"Artabang 4" an auction for a cause at 1st Visayas Art Fair

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

CEBU CITY-- Fifteen art pieces for auction and seven artworks for straight sales are included in the "Artabang 4," an auction for a cause on November 26 organized by the Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation at the First Visayas Art Fair at the Glass House, Montebello Garden Hotel which proceeds are used to fund the foundation's various community programs and projects.

 

"Everything here at the art fair are for kawang gawa, non-profit. For the students too to witness the artwork of the art masters in the country," Office of the Presidential Adviser for the Visayas (OPAV) secretary Michael Dino said during the art fair's opening ceremonies on Wednesday. 

Most of the artworks featured at the "ArTabang 4" will be included in the auction while the rest will be for straight sales and all these are donated by the artists. Each artwork has a starting bid with a minimum increment of P25,000, Dino said.

"ArTabang 4" is unique because it is a silent Art Auction with bids written on the title card and the bid sheets located on the tables next to each piece. Bids can also be submitted off-site by calling or sending a text message to the phone operator assigned to the bid number of the art piece.

“We are running a silent art auction because most of us here in Cebu are shy,” says Lorenzo Miguel Uytengsu, who helps Sacred Heart School Batch 85 Foundation to hold the auction. The bidding starts at 10 am until 9 pm on November 26.

Uytengsu said they are bringing artists from Metro Manila so Visayan artists could learn from them and vice versa. He added that the art auction also provides a venue for the artists since most of them have not been able to show their artworks during the pandemic since art galleries have been closed.

The artists include Dino Gabito, Randalf Dilla, Ronald Ventura, Adrian Evangelista, Joel Chavez, and Cebuano Mark Copino, among others. Collaborative pieces by groups of seven to 10 artists are also featured in ArTabang.

Thirty-one-year-old Gabito is known for his monochromatic “shroud” paintings or paintings of shroud or cloth suspended draping objects or a human form. His Tranquil oil on canvas has a starting bid of P350,000.

Dilla is known for his hyper-realistic socially conscious paintings that are strongly influenced by the human condition in modern conflicts. Dilla’s ‘Untitled’ charcoal and water of paper have a starting bid of P200,000.

Ventura has set the record for the highest ever paid Southeast Asian contemporary artwork when his painting Grayground sold for $1.1 million at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings auction in Hong Kong in 2011. Ventura’s Zoomanity 3/5 has a starting bid of P350,000.

Evangelista showcases a pair of luscious desserts, which seem to be a feast for the eye but appear to unmask the struggle to cope with and compensate for lonesomeness. His 'Love Sick Girl 1' has a P100,000 starting bid and a minimum increment of P10,000.

Chavez’s painting Scent, which is among the artworks up for auction, has a starting bid of P150,000 and a minimum increment of P25,000.  The starting bid for Heir Apparent by Josue Mangrobang Jr. is P350,000 with a minimum increment of P25,000.

Copino, more popularly known as “Kidlat,” is a well-known contemporary stencil artist whose thought-provoking work shows symbolic subjects in minimalist compositions. His Adjacent Lines to the Horizon artwork has a starting bid of P100,000 and P10,000.

The other art pieces for auction are Strategy Analysis by Keb Cerda with a minimum bid of P150,000; and Storytellers’ Chair 3 at P150,000 with a minimum increment of P25,000.

Some of the artworks are collaborative pieces by seven to 10 artists. One of these is “The Acts of Seven” oil on canvas by the Portrait Artists’ Society of the Philippines. It has a starting bid of P300,000 and a minimum increment of P25,000.

Another collaborative artwork is the Nostalgia 3 acrylic on canvas painting by the Artists Association of the Philippines. The starting bid for this is P250,000 and a minimum increment of P25,000. The acrylic on canvas painting “Sayaw sa Pangaliya” by the Cebu Artists Incorporated has a minimum bid of P300,000.

Southwest Art Club’s Behind the River oil on canvas has a starting bid of P300,000. The Collaboration Functional Sculpture by the Orange Project has a minimum bid of 500,000.

The Nostalgia 1 acrylic on canvas by the Artist Association of the Philippines has a minimum bid of P500,000. The art pieces for straight sale are Buffalo Soldier by Loise Go (P130,000); Libakera by Wyndelle Remonde (P40,000); Woman Ate Too Much Dick by Chalk Zaldivar (P80,000); Papa Legma by Miguel Paulo Borja (P80,000); Fractal 5 by Dennis Bato (P100,000); Nocturne Variations by Mark Bumgarner (P30,000) and Face to Face by Jheco Lorica (P100,000).

Sacred Heart School Batch 85 Foundation is committed to promoting, developing, and enriching Visayan, Art Culture and History through various projects like Artabang, an art auction to charity, Visayan Music Awards, a Visayan songwriting competition, Binibining Cebu and Baladhay Music Festival, among others.

The Foundation has been assisting the rehabilitation of communities in various areas such as the P2-million donation to Aboitiz Foundation Inc. for Northern Cebu, which was devastated by typhoon Yolanda; P1-million to the Roof Relief Project of Gawad Kalinga for Ormoc City that was affected by the earthquake and other areas affected by calamities.