Gerardo Tan

Description

A recurring tendency in my works is the use of photography and painting to reframe pre-existing images from the world of art and mass media into layered or serried information that sparks complex associations and itinerant meanings. I get images from books, magazines, the Internet and found materials that surround me so in this sense, my works are representations of representations.

Since my formative years in art school, I have learned of art by looking at pictures, mostly so-called mainstream art from the West. This meant that doing art was not a matter of invention but improvisation following certain models that existed as pictures on a page. In our Information age, this condition is intensified, making our mediated experience of reality acutely present and historical at the same time. The rapid free flow of information across the planet that comprises our day-to-day reality is what interests me to work with found images as they embody the dissolution of space, hierarchy and authorship.

The language and imageries churned out by the techno-infrastructures of dominant cultures form a large part of my material. However, using found images is not enough. To claim images means knowing how to operate from within the system, knowing the nature of materials and gaining control over production.

Gerardo Tan

Biography

Gerardo Tan

1960 born in Manila (Philippines)

lives and works in Quezon City (Philippines)

1992    State University of New York at Buffalo (USA)

1982   University of the Philippines, Quezon City (RP)

Exhibitions, projects (1999-2010, selection)

2010

Painting With a Hammer To Nail The Crotch Of Civilization - Manila Contemporary, Makati City

Inversion of the ideal, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz (Austria)

The Unnamable, Manila Contemporary, Makati City (RP)

2009

Beyond frame: Philippine Photomedia, Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon City (RP), La Trobe Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo (AUS), UTS Gallery, Sydney (AUS)

Datum Plane: Reaction Series, Mag:net Gallery, Quezon City (RP) (solo)

Recent Paintings and Collages, Pablo Gallery, Metro Manila (RP) (solo)

How’s My Painting?, MOP Projects, Gallery 1, Sydney (AUS)

Seeing You, Seeing Me: Contemporary Portraiture, Manila Contemporary, Makati City (RP)

Maria Cruz, David Griggs, Raul Rodriguez and Gerardo Tan, MoSpace, Metro Manila (RP)

2008

Theatre of Disguise, Finale Art File, Makati City (RP) (solo)

Ellipses, Mag:net Gallery, Quezon City (RP) (solo)

2007

Flatbed Stories, Mag:net Gallery, Quezon City (RP) (solo)

I have nothing to paint and I am painting it, Mo_space Gallery, Metro Manila (RP)

2006

This Is Not a Gregor Schneider Room, Mag:net Gallery, Quezon City (RP) (solo)

Indiscrete Charm of the Burlesque, Finale Art File, Makati City (RP)

Manila Envelope, John Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley/California (USA)

Specific Gravities 2, Galleria Duemila, Pasay City (RP)

2004

Doing Time, Mag:net Gallery, Makati City (RP) (solo)

Picturing Painting, Future Prospects, Quezon City (RP)

Other Matters, Vargas Museum, Quezon City (RP)

2003

Scanning the Mall: Seduction and Terror, Finale Art File, Makati City (RP) (solo)

Fast-food Cotan, Kitchen, Mandaluyong City (RP) in cooperation with Magnet Gallery, Quezon City (RP) (solo)

Picture This, The Art Center, Mandaluyong City (RP)

Divine Intervention: A collaboration with Gaston Damag and Manuel Ocampo, Vargas Museum, Quezon City (RP)

2002

New Work: Lost Regions, Finale Art File, Makati City (RP) (solo)

The 4th Gwangju Biennale: Pause, Gwangju (ROK)

Xs-XL, Expanding Art, Sculpture Square, Singapore (SGP)

Conversation, The Art Center, Mandaluyong City (RP)

2001

New Work: Lost Regions, Big Sky Mind, Quezon City (RP) (solo)

Instructions, Finale Art File, Mandaluyong City (RP) (solo)

Access/Deaccess, DLSU Art Gallery, De La Salle University, Metro Manila (RP) (solo)

Guilty Pleasures, The Art Center, Mandaluyong City (RP)

Space Meeting Place, Ayala Museum, Makati City (RP)

Faith and the City, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (SGP)

2000

Meetings, Finale Art File, Mandaluyong City (RP) (solo)

Cracks and Abysses, The Art Center, Mandaluyong City (RP)

Peripheral Visions, Ayala Museum, Makati City (RP)

1999

The First Melbourne International Biennial, Philippine Pavilion: The Golden Cargo Trading Company, Melbourne (AUS)