On February 22-25, Filipinos (or at least those old enough to remember) will be commemorating the 30th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. For artist Roberto Marcelo Afable Robles – who was a boy at the time – the memories of EDSA are still vivid.
No surprise therefore that his latest conceptual art installation, entitled “Here is How the Transition into the Mambo Beat Looks Like 2016” and presented by Galleria Duemila and the Yuchengco Museum, is an expression of the artist’s personal sentiments on the peaceful revolution that has made the Philippines and Filipinos a byword as far as restoring democracy is concerned.
As a matter of fact, one part of the installation called The Running Fence was sparked by the University of the East-educated artist’s memory of the Martial Law years, when fences were erected along the streets of Manila that he knew as a boy.
Robles, who has been represented by Galleria Duemila since 1995, admits that his intention is “to express the struggle of each Filipino to uphold, to remove the fence of ignorance, to set the spirit free” through his art – whether through painting, mixed media, sculpture, or art installation.
The title of his works currently shown at the Yuchengco Museum actually refers to an exhibit of the same title mounted in 1986, the year of the EDSA People Power Revolution. In true Dadaist fashion, Robles – who maintains that the current exhibit “still moves to the beat of mambo music towards emancipation” – randomly chose the title phrase from a book, as if to say that the social and political conditions today are reminiscent of how things were three decades ago. The repetition of various elements in the installation, like the structure of mambo music, follows our “ups and downs towards nationalism,” the artist says.
Described as an artist who “works with monk-like austerity and devotion,” Robles adds another stanza to his poetic body of work with Here Is How the Transition into the Mambo Beat Looks Like 2016. Aside from considering basic shapes such as the oval and the square, Robles’s stark white sculptures pay homage to artists and themes that have claimed the artist’s attention for years.
The stark white plaster of Paris and wood installation is on view at Yuchengco Museum’s lobby until February 27. The museum is located at RCBC Plaza, corner Ayala and Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenues, Makati. Museum hours are Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call (632) 889-1234 or visit www.yuchengcomuseum.org.