The Future That Was are musings on the structures and ideas that produce, frame and promote art and design Taking her cue from the final chapter of Robert Hughes’ Shock of the New of the same title, Eustaquio weaves a narrative that examines the ideas of innovation and novelty, cultural patronage and the social notions of timeliness and timelessness, i.e. fashion and its latitudes. Here, “the future” is art, the construct of the so-called avant-garde, translators of visions into flat or plastic forms: whatever qualifies nowadays as “art”. Fashion, on the other hand, is the machinations of its popularity: whoever qualifies such constructs as “art”. In this construct is a framework of materials, form, idea that is bent and molded into a product that is then displayed, marketed and digested.

In Eustaquio’s world, this construct takes on the language of craft and design and the resultant works attempt at approximating a design exposition where material and form are exalted, made to do things they don’t usually do or affected with superfluous stylizations. Eustaquio covers her objects in varied surfaces: mannequins in solihiya, ambiguous rock formations in laser-cut mirrors and wood, while paintings are attempts at wrapping varied shapes in similarly articulated, textured surfaces. Overall, it is an exercise in exuberance and stylization in an attempt to examine the framework of art production, aesthetics and taste, and in so doing raise the question of what informs art and design.

This exhibition is presented at the Jorge Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines-Diliman, in cooperation with SILVERLENS.

Image: Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Unseated l and the Polyhex, 2013

Photo by: Rachel Rillo / Silverlens Galleries