps and shampoos. But after 10 years, I was supposed to be cross-posted to the U.S. I told my wife maybe I should take it. I’d like to do something that I really wanted to do. And I’ve started to collect art when I received my first paycheck at Colgate. So I really liked you know, going to galleries, I go to Finale [Art Gallery]. 

After 10 years I decided I’d go out of corporate life and pursue something I really wanted to do, more than just selling soaps and shampoos. So I said "Anong raket ang okay?" ("What's a good source of income?"). I come from a marketing background. 

If I put up a gallery, I'd put up something that is not yet being done, that it’s a niche kind of endeavor market. So I thought why not sell or exhibit works on paper exclusively? So that’s why the Drawing Room—it draws people in and it’s also about drawings, about works and paper. So the Drawing Room. Initially, for the first 5 years, we just sold exclusively works on paper. T

To further [discuss]... Okay why works on paper? I did some research, I looked at magazines, and architectural digests. I saw that people in the West were collecting works on paper. But at the time, I think in the Philippines, works on paper wasn’t as collective noh because for many reasons; the paper is not very stable, it yellows, it gathers dust, blah blah.

But so I saw Bill Blass, the designer. He collects a lot of works on paper and he fills up his wall with framed artworks. It can work, as a niche kind of market. But when you look at words and paper in drawings, right it’s you can describe it as very intimate. Everything starts with works of paper. Very noble. So when I started doing that, the artist responded very well. 

So we went to the gallery bringing small boxes, big boxes of works on paper, sketches. Manny was also buying from me (laughs). So they brought kahon kahon, (boxes) works on paper and said that it would be nice to show this because nobody has seen our sketches, our drawings. 

But actually, works on paper and drawings are the major art forms. Some of course are preliminary works but it can be considered as a major art form. And I realized that the small work on paper can be a star of what was a big canvas. As a matter of fact, when De Guzman brought the small work paper in an envelope, I said that it was really really powerful. 

So yeah it started as a marketing thing but I really like artworks, I really like art. So after 5 years, we had to evolve because the artists we worked with were saying Jun paano yung canvases namin? Paano yung sculptures namin? ("How about our canvasses and sculptures?") So instead of these art going to different galleries, sige buksan mo nalang ("Okay you can just open them.") because I might lose the artist, you know. So you know, it worked. After 25 years we’re here and of course, everyone has to evolve. We represent a lot of different mediums and media. 

Father Jason: It’s interesting when you said why sell soap when you can "blank." Maybe part of the "blank" is why sell soap when you can build your collection. Why sell soap when we can start a gallery or galleries. 

Jun: Diba Father sa Ateneo, instead of selling soap why not serve men—you know. 

Father Jason: That was the posters that we had for a vocation campaign.“Why sell soap when you can build lives.” So there was that national connection. But interesting that your starting point is really about being a corporate person and also loving art and collecting art. As a collector yourself, you also find a way to support artists and how they evolved from drawing to exhibiting sculptures and works in canvases. And we know that now, you’re not only limited to those kinds of mediums, you have insolation with your art and so on and so forth. 

So for the audiences, it’s interesting to understand the inception of these galleries. Notice that the intentions and motivations did not really start because they really just wanted to sell. 

Jun: One of the reasons why we also wanted to sell works on paper and drawings is because at the back of my head when you collect words on paper, intimate works, it’s really love. It’s not for pang bonggahan (grandness) or making yabang (boasting) I have this big work, I have this big canvas. Small work, intimate work that would appeal to you. At the time, the prices were very good. 5,000 pesos, 2,500. You have a really really nice drawing. I think it was a very good starting point with collectors who cannot afford expensive works. So you can start with smaller work and be proud of it. 

Through the talks, it all came out that while the motivations for starting a gallery are different, it's all about creating a space.

"We realize that the intentionalities for starting a gallery would range from education, building up the knowledge in terms of art, it can be from the point of view of heritage, preservation, conservation, or it could be from a person passion, and also highlighting underground artforms that are not part of the mainstream of traditional art practice and highlighting them, or from the point of which has a space," summarizes Father Jason. 

"You have a space and then people come and then with a conversation with people, you take up something. Or really from collecting and also how the collection grew up into a gallery for moving artists. Other galleries might have their own intentionalities and motivations. So maybe that’s a good starting point as we locate galleries from the point of your ecosystem."