ENDINGS ARE BEGINNINGS OF PENDINGS
OPENING:
Saturday, November 26, 2016, 6 pm
EXHIBITION DATA:
November 26, 2016 to January 13, 2017
1335MABINI proudly presents Indy Paredes in a solo exhibition titled "Endings are Beginnings of Pendings" that will run from November 26, 2016 to January 13, 2017.
From Paredes’ continued interest in the negotiations between public and private spaces comes the artist’s probing of infrastructure expansion culture. The exhibition particularly explores a peculiar architectural sensibility (or lack thereof) usually practiced in populous areas in the country, where rooftops are treated as beginnings of further upward floor level expansion due to the scarcity of space. Paredes takes on this muddled interplay between time and space as the subject of his second solo exhibition, seeking to uncover relevant cultural implications.
A large installation made of structural detritus sourced from the aftermath of a typhoon sets the mood for the exhibition. Titled “Roof Landscape”, the installation occupies the major floor area of the exhibition space, and is aimed to be experiential. The construction can be walked on, as it is the objective of the artist to present his work in a way that can introduce authentic sensorial experience. The scale of the structure offers the mood of crammed space, reflecting the image of congested residential spaces usually seen in the poorer areas of the metropolis. The constructed roof, where the artist meticulously built a sturdy metal foundation underneath old metal sheets becomes a type of mise-en-scene, a visual theme providing sufficient sensorial appeal to viewers.
This approach lessens mediation, also reinforced by a strong element at the end of the roof structure: a framed video projection of one of the most common views from the vantage point of an elevated space within the dense urban location. Named after the exhibition title “Endings are beginnings of pendings”, the video employs minimal animation in the form of moving lines from a floor plan imposed by the artist on a video of a bright landscape of walls and roofs of nearby houses, some of which are unfinished. The image of a drawn floor plan juxtaposed on this scene is an attempt of creating suggestions, perhaps offering new purposes of construction, teasing the viewer to walk on the roof structure to get a closer inspection of the work. According to the artist, it is a symbol of the act of planning, reflective of the way Filipinos approach construction projects especially residential houses. He described this phenomenon as the never-ending changing of plans, of continuously erasing, re-writing, composing additional structures depending on how one family for example, manages to provide more space to additional family members based on their financial capabilities.
Other works include Paredes’ assemblages that signify the concept of pendings or non-finality, materials that come from several pieces of discarded wooden planks, steel, cardboard and other used objects. Paredes’ art practice has as its main influence and reference, his personal observation of the unique characteristics in the Filipino sensibility wherein the actual urban space determines how they construct and live with their environment. For this exhibition, the artist delivers a coherent visual description of a feeling of being in proximity to structures and materials that represent one of the toughest fibers of the average middle-class Filipino: his resourcefulness, unpredictability, and tenacity.
