Vibal Foundation Celebrates Filipino Art with The Art of Window, Display, and Design

Last February, Vibal Foundation (VFI) released the latest addition to its growing Fifty Shades of Philippine Art series: The Art of Window, Display, and Design, written by Chito Vijandre and Ricky Toledo. The book was launched at VFI’s virtual tertulia, which honors its matriarch, Esther A. Vibal. Among the highlights of the online event were performances from an array of Filipino talent.

Richly complemented with over 500 beautiful images of window displays, objets d’art, travel sights, and artistic landmarks from around the world, The Art of Window, Display, and Design showcases the creative display of merchandise that can also quickly segue into its own art form transcending the banality of everyday objects to achieve an artistic visual narrative that is more transcendent and durable for all time.

This newest addition to VFI’s Fifty Shades of Philippine Art catalogues not only the famous windows of the authors’ lifestyle and home furnishings stores, but also their interiors and fashion productions. The book features ten essays featuring a myriad of art styles and design elements from across the globe and provides tips and principles of visual merchandising, interior design, and fashion.

One the highlights of the book is a trip to Kenya inspired by the Hollywood film Out of Africa and the legendary tale of Isaak Dinesen, leading to a detailed study of Anglo-African safari style; an in-depth look at the concept of mono no aware or fleetingness of life and Japanese art and style as filtered through the geisha culture of Kyoto; a peek into the world of fantasy and imaginative recreation as seen through the mad king, Ludwig of Bavaria; the distillation of classical aesthetics through the prism of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca and an intimate tour of the Eternal City; a behind-the-scenes examination of the authors’ private abode that is a veritable showcase of cross-cultural influences; and a summation of the cultural kaleidoscope of multi-cultural elements behind the duo’s wildly successful benefit fashion shows for the Philippine National Red Cross.

The creative duo of Vijandre and Toledo share a mutual love for the visual and performing arts. Chito Vijandre launched his career as a fashion designer, dressing the youthful and glamorous women in the city. He also mounted some of the most elegant fashion shows in the country. He then concentrated on interior design, creating distinctive residences for Manila’s A-list while designing upscale stores and restaurants. Ricky Toledo debuted as a production manager at an Italian publishing and design firm. Later, he established his own creative consultancy studio, creating award-winning television commercials and promotional shows in several world capitals.

Window display as an art form

Some of the world’s signature streets in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Milan are not only known for their street tableaux, but also for their specialist boutiques drawing attention and appreciation from the public’s eyes with witty, quirky, and even relevant window statements. 

It was in the 1950s when Robert J. Leudenfrost announced that in the US, “window display is fast becoming recognized as a new art form.” From museum exhibits, high art took over the high street with young artists extending their canvas to the enormous amounts of glass windows being installed in retail centers. Some of the world-renowned artists of the twentieth century displayed their unique art styles and visions in retail store displays, including the surrealist Salvador Dali and the pop artist Andy Warhol.

Similar to fine artists, window display designers need to engage potential customers with visual messages and creations that speak of their world and beyond. Each window display necessitates the perfect blend and expressive use of color, lighting, space, props, fabrics, mannequins, technology, cultural references, and ingenuity.

Interested readers may purchase The Art of Window, Display, and Design  and other VFI books at Vibal Online Shop, Lazada, and at Shopee.

About Vibal Foundation

Founded in 2007, Vibal Foundation is Vibal Group’s philanthropic arm. Its vision is to engage Filipinos in intellectual discussion of Philippine history, culture, and arts by providing beautiful and insightful print and digital materials.

Its institutional partners are the National Historical Commission of the Philippines; National Museum of the Philippines; Philippine Departments of Labor and Education; San Agustín Museum; UP Jorge B. Vargas Museum; Ateneo Art Gallery; Biblioteca Historica, Universidad Complutense, Madrid; International Rice Research Institute; Galleria Duemila; Gallery Genesis; and Premio Zóbel.

