PH Consulate in San Francisco Hosts First Solo Exhibit of Baybayin Artist Taipan Lucero
Philippine Consul General in San Francisco Neil Ferrer (center-left), Mrs. Miriam Ferrer (extreme left), and Filipino American Arts Exposition President Al Perez (extreme right) join Filipino visual artist Taipan Lucero (center-right) in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open “CalligraFilipino VI: Baybayin Fine Art Exhibition” at the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco on 16 September 2022. (Photo from San Francisco PCG)
SAN FRANCISCO 21 September 2022 – The Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco, in partnership with Filipino American Arts Exposition (FAAE), hosts its first art exhibit in years with the opening of “CalligraFilipino VI: Baybayin Fine Art Exhibition” of Filipino visual artist Taipan Lucero on 16 September 2022 at the Consulate’s Kalayaan Hall.
Philippine Consul General Neil Ferrer, Mrs. Miriam Ferrer, and FAAE President and San Francisco Entertainment Commissioner Al Perez joined Lucero in the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the month-long CalligraFilipino exhibit.
In his remarks during the launch, Consul General Ferrer said that through CalligraFilipino, Lucero’s artistic take on the Philippines’ indigenous writing system, “we are witnessing a modern revival of the baybayin as an art form that is representative of our people’s ancestral culture and heritage.”
“For a time, the lack of interest in the baybayin among Filipinos, has caused many to fear that it will soon become an extinct script... Even until recently, the baybayin was incorrectly referred to by many as the alibata, due to an erroneous belief that it originated from the Arabic script,” added Consul General Ferrer.
“We are thankful to scholars in the academic field as well as artists such as [Lucero], for their contributions in bringing about the rebirth of the baybayin as a distinctive cultural symbol that Filipinos the world over can be proud of,” the Philippine Consul General said.
As a token of appreciation to the Consulate for hosting his first solo exhibition outside the Philippines, Lucero presented to Consul General Ferrer a painting featuring a stylized baybayin translation of the five core values of the Department of Foreign Affairs: patriotism, integrity, professionalism, excellence, and service which, according to Consul General Ferrer, will be displayed in the Consulate’s soon-to-be-relaunched Sentro Rizal San Francisco, the Bay Area’s hub for Philippine history, culture and the arts.
Lucero’s CalligraFilipino exhibit follows his successful stint at the 2022 Pistahan Parade and Festival in San Francisco last August, and his series of talks and demonstrations on baybayin art at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Philippine Consulate General in New York. The exhibition coincides with the celebration of Museum and Galleries Month in the Philippines, and Filipino American History Month in the U.S.
Apart from the CalligraFilipino exhibit, which will run through 14 October 2022, Lucero will headline a talk and demo at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco on 2 October 2022. He will also be featured during the Filipino American History Month celebration at the San Francisco City Hall on 5 October 2022, and during the 6th Filipino American International Book Festival at the San Francisco Public Library on 15 October 2022.
Lucero, a fine arts graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman, is a recipient of the 2022 Competitive Grants Program of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Philippine government’s main cultural agency.
For more information, visit https://www.sanfranciscopcg.dfa.gov.ph, https://www.philippinessanfrancisco.org, https://www.facebook.com/PHinSF/ or https://www.instagram.com/phlinsf/. END
Clockwise from top left: Philippine Consul General Neil Ferrer delivers his remarks during the opening of “CalligraFilipino VI: Baybayin Fine Art Exhibition” at the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco on 16 September 2022; Filipino visual artist Taipan Lucero gives a short talk on baybayin art during the opening of the Exhibit; Philippine Consul General Neil Ferrer ( right) receives from Filipino visual artist Taipan Lucero a baybayin art painting which stylizes the five “core values” of the Department of Foreign Affairs, during the launch. (Photos from San Francisco PCG )