Accompanied by a certificate issued by Ms. Luisa Luz-Lansigan confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: León Gallery, The Kingly Treasures Auction 2014, Makati City, 29 November 2014, Lot 133

ABOUT THE WORK

Even before the genesis of Arturo Luz’s iconic Cities of the Past and Objects of the Past in the 1990s, the artist had previously explored cityscapes and still lifes. Notably, it was in the late 1960s when Luz incorporated still life into his oeuvre. Fast forward to 1988, Luz, equipped with a camera, embarked on what would become a careerdefining excursion to several Asian countries. From this journey would arise the Cities of the Past and the Objects of the Past. Like his circus performers and carnival scenes, Luz reintroduced the cityscapes and still lifes to his body of work in the 1990s, albeit this time rendered in a sharper visual language of geometric abstraction. In his still lifes of ancient objects, Luz evokes the cultural legacies of a nation’s ancestors. Luz’s creative interpretation of the still life during this phase in his career is characterized by an ordered arrangement of each element comprising the composition. Cid Reyes writes in his book on Luz: “It comes as no surprise that Luz should be attracted to the still life. It is, to him, an expedition into the formal relationships of color and design. Stripped of all psychological and emotional underpinnings, the still life provides him with an armature for the investigation of rational order and essential form.” In the work at hand, Luz depicts three bottles. The artist says of these objects: “I discovered them in one trip to India. These are little nineteenth-century bottles decorated with brass caps and used to contain perfumes, lotions, or medicine. I took photos of them, and they looked like human figures. Arranged in twos or threes, they would look like a peoplescape.” Luz employs the color ochre, which he started to use in the 1990s. With its soil-like pigment, Luz evokes the enthusiasm associated with archaeological excavations. He depicts the bottles as if they were recently unearthed and initially showcased to pique the viewer’s curiosity. With this work, Luz seemingly invites the audience to witness a tangible piece of history, making them relive the quaint splendor of storied cultures. (A.M.)