In this exhibition, Manila-based artist Poklong Anading freely cycles through such mediums as video, sculpture, found objects, and film to record a line, a sound, or a passing thought. His observations of urbanity culminate in a series of freestanding objects. Installed serially yet all unique, five stainless-steel sculptures of incrementally increasing sizes—all titled Homage to Homage and from 2014–15—dominate the main exhibition space. Anading here transforms the provisional into contemplative objects similar in appearance to the makeshift wooden scaffolding often used throughout the city in construction work.
Adjacent to this display, a feeble yet persistent reminder of the streets lingers through two works brought together by a common taste for asphalt and the scent of used rubber. Plateau, a small pile of cut tires taken from the streets, and Summit (both 2015), a video that intermittently flashes stills, mimicking speed bumps accompanied by a dull sound, strangely evoke the feeling of being driven over potholes while trying to doze at the back of a vehicle.
Also on view is a series of videos from 2014 titled “Gateway,” which shows slow shots of skies in the interstitial spaces between high-rises in various cities that the artist visited, and the sculpture untitled (drawer), 2013, composed of eight steel-and-glass boxes loosely filled with photographs of construction cranes printed on transparent film. All of these works evince a direct interaction with the artist’s environment, in a conceptual approach balanced by the sensual, physical experience of looking.
