POKLONG ANADING
Poklong Anading's spectrum of work ranges from video, installation, photography, drawing, and painting, continuously expanding on allegedly autonomous projects that reinforce a substantial discourse with an investigative, descriptive character - a chimeric entity, comprehensive in form and coherent in content. Often based on an interactive approach, engaging with the subject and the audience, Anading's work is defined by a unique standpoint on social occurrences and structures from which calculated intrusion arises from.
A vast part of his projects, therefore conceptual approaches, is based on the notion of deductive research - collecting as an act, as a method to extract the essential but then portray the organic appropriateness of dissimilarity.
In his acclaimed work series "Anonymity" and "Counter Acts" (2004-ongoing), Anading photographs people holding a circular mirror in front of their faces and reflecting the sunlight against the artist's camera lens. The question of identity that arises with the work may not be limited to the subject but extends to the negotiation of the relationship between the One and the Other.
Anading often involves the subject or observer, both intellectually and sensually, as so in "untitled (dwelling)" (2012-ongoing) wherein he has been painting the patterns of his archive of images of "untitled (landmark)"[1] (2006-ongoing) on the nails of, first, migrant workers in Hong kong and then Korea (Gwangju Biennale 2012) and later of various persons he has engaged during his travels. The recorded conversations of these encounters are over-layered and activated by touching the surface of the black screen that will uncover a photograph of the pointing finger's painted nail in his work "untitled (dwelling)" (2012). Likewise, Anading's sculptures "homage to homage" (2014-2016) reflect on the ratio of Manila's aggressive urbanization and accretion of skyscrapers on the one hand and the abounding living and working conditions on the other. There, he encased ephemeral scaffolding structures, a cheap and self-made labor tool, in stainless steel.
Hence, Poklong Anading exposes the blind spots of social life. He amalgamates particles of social phenomena, mechanisms and hierarchies in concepts that address both, a definite and metaphorical essence.
Poklong Anading graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1999 and in addition to being awarded for his work several times nationally, his practice has also been well-recognized internationally. Anading has been partaking in the most important Asian Biennials and international exhibitions and has been invited by curators like Mami Kataoka, Alia Swastika, Eugene Tan, and June Yap. His photographic work “Counter Acts I” was collected and exhibited by the Guggenheim Foundation New York and included in the exhibition “No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia” in the Center for Contemporary Art in Singapore.
The artist participated in the Gwangju Biennale twice, in 2002 and 2012. He was invited to the Jakarta Biennale in 2009 and is awardee of the 12thGawad CCP (Manila, Philippines) for Experimental Video in 2000 and of the Thirteen Artists Awards (Manila, Philippines) in 2006. He is a two-time recipient of the Ateneo Art Awards (Manila, Philippines 2006 and 2008) and the Studio Residency Grants in The Kings Cross Art Project (Sydney, Australia) and the Common Networks Foundation (Bandung, Indonesia) and in Centre Intermondes (La Rochelle, France).
In 2012 Anading was invited to contribute his work series "Anonymity" to the exhibition "Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past" in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (California, USA) and works of the artists have been exhibited in the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (Germany) and the Yokahama Museum of Art (Japan), the Singapore Art Museum (SG), the Asia Society Museum (NYC/USA) and in the Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai/CN). He has been part of the 5th Asian Art Biennale (Taichung/TW), the Roppingi Art Night 2015 and is invited to join the Philippine Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2016 in Venice/IT.
Anading’s works are included in the permanent collection of the Singapore Art Museum (SG), the Mori Art Museum (Tokyo/JP) and the Guggenheim Foundation (NYC/USA).
Poklong Anading was born in Manila in 1975. He lives and works in the Philippines.