Tosh Basco: No Sky
No Sky is the first-ever survey exhibition of Tosh Basco, highly regarded for her hypnotic performances, movement-based work, and improvisations, which unfold across film, theater, drawing, and painting. This exhibition presents hitherto unseen works that the Filipino-American artist made over the last decade, including works on paper, oil painting, and photography. All the work in the exhibition, in various ways, can be considered as representation-by-touch and thus ask the viewer to think about alternative sensory modes of representation, challenging the dominance of the eye and mind, imitation, and idea.
The exhibition transforms the RAM鈥檚 fourth-floor gallery into a blue stage, which alludes to Basco鈥檚 studio and performance space. In this theater, three series of works on paper are presented on transparent structures, which are reminiscent of the iconic glass easels designed by the legendary Italian-Brazilian architect, Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992). Bo Bardi鈥檚 glass easels offered a breakthrough in the 1950s, enabling artworks to exist freely within an open space, accessible from numerous perspectives, unburdened by any predefined narrative or hierarchy. Similarly, in No Sky, Basco鈥檚 large-scale drawings levitate in the center stage.
The artist comments: 鈥淣o Sky brings together many pieces of my practice and is the culmination of many moments in my life: Where there is no language, there is performance. Where there is desire and longing, there are photos. Where there aren鈥檛 words, there are drawings and paintings. There is no logic. It is a felt sense, a full throttle feel in the working through world.鈥�
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No Sky is the first-ever survey exhibition of Tosh Basco, highly regarded for her hypnotic performances, movement-based work, and improvisations, which unfold across film, theater, drawing, and painting. This exhibition presents hitherto unseen works that the Filipino-American artist made over the last decade, including works on paper, oil painting, and photography. All the work in the exhibition, in various ways, can be considered as representation-by-touch and thus ask the viewer to think about alternative sensory modes of representation, challenging the dominance of the eye and mind, imitation, and idea.
The exhibition transforms the RAM鈥檚 fourth-floor gallery into a blue stage, which alludes to Basco鈥檚 studio and performance space. In this theater, three series of works on paper are presented on transparent structures, which are reminiscent of the iconic glass easels designed by the legendary Italian-Brazilian architect, Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992). Bo Bardi鈥檚 glass easels offered a breakthrough in the 1950s, enabling artworks to exist freely within an open space, accessible from numerous perspectives, unburdened by any predefined narrative or hierarchy. Similarly, in No Sky, Basco鈥檚 large-scale drawings levitate in the center stage.
The artist comments: 鈥淣o Sky brings together many pieces of my practice and is the culmination of many moments in my life: Where there is no language, there is performance. Where there is desire and longing, there are photos. Where there aren鈥檛 words, there are drawings and paintings. There is no logic. It is a felt sense, a full throttle feel in the working through world.鈥�
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鈥淲hen I dance, I am free of it all, an open channel to say what can鈥檛 be said in photos or in words.鈥�
After working on Guggenheim shows including the controversial Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World and Wu Tsang's iconic Anthem.
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