Full Circle: Creativity Moving Through Generations at Yuchengco Museum

The Yuchengco Museum highlights Tsinoy artists and designers through a special exhibit titled Full Circle: Creativity Moving Through Generations, which opens at the museum on April 13, Tuesday, at 6:30 p.m. Full Circle brings together five families of Sino-Filipino artists whose works highlight the flow of creativity from one generation to the next. The exhibit will be on view until June 30.

Does creativity run in the family? Is a paintbrush, pencil, or pen somehow imprinted in a clan’s genes? Or is it a matter of elders passing on their trade or inspiring their children? Full Circle presents the creative expressions of an older generation of Filipino-Chinese artists and designers juxtaposed against the creations of their sons and daughters. The show illustrates common themes, and each artist’s individual style. The exhibit also examines the artists’ works within the context of their era and their personal pursuits, but linked through family ties and philosophies of artmaking and designing.

The paintings of first Filipina modernist Anita Magsaysay Ho from the Yuchengco Museum collection will be paired off with drawings by her daughter, Doris Ho, and paintings by Anita’s son, Robert Alexander Ho. Acclaimed Cebu furniture designer Betty Cobonpue pioneered the use of natural materials for furniture, which her son, Kenneth Cobonpue, now brings to the design capitals of the world, with his cutting-edge, minimalist, and organic shapes. Salvacion Lim Higgins or Slim was “the” fashion designer who reigned supreme in ‘50s to ‘80s high society. Her couture shares the exoticism, exuberance, and colors of cross-cultural influences of the paintings of her son, Mark Lewis Higgins.

Traces of the painterly creativity of superb magical realist Agustin Goy find expression in the paintings of his daughter, Anna Mari Goy, and in the illustrations and graphics of his daughter, Abi Goy. The Syjuco artist family, headed by conceptual artist, poet, and critic Cesare Syjuco (who was active in the alternative art scene of the ‘70s and ‘80s) and his equally expressive wife, performance artist Jean Marie Syjuco, bring forth a new generation of creatives. Daugthers Michelline and Beatrix—both visual artists—and Maxine, a poet, join their parents.

Full Circle highlights a younger generation of artists taking inspiration from an older generation, with traces of either conformity or negation.

Full Circle: Creativity Moving Through Generations will run until June 30 at the Yuchengco Museum at RCBC Plaza. The museum is located at the corner of Ayala and Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenues in Makati City. Museum hours are from Monday to Saturday, from10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 889-1234 or visit www.yuchengcomuseum.org.