Manila Contemporary presents the gallery’s first solo show by Iggy Rodriguez. Hangganan expands upon the artist’s continuing concerns around poverty through large-scale pen and ink drawings, paintings and sintra board assemblage. The result is a surreal and searing critique on the dynamics of class and social injustice that affect Filipinos today.

As both a political activist and an artist, Rodriguez is aware of the limitations of art in affecting change. But he nevertheless sees his practice and the legacies of Social Realism – a major influence on the artist – as an important strategy to connect and engage audiences with socio-political issues. Hangganan is therefore, an important tour de force. It is Rodriguez’s most ambitious project to date, testing his skills as a draftsman and social commentator. Known for his meticulous ink drawings and elaborate approach to subject mater, he has created some of his largest works ever within a characteristic style of delicate line and imagined forms.

Ideologically, the exhibition is a lament for the urban and rural poor, and an indictment to a flawed and corrupt system. It is a grim and dystopian place, populated by helpless men, mothers and children dictated by the whims and fancies of the rich and powerful. Naturally therefore, he is at his most sensitive when depicting the vulnerabilities of everyday people consigned to a life of subservience and most critically abrasive through a monstrous depiction of corporate figures dancing on the backs of their labor. It is a tense scenario and the very threshold that Rodriguez speaks of in his title. But what happens when people are pushed to their limits, do they create new thresholds or try to change the system? How do they endure, cope and protect themselves from exploitation? By sharing his observations on the current state of Philippine society, Iggy Rodriguez presents a theatre of folly and strife. It is a wake up call for our collective social conscience and reminder that sometimes there is hope when systems are challenged and old ways of thinking collapse.

-Manila Contemporary

Image: © Iggy Rodriguez