PROPERTY FROM A VERY DISTINGUISHED COLLECTOR

Provenance: Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist

Exhibited: Exhibited: 20th Asian International Art Exhibition 2005, Ayala Museum, Makati, Metro Manila, 21 November 2005 - 26 March 2006; As one of the representative works of the Philippines

ABOUT THE WORK

John Santos is one of the Philippines’ most important contemporary artists, drawing in his avid Filipino and international audiences to a mysterious but personal narrative — but also to his keenly observed insights into our psyches. On the face of it, Santos here comes to grips — almost gingerly, treading as carefully on the large box marked in bold letters with the word “Fragile” — with the relationship between men and women. He has been suspected at times of painting with an autobiographical intention. It is no mistake that the woman at the other end of the swing-bench resembles his wife, the equally fiercely talented artist Pam Yan-Santos. There are no accidents, of course, in a John Santos painting. The weather-beaten bench is suspended by thin, be-ribboned threads, giving the scene a sense of precariousness and imminent imbalance. The barefoot woman, as so often happens in Santos’ works, is dressed in the garb of the past. She clasps almost defiantly a tightly shut book. The man, however, is formally dressed and shod. He also wears a protective helmet and a full-face mask. Between them is a spy-glass, of the kind explorers and astronomers would use. The artist refers to the telescope, however, as a “peep hole”, suggesting the somewhat voyeuristic purpose of this examination. Certainly, there is an imagined distance between this hero and his heroine. A peephole is a way for looking outside from behind a closed door; the subject, not as important as the act of watching. Is this perhaps a self-portrait of the famously introverted artist? Things are also never as they seem in a John Santos painting. In this major work, we find as well an examination of our past and our present; our intentions and reality. José John Santos III has continued to break new ground as an artist. Named as one of the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists in 2000, he has gone from strength to strength. He exhibited in 2018 at the The Armory Show, one of the oldest and most important art fairs in the United States. Also in 2018, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. — the modern and contemporary art museum of the Smithsonian Institution which is the national museum of the United States — accepted the donation of the José Santos III sculpture, “The Order of Things No. 3.” This event marked the first time that a Filipino artist, or a Southeast Asian artist for that matter, was accorded this honor. (Lisa Guerrero Nakpil)