Book launch: David Medalla, Parables of Friendship
Sunday 19 June, 2pm
Book presentation with talks by Purissima (Petty) Benitez-Johannot and David Morris
David Medalla, Parables of Friendship draws together, for the first time, a series of newly commissioned texts and archival documents exploring the queer, socially and politically engaged facets of late Filipino artist David Medalla’s life and work across the seven decades of his career.
Medalla’s practice pivoted around self-organised and self-initiated collaborations, collectives and alternative modes of production that challenged dominant western institutional habits and structures. His approach encompassed performance, painting, sculpture and collage and was prolific in the multiple global centres in which he found himself, yet he remains a significantly undersung figure of the 20th-century avant-garde.
The launch of the book is accompanied by a talk by art historian and long-term friend of Medalla, Purissima (Petty) Benitez-Johannot, reflecting on the role of gender, identity and sexuality in the work of the late artist, and a talk by David Morris focused on the work and legacy of Medalla as part of the collective Artists for Democracy.
The launch event will be followed by a gathering in KURVE, a temporary cafe bar in the glass pavilion and adjoining garden of the Bonner Kunstverein.
David Medalla, Parables of Friendship
Published by: Bonner Kunstverein, Museion, Bolzano and Koenig Verlag
Edited by: Steven Cairns, Fatima Hellberg and Bart van der Heide
Contributions by Rasheed Araeen, Steven Cairns, Purissima (Petty) Benitez-Johannot, Eva Bentcheva, Bart van der Heide, Fatima Hellberg, Gavin Jantes, Michael Kleine and David Morris
Design by: Pedro Cid Proença
Launch prize: 25 EUR
The book can be ordered, by emailing to: kontakt@bonner-kunstverein.de
Purissima (Petty) Benitez-Johannot is a professorial lecturer in the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and founding archivist/curator of the MiraNila Heritage House and Library. Over the past forty years, she has worked for the Museum of Philippine Art and Ayala Museum in Manila; Independent Curators Incorporated and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva. She has edited and authored numerous books and journal articles on contemporary and ethnographic art and is editor and co-author of The Life and Times of Purita Kalaw-Ledesma (Vibal Foundation, 2017), which was awarded Best Book on Art as part of the 37th Philippine National Book Award, organized by the National Book Development Board. She is a trustee of the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation, Inc., the Lopez Family of Balayan Foundation, and the UP Diliman College of Arts and Letters Foundation, and she is president ofthe Benitez-Tirona MiraNila Foundation.
David Morris lives in London. He is a research fellow and editor at Afterall Research Centre; his work explores different approaches to artistic research, education, and exhibition, with a focus on experimental and collective practice. He is co-editor, with Sylvère Lotringer, of Schizo-Culture: The Event, The Book (Semiotext(e)/MIT Press, 2014); with David Teh, of Artist-to-Artist: Independent Art Festivals in Chiang Mai 1992–98 (Afterall Books, 2018); and with Bo Choy, Charles Esche, and Lucy Steeds, of Art and its Worlds: Exhibitions, Institutions and Art Becoming Public (Afterall Books, 2021), among other publications. Together with Helena Vilalta, he leads a research master’s program in Exhibition Studies at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. |
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