Esquire Chats With BenCab | Esquire Philippines - video Dailymotion

Esquire Philippines

In this Esquire Philippines exclusive, National Artist for Visual Arts Benedicto Cabrera talks about his new collaborations, the evolution of his practice, and, of course, the power of Sabel.

Transcript

00:00The young artists in the Philippines now are doing well as compared to during my time we

00:06only have what three galleries that includes my gallery which is Indigo Gallery. My name is Ben

00:13I'm here with Esquire Philippines.

00:28All I've been doing collaboration with Abitare with particularly the Moi carpet and I'm very

00:37happy with what they've done. I also do metal works which is also arranged by Abitare and it's

00:45done in Italy using their metals but I'm always happy to collaborate. It's another approach to

00:54what I've been doing like painting and these are new medium which I like very much.

01:01As a Filipino artist I'm very conscious of our culture and that is what I want to project.

01:14I know there's a lot of influence from abroad and the latest. I started doing let's say

01:21Filipiniana, my larawan. It turned out to be also

01:26quite modern and not going back to the old style painting.

01:39My subject Sabelle is been going on which I've been using and she's a subject matter

01:47and in the end she became iconic because other artists was influenced by the image. They even did

01:56a musical on Sabelle because she represents the Filipina. Sabelle was what you call a bag lady.

02:05When I first saw her just across my window she was wearing this plastic around her and I started

02:12doing sketches and photography because she represents a lot of things in my art. She can

02:20be abstract, she can be oriental, she can be... that's the challenge that having one

02:28subject matter I can explore in a different way.

02:33My brother of mine is a very good artist. He taught me a lot. We gave exposure. We go out

02:40together. It's really my first exposure to the arts. Plus seeing him draw and paint it really

02:50give me encouragement to draw because I realized I can draw.

03:03Well after my divorce I decided to move to Baguio and it so happened that during that time we have

03:13people, friends and artists living there. Somehow we got together and create Baguio Arts Guild and

03:21that became an example of a community full of artists and doing things like installations,

03:29performance, paintings. That was fun. That was really good to start with. When I decided to

03:40move to the Philippines I decided to move to Baguio because I like the weather to begin with

03:45and Baguio is quite rich in terms of culturally the Cordillera which I think is underrated.

03:55When it comes to tribal art people think of Africa but we have such a rich culture

04:01in terms of having those bululs and other things.

04:16I get challenged when somebody like right now a gallery from Singapore and they do sculpture.

04:24They have a foundry and I was challenged to do sculpture this time. Things like that it just

04:30happened to me. I don't want to limit myself. I just like to explore new techniques. The only

04:37thing is I'm really bad with the new technology. The young artists in the Philippines now

04:50are doing well. As compared to during my time we only had what three galleries. That includes

04:58my gallery which is Indigo Gallery. You cannot just sell your paintings but now there are so

05:04many galleries even art brokers and so the young artists have all the chance to exhibit early

05:13and doing well.

Esquire Chats With BenCab | Esquire Philippines

Category

Transcript

Recommended