Fifty Shades of Philippine Art is a series of affordable and concisely written books on fine, modern, or popular art. Among its titles are Isabelo Tampinco by Santiago Pilar (2018), Toti Cerda by Laya Boquiren (2019), Francisco V. Coching by Andrea Peterson (2019), Damián Domingo by Luciano P.R. Santiago (2020), and Philippine Cinematic Art (2020) by Christopher Datol, Andrea Peterson, Gaspar A. Vibal, and Nick Lajom.

Vibal Launches Quiz App

 

Vibal Group continues to make headway in making online teaching and learning more user-friendly and convenient for schools, teachers, and students by developing new dynamic applications. This October, Vibal releases the VSmart Quiz App where students can keep their memory sharp and their minds well-tuned—all while having fun competing with other students. 

VSmart Quiz

Quizzes are effective in training and practicing our minds in analytical thinking, regardless of the platforms. It forces our brain to regain the information we learned and helps us imprint them in our memory for good. VSmart Quiz exactly does that. It is a free mobile application where users can answer questions on different subjects. The application has thousands of questions that cover topics about history, culture, politics, science, arts, sports, technology, entertainment, pop culture, and more. The questions are distributed according to three difficulty levels: low, medium, high so the users may test their knowledge as they progress through the app. Choose the difficulty level that best suits your mood. 

There are also four modes for playing. Solo mode lets you challenge yourself to an exciting brain game. You may test yourself and earn points as you go from one level to another. Versus mode lets you play with another player. You may challenge a random player in a battle of wits and earn more points. Group mode lets a maximum of five players answer the questions for three rounds. Versus group mode lets one group compete with another group. All modes have a time limit for each question so be sure to be sharp in reading the questions and choices!

The group and versus group modes let you create your own group, come up with a group name, and even select a group avatar. Teachers may also use the application to conduct a quiz bee through the Group or Versus Group mode.

The application is available to download at the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Users only need to register using their email address or Facebook credentials and they are good to go!

VSmart Launches New Features for SY 2021-2022

VSmart recently launched three new features that make VSmart, the company’s flagship product for education and technology, more relevant and responsive to the needs of school managers, teachers, and students in the new now of education. These new features—VSmart Digital Library, VSmart Analytics, VSmart Games—are solutions that further help schools to succeed in this era of flexible and hybrid learning.

VSmart Digital Library is an online library where students and teachers can access e-books, learning resources, and lesson supplements. Students and teachers can simply log in and indulge in reading class modules, textbooks, children’s storybooks, and reference materials. VSmart Digital Library also allows teachers to teach students how to search, analyze, and utilize digital resources which is a crucial skill for 21st-century learning.

VSmart Analytics helps users access and analyze data in a snap. School administrators can now view and analyze engagements between teachers and students in different subject areas. Teachers can now measure students’ progress per available competencies. Teachers can view overall screen time and activity logs of students, and track the overall class performance and learning progress. Students and parents can now monitor their learning progress.

VSmart Games takes VSmart users to a new level of gamified learning. Each game is age-appropriate to their intended players, and is anchored to the pedagogical skills that hone mastery in different subjects the game is linked to.

These new features will be available this school year 2021-2022 to all users of VSmart. Interested schools may email marketing@vibalgroup.com for a VSmart presentation and training.

Vibal Foundation Marks Rizal Anniversaries with Launch of El Filibusterismo Critical Edition and E. San Juan’s Sisa’s Vengeance

In commemoration of Dr. José Rizal’s 160th birthday and his 125th death anniversary this year, Vibal Foundation recently announced the launch of Isaac Donoso’s critical edition of Jose Rizal’s El Filibusterismo and E. San Juan Jr.’s Sisa’s Revenge: José Rizal’s Sexual Politics and Cultural Revolution. 

El Filbusterismo

José Rizal’s El Filibusterismo serves as the thrilling denouement to his first social novel, Noli Me Tángere, which exposed the ills of a decaying Filipino society enfeebled by colonialism. In the book sequel, Rizal tantalizingly employs two divergent paths of the social disease’s inevitable and natural progression—either a slow, debilitating cancerous spread or the body’s sudden collapse into a violent paroxysm of anarchy and terrorism.

