WITH Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art (ILOMOCA), Iloilo scores another point in why you should visit/revisit the city. It is one more place to love in the “City of Love.”
At the Iloilo Business Park, Megaworld Corporation created a first-of-its-kind institution in the Visayas and Mindanao. The three-storeyed Casa de Emperador exclusively houses works of modern art by artists from the region, the country, and artists from other nations.
The ground floor holds the Museum Shop and the Hulot, a gallery for temporary exhibitions. The gallery currently holds the works of Spanish artist Gines Serran-Pagan including his studies on the General Delgado sculpture, which now stands on the rotunda across the museum’s building.
The second floor holds three galleries. Gallery 1 exhibits “Ilonggo Country” and emphasizes that “there is no Ilonggo art—only art conceived and realized by the many Ilonggo artists from everywhere who continue to contribute to the flourishing Philippine art”.
Some of the Ilonggo artists like Alfonso Ossorio, Romeo Tabuena, Jess Ayco, and Lamberto Hechanova have etched their names in Philippine modern art and abroad. Some of the most important women artists in the country are Ilonggo, like Nelfa Querubin, Ofelia Gevelson-Tequi and Brenda Fajardo. These artists mainly worked outside of their Ilonggo hometowns.
Gallery 2 exhibits “A Presence Beyond The Native”, a collection of artworks by artists from different nations. Although major museums share its collection through modern technology to reach the global audience, nothing compares to actually standing before an art piece. The space affirms that “for homegrown artists and the local audience confronting the work of an artist from another country is at once instructive, affirming, and humbling.”
“Sculpture” is the theme for Gallery 3. It is true that “love for sculpture is rarely at-first-sight”. It takes time to appreciate it. The gallery offers the audience a chance to fully experience this form of art and “study its every twist and turn and how it contributes to the total beauty of the aesthetic effort.”
The Adoracion V. Valencia Gallery makes up the entire expanse of the third floor. It exhibits the extensive collection of Edwin Valencia acquired through three decades. The collector’s love for art stemmed from his mother’s passion for the expression of creativity, and the collection reflects this love in the various interpretaions of art.
The city gains another treasure in ILOMOCA. Make sure you allot a good number of hours at this stop when you visit to truly enjoy the museum’s collection. It will be worth your time.
For more photos of this feature, visit www.jeepneyjinggoy.com. For lifestyle stories, visit www.ofapplesandlemons.com. Email me at jinggoysalvador@yahoo.com