The Cultural Center of the Philippines is proud to present an exhibit of Romulo Olazo paintings, titled “Olazo Large-Scale,” on view from July 15 to September 8, 2017, at Bulwagang Juan Luna (Main Gallery) and Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino (3F Hallway Gallery).
The first major exhibition organized after artist Olazo’s death, Olazo Large-Scale re-affirms the master’s place as a maker — and marker — of grand productions. The exhibit also re-introduces his work — now his legacy — to the contemporary audience, as well as reconnects the artist’s roots to the CCP.
In 1974, Olazo did his first ever one-man show, titled “The Silkscreen Process and Its Possibilities,” at the CCP. In 1982, the almost similarly titled show, Large Scale Paintings, that showcased 13 black-and-white Diaphanous works, was also staged here, affirming Olazo as an artist of grandeur, expansiveness, and sublimity.
Co-organized by Paseo Gallery, this exhibition proposes not so much a radical re-telling of his oeuvre than its place in the canon of the large-scale works conceived in the country and how it could be potentially read against the more contemporary works. Now, there seems to be no anxiety with regard to executing large-format works, and it pays to take stock of the contribution of Olazo who had prioritized magnitude in his opus. That he used the language of abstraction—chiefly the Diaphanous and the Permutation series—to enact his grand visions remains as one of the watermark achievements in the landscape Philippine visual arts.
A homecoming, a tribute, and a celebration of the man and his works, Olazo Large-Scale is the resounding conclusion to the opus of a singular artist who never once flinched at the face of immensity. In painting after painting, Olazo exerted the full range of his abilities to come up with some of the most elegant, sublime, heart-stopping forms in the vocabulary of abstraction. Scale is proposed as the defining factor of this exhibition, yes, but it might as well be heroism, the kind that burnishes resolve, propels sinew and soul, and crystallizes the marvel of human creation.
The exhibit may be viewed daily from Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm. For more information, call the CCP Visual Arts and Museum Division at (+632) 832-1125 local 1504/1505 and 832-3702, mobile (0917) 6033809, email ccp.exhibits@gmail.com, or visit www.culturalcenter.gov.ph.
