MET Museum’s Latest Exhibition Spotlights Ronald Ventura
The Metropolitan Museum of Manila (MET) recently launched a major exhibition on internationally-acclaimed Filipino artist Ronald Ventura. Ongoing until March 4, 2017, Shadow Forest: Encounters and Explorations showcases a variety of Ventura’s works, from his lithograph prints during the nineties to his life-size mechanical carousels in 2016.
Curated by art scholar and critic Patrick D. Flores, Shadow Forest presents Ventura’s complex and ever-evolving style that mixes figurative images, folklore, graffiti and pop culture, and incorporates a wide array of techniques and material explorations. Trained as a painter, this leading Filipino contemporary artist has ventured into three-dimensional art forms, further exploring his iconic figurative hyperrealism and multi-layered compositions.
Occupying the MET’s ground floor galleries, the exhibition is highlighted with an installation of a monumental carousel at the heart of the Tall Galleries. While being surrounded by kaleidoscopic illumination, it is perforated with a fusion of animals, mythological characters, human-animal hybrid creatures, and even a religious effigy. All the excitement of an inner-child to a frolicsome reality has been fulfilled. The carnivalesque elements of the work is an appeal to the audience in nostalgia. It brings us back to our fancy childhood; without any care in the world but to jump and play. By moving round and up, this carousel reflects so much of our lives as we go along.
Aside from highlighting Ventura’s adept technique and graphic intelligence, this exhibition looks into contemporary issues that have touched the artist’s sensibility, such as the country’s multi-faceted identity, global warming and earth’s diminishing resources, among others.
Shadow Forest: Encounters and Explorations is the most comprehensive solo exhibition to date of the Ronald Ventura’s oeuvres. Mounting over 100 works of Ventura underscores the MET’s efforts to amplify the Filipinos’ sense of artistic and cultural heritage from the past, to the present and beyond, in contemporary global contexts and experiences. The collection is divided into 10 sections: Early Prints, Light box Series, the Carousel, Human Study Series, Constellation Series, STPI Prints, Small Sculptures, Drawings in Cloud, Bulul Series and Early Sketches.
The exhibition is complemented by a special walkthrough, an interaction activity with the artist, a storytelling activity for kids, free guided tours and special offsite projects.
Museum hours are from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Mondays to Saturdays. For more information, email info@metmuseum.ph or contact (02) 708-7829.
Event Details
What: Shadow Forest: Encounters and Explorations by Ronald Ventura
When: Ongoing until March 4, 2017
Where: The MET, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex, Roxas Blvd., Manila