This bilingual quincentennial edition, the latest addition in Vibal Foundation’s Filipiniana Clasica imprint, is a faithful reproduction of the edicion principe published in Ghent in 1891 and includes a comparative annotation of Rizal’s corrections, emendations as well as deletions from the original manuscript and the final printed text, making this the first-ever critical edition. With this volume, Rizal’s textual versions are recovered through a modern philological parsing, which spans 3,065 explanatory notes, thus unlocking the novel’s many enigmas for a new generation of readers.

The original Spanish text has been printed in parallel with Charles Derbyshire’s classic English translation. This collector’s edition also contains the novel’s extensive bibliography, tracing the history of its manifold translations and editions. Floro Quibuyen’s foreword sheds new light on the radical Rizal as well as the novel’s final conundrum, while National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario examines Rizal’s work as the ultimate in-joke much heavily influenced by French and German Enlightenment thought. 

Isaac Donoso’s edition of El Filibusterismo and his companion critical edition of Noli Me Tángere serve as the definitive editions of these two foundational novels that launched an entire nation into being. The striking cover design by artist Toti Cerda adds a contemporary spin to the novel, foregrounding the more sinister aspect of the novel’s protagonist.  

Sisa’s Vengeance: Jose Rizal’s Sexual Politics and Cultural Revolution

In the sixth re-edition of Sisa’s Vengeance, its respected author, Prof. E. San Juan Jr., addresses the question, “who is the real and true Rizal?”  The book invites readers to look past the popular image of Rizal to understand his ideas as portrayed in his work, and how these ideas and beliefs were shaped by the events and circumstances of his life. It is a re-evaluation of the significance of Rizal's discourse on freedom, human rights, and national liberation, centering on the liberation of women and its ramifications in the total emancipation of a nation. The latter chapters also reveal Rizal’s principled beliefs and advocacy for women’s rights.

This latest addition to Vibal Foundation’s Academic Filipina collection critically assesses how scholarship of Rizal, including prominent biographies, have shown speculative or biased tendencies, or have formed an image of Rizal to suit an author’s ends. Moreover, the author uses the perspective of historical materialism to consider the totality of Rizal’s milieu, his ideas as well as his practice. 

The novel’s characters like Simoun, Padre Florentino, and others all reflect particular aspects of its depiction of society. It would be difficult to point to a single character as the mouthpiece embodying the entirety of Rizal’s beliefs. 

The author puts clear emphasis that Rizal recognized gender equality as a key component of national liberation, and that his criticism of colonial society can be seen in the tribulations facing the women in his fictional works. Passivity, obedience, and silence seem to be the cause of tragedy for Rizal's women characters. Thus, gender justice, as part of a counter-hegemonic revolution, would be Sisa's revenge.

About Vibal Foundation

Founded in 2007, Vibal Foundation is Vibal Group’s philanthropic arm. Its vision is to engage Filipinos in intellectual discussion of Philippine history, culture, and arts by providing beautiful and insightful print and digital materials.

Its institutional partners are the National Historical Commission of the Philippines; National Museum of the Philippines; Philippine Departments of Labor and Education; San Agustín Museum; UP Jorge B. Vargas Museum; Ateneo Art Gallery; Biblioteca Historica, Universidad Complutense, Madrid; International Rice Research Institute; Galleria Duemila; Gallery Genesis; and Premio Zóbel.

