Category: Essay
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Krzysztof Wodiczko “Guests”
The Polish pavilion – actually a windowless cube – is surprisingly transparent this year. Floor-to-ceiling windows with rounded arches open the view to the outside. Through the slightly milky panes, the visitor standing in the dark of the exhibition space can observe people doing different activities. Some are chatting, others are busy cleaning the windows,…
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Destiny of Empty Caskets
This critical reflection on Soledad’s Sister (Anvil 2008), second novel of Jose Dalisay was written as final paper for Professor Maria Celeste Coscolluela’s Comparative Literature class at UP. (2008) Paez doesn’t appear on any road map, but it occupies as enduring a place in the Filipino imagination as Tondo or Rosales. Because Paez is in fact…
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Pictures/dreams
The Ulla and Heiner Pietzschs Collection New National Gallery, Berlin June 19, 2009 – November 22, 2009 When the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection in the Eastern Student Building opened as an annex to the Neue Nationalgalerie vis-à-vis the Museum Berggruen last year, Berlin was given the opportunity to familiarize itself permanently with “Surreal Worlds” for the first…
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Luneta Hotel, a Remnant of a Beautiful Era
I wrote this article during my freshman year in college. At the time, there were very few in-depth articles about the old hotel, and it ended up being read by quite a few people and cited as a reference in some news articles. Every time I see it quoted, I feel a bit embarrassed because…
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Knife to the heart
Zhang Yimou choreographs fighting bodies that turn every action into the purest calligraphy It’s obvious, flying is commonplace in Chinese cinema but certainly isn’t its exclusive domain. The acrobatics witnessed in the Matrix, where Trinity seems to stand in the air like a black angel has been an international trend. We can also witness gravity-defying…
Geronimo Cristobal 