This Half-Naked Drunk Figure Is The Talk of ALT Fair

(SPOT.ph) Here’s useful advice for those visiting the big ALT show this weekend at the SMX Convention Center: Don’t just keep looking up for the wall bound art—and there will be plenty trying to earn your gaze!—pay attention, too, to where you’re walking. Because you just might knock over a seemingly drunk figure slumped on a Monobloc chair as you peruse the exhibition offerings. He might look astonishingly real but he’s really also art. And he’s the most talked about piece in this ALT’s fourth edition.

He’s—or It’s, rather—a sculpture by seasoned Filipino artist Lindslee and it’s called “Weight of the Day.” You can find the sculpture—with a price tag of P730,000—at the Artinformal section of the fair, among the provocative painted Orocans by Kristoffer Ardeña, the fabulous pottery art of Pablo Capati III, and the sublime landscapes by Lui Medina. Made of fiber-reinforced resin cast from clay, acrylic paint, epoxy resin, human hair, and a taxidermy of a bird resting on the man’s sleeping head, “Weight of the Day” attracted a lot of attention from collectors, artists and other VIPs at the ALT Vernissage on Thursday afternoon (the crowd included Tessie Sy-Coson, Irene Araneta and Lisa Gokongwei) with many taking a photo with the life-like figure. “Even the folds are so realistic!” one visitor said. “And the pawis on the skin!”

Lindslee, a Fine Arts grad of the University of Santo Tomas, is known to explore the possibilities of materials in his craft, creating hyper-realistic works that often carry in them his social observations, commentary, and humor. “Actually nag-uugat yung mga works ko sa mga Filipinos and how religion, society and politics shape their everyday life,” the artist tells Spot. He said the drunk figure, which also incorporates found clothing and religious amulets, is not based on anybody he knows. “Lahat naman tayo may kilalang katulad niya.”

Lindslee began his artistic journey with abstraction before going into sculpture. Soon he was adding the latter to his canvases. “I’m very interested with experimenting with materials,” he says. So much so that he would hoard a wealth of objects for his art and eventually opened an arts supply store with his wife. Factory visits also expose Lindslee to a variety of fascinating materials, likely inspiring him to push himself to make things he’s never done before.

So yeah, “Weight of the Day” is definitely not his first sculpture of the sort. He’s done a lot—“Pero mas marami failure, hindi nag-work. They ended up hidden or nasa bubong dahil hindi na magkasya sa bahay.” The reaction to “Weight of the Day” he says is quite overwhelming. “Daming nagta-tag sa akin.” It’s as positive as the response to his show from where the work comes from, a recently extended exhibit called “Happy Birthday” at Artinformal Makati, which has a celebratory theme. It was gallerist Tina Fernandez’s idea to “borrow” the figure temporarily from that show, bring the drunk man to SMX, and place it right smack where people can engage with it.

As for the spot it left at Artinormal gallery, there’s a similar chair there now with traces of the drunk man’s “sweat.” It’s called “Party’s Over,” and in typical Lindslee fashion, there’s a dash of humor in the idea. “We have to tell people that he’s sobered up,” says Fernandez with a laugh. “And that he’s now on his way home.”

ALT opens today, Friday, at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City, and runs until Sunday, February 15.