Filipiniana Clasica is the Vibal Foundation’s collection that upholds the continuity of the Filipino reading canon through the unceasing publication of lavishly illustrated and expanded new editions of cultural and educational books. Among its titles are José Rizal’s Noli Me Tángere, Carlos Quirino’s Philippine Cartography 4th Edition and Old Manila 2nd Edition, Antonio M. Abad’s La Oveja de Nathán, Lolo Jose An Intimate and Illustrated Portrait of José Rizal, Manuel Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas, and Occupation 1942-45

Academica Filipina is the interdisciplinary series that pushes the boundaries of scholarly publishing with smart, literate, and thought-provoking works exploring the Philippine past, present, and future. Among its titles is Boxer Codex: A Spanish Transcription and Translation of 16th Century Exploration Accounts, The World of the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, More Hispanic Than We Admit Volumes 1 to 3, More Tsinoy Than We Admit, More Islamic Than We Admit, More American Than We Admit, More Pinay Than We Admit, More Tomboy More Bakla Than We Admit, The World of the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, El Periodismo Filipino, Santo Niño de Cebu, Púgot: Head Taking Ritual, Cannibalism, and Human Sacrifice in the Philippines. 

Vibal books are available for online purchase at https://shop.vibalgroup.com/ and Shopee https://shopee.ph/vibalgroup. 

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Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020

 

Vibal Foundation’s Art Book Chronicles 123 years of Philippine Cinema 

Vibal Foundation recently launched Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020—a lavishly illustrated art book that not only provides an in-depth retrospective of over a hundred years of Philippine cinema, but also simultaneously traces its history, genres, narratives, tropes, and lore while subjecting its rich filmography to critique and film theory. The book tracks Philippine cinematic beginnings as a technological marvel and its many turn up to the twenty-first century as it blindly accepted, appropriated, indigenized, and even attacked Western conventions through intentionally wicked but hilarious parodies.

Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020 is the latest addition to Arte Filipino, Vibal Foundation’s imprint on art books. Arte Filipino promotes Philippine artistic history and culture and brings art into broader public view by pairing innovative scholarship with brilliantly reproduced visuals. 

Written by Gaspar Vibal and Dennis Villegas and edited by film educator, curator, and archivist Teddy Co, Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020 boldly looks at the seamier side of the film industry with its unblinking examination of DVD plenitude and piracy, trafficking of low-brow exploitation flicks, dislocation of mainstream distribution brought on by the advent of streaming and Netflix, and the tragic loss of the cinematic archive and the consequent loss of national memory.  

Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020

In Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020, a common thread runs through all its pages: a fevered cinephilia that equally valorizes the sublime and the ridiculous, from the socially realistic films set in the most miserable slums to the most inspired satires of spy capers and spaghetti westerns, and from the most profound critique to a weltering listmania of nostalgia and trivia. Its one hundred essays contain 1,200 notes and gossipy asides, plus over 1,315 images, which will equally delight any diehard movie buff or casual cinematic art lover.

The book is a retrospective survey of cinema from its birth in Spanish colonial Manila to the challenging era of the pandemic. Arranged chronologically in four periodizations, the book’s 100 essays on manifold aspects of cinema, such as its artistic language, conventions, narratives, textual sources, discourses on women, gender, modernity, and national identity as well as its inherent hybridity and undeniably transnational character are written primarily from an audience or fan perspective. 

In seeking to elide the division that traditionally separated academic film discourse from the bakya (popular) or the commercial, the book posits a holistic approach to appreciating Philippine cinematic art. In acknowledging this populist bent, an attempt has been made nevertheless to balance this cinephile-driven art history with postmodern critique and film theory.

Philippine Cinema, 1897-2020 is part of the Arte Filipino series. The art books under the series aim to elevate Philippine artistic history and culture and bring art into broader public view. Other titles in the series include  Fabian de la Rosa and His Times, The Life and Art of Botong Francisco, The Life and Art of David Medalla, The Life and Art of Francisco Coching, The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo, The Life and Times of Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, and The Life, Art, and Times of Damian Domingo; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Damián Domingo; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Francisco V. Coching; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Isabelo Tampinco; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Philippine Cinematic Art; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Toti Cerda; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Art of Window, Display, and Design; Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Nono: The 19th-Century Masters of Angono; and Fifty Shades of Philippine Art: Lee Aguinaldo.

Interested readers may purchase Vibal books online at https://shop.vibalgroup.com/ and Shopee https://shopee.ph/vibalgroup.