Tag: Met Museum
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Rafael, A Story in Portraits
I returned to Vicente Rafael’s essay on photography after learning of his passing on February 21, 2026. Professor Rafael, as I continued to call him even after knowing him for years, was seventy. Our conversations became more regular after I began graduate studies at Cornell, where he had also studied in the early 1980s. I…
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Meaning over spectacle: Gerhard Richter retrospective online
The abrupt closing of Gerhard Richter’s retrospective at the Met Breuer, among other art world events in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has refocused the energies of its curators to use online platforms. While it serves its purpose well of extending the reach and lifespan of art exhibitions, the Met Museum’s website is not…
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Borlonganesque
Elmer Borlongan’s Extraordinary Eye for the Ordinary Elmer Borlongan’s mid-career retrospective held on his 50th birthday at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila establishes him as the essential post-EDSA artist: an artist painting in the veristic sociocritical vein of the 90s, but who, with the downfall of the Marcoses, finds himself with no one to rebel…