{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":57555,"auction_id":116,"set_id":150,"lot_number":"131","artist":"Danilo Dalena (b.1942)","title":"Huling Ticket (Jai-Alai Series)","starting_price":1800000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1983 (lower left)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"30” x 24\" (76 cm x 61 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist","exhibited":"Cultural Center of the Philippines, Last Full Show: Danilo Dalena\nRetrospective, Manila, 10 December 2016 - 4 March 2017","literature":null,"write_up":"Danilo Dalena’s Jai-Alai series is perhaps the most iconic in his oeuvre. The “classic Dalena,” as it has been touted, has found its rightful place in the annals of Philippine art history. <br><br> Dalena’s first foray into the art world began not with paintings but with biting critiques in the form of sociopolitical editorial cartoons. Publishing his illustrations in the Free Press and the Asia-Philippines Leader, it is no surprise that when Dalena crossed the threshold into painting, his focus remained on the poor and downtrodden. <br><br>His Jai-Alai series began in 1974 at the height of Martial Law, and was fully realized when his Jai-Alai Series of Paintings was exhibited in Sining Kamalig at the Regent of Manila in 1978. Jai-Alai, as described by Marilyn R. Canta in her CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine art essay about the series, is a type of ball sport known for its speed. More importantly, it is a sport known predominantly for its many types of betting. Very much like horse racing, this is a game that “requires predictions on the score outcomes or comparative standings of players and/or teams at the end of the games.” <br><br>As told by childhood friend and college classmate Eduardo Reyes, Dalena first encountered Jai-Alai when Reyes’s brother-in-law served as an adviser to ‘Pelotario’ players. Given access to many of these events for free, Dalena saw with his own two eyes the many types of bettors putting everything on the line in hopes of winning the jackpot. More often than not, they leave empty-handed, losing what little they hoped to double in the end. <br><br>With Huling Ticket, Dalena portrays a man on his last leg of luck. Crouching down, the man was visibly dejected as he picked up the last of the paper littered around him. Common to many Filipinos down on their luck, this man finds himself clinging to the only hope he has in his life, a quick and easy way to accumulate money. Though the statistical probability of getting rich quickly is quite slim, many still hope for the impossible. <br><br>Gambling as a whole is not an uncommon phenomenon in the Philippines. A “habitual and pervasive social activity,” as described by De La Salle University professors Marvin Castell and Joel Tanchuco in 2004, these kinds of activities take on many forms in the Philippine soil. From jueteng, sanctioned cockfights, to results-based betting games, gambling became popular all across the archipelago, a get-rich-quick scheme that has taken the country by storm. <br><br>More than a portrayal of uninhibited vice, Huling Ticket remains as Dalena’s faithful testament to the country’s continued deterioration. Just as his Jai-Alai series portrays the depth of human poverty brought upon by relentless systemic oppression and abuse, Huling Ticket focuses its piercing gaze on one of the country’s persisting moral and social opium. Gambling has a long history of uplifting those in the dredges of poverty onto a comfortable life, but it has an even longer track record of condemning the condemned into a life worse than what they’ve lived. So long as our countrymen continue to put their lives and livelihoods on the line for even just a chance of a better tomorrow, it is a sign of a pervasive disease that runs deep in our country’s history. That, according to Dalena, is one of the symptoms that should be addressed, should we hope for the better, which includes a country that collectively marches towards the path of a radical and inclusive tomorrow. (Hannah Valiente)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":3000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":3000000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":3604800,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":62043,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/116/150/lot/131.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":62238,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/116/150/lot/131c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":62237,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/116/150/lot/131b.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":62236,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/116/150/lot/131a.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":130,"next":132,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}