This piece is accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Josefa Joya-Baldovino confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

Literature: Emmanuel Torres, “Because It Is There … The Philippines at the 32nd Venice Biennale: A Close Look”, Philippine Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1965); Pages 330 -349.

ABOUT THE WORK

In 1964, the earthshaking happened: In response to the lobbying of Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, the doyenne of Philippine Art and the Art Association of the Philippines, the Venice Biennale had invited the Philippines to participate for the very first time. This was the modern-day equivalent of being accepted into the 19th-century Paris Salon, where the who’s who, the newest, the brightest, and the best from the civilized world would exhibit and compete. Emmanuel Torres was pressed into service as the head of the delegation and he decided that the two representatives were to be Jose Joya (for painting) and Napoleon Abueva (for sculpture.) Joya, at the time, was also president of the Art Association of the Philippines; and happened to be in the spotlight with a 3-year retrospective (1961 to 1964) at the Philamlife building on U.N. Avenue, which was then one of the major centers for the culture and the arts. He asked the commission to have their pick of the works on show. They had originally selected 14 but when told about the size of the allocated space for the Philippines, the number was culled to nine. (The selection committee was composed of members of the Department of the Foreign Affairs, the Art Association of the Philippines and the Filipino members of the Association Internationale des Critiques D’art.) “Carcass” is one of the nine Joya paintings that were on view at this historic Biennale. Two others are in repose at institutions : “Granadean Arabesque” at the Ateneo Art Gallery and “Hills of Nikko” at the National Gallery of Singapore, on loan from the Philippine National Museum. Jose Joya, circa 1973. From the Asian Cultural Council files. At the Biennale, the Philippines was in the “Central Pavilion”, in a room with a skylight, alongside the countries of Argentina, Bolivia and other South American countries. “The greater proportion of rooms in the Pavilion were a large special show called “Art of Today in the Museum” … and featured works by Francis Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, and Antonio Tapies” among others. Emmanuel Torres reported that there were 3,300 entries by some 500 artists. Only two Asian countries — Japan and the Philippines — were represented. He remarked that Joya’s entries were “clean, classic”, and “had added something vital from his own personality to the International Abstract Style.” He said that “all nine paintings are consistently high in quality, and showed the Venetian cognoscenti the variety of content and the expressive range of Joya’s visual language, from the cool, grassy lushness of “Hills of Nikko”, to the steady glare of “Granadean Arabesque”, from the quiet lyrical outburst of “Venetian Daybreak” to the palette-knife fury of his red “Carcass.” -Lisa Guerrero Nakpil