{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":1746,"auction_id":3,"set_id":4,"lot_number":"58","artist":"Emmanuel Garibay (b. 1962)","title":"Man Playing Flute","starting_price":400000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2008 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"36\" x 36\" (91 cm x 91 cm)","property":null,"coa":"Accompanied by a certificate signed by the artist\nconfirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":null,"exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Wandering the streets of Metro Manila means encountering the urban poor, their plight, vulnerability, and the precarity of their socio-economic conditions. In Emmanuel Garibay’s works, one can also discern palpable images of these people, as if the artist had just painted them on the spot.
Rod Pattenden writes in his article “Recognizing the Stranger: The Art of Emmanuel Garibay”: “Garibay’s deeply held concern for the poor was nurtured by his father, a leading Methodist preacher who gave his time to his flock with an open heartedness that also marks his son’s sense of hospitality…Art, in Garibay’s vocabulary, is a form of political and social speech that shapes our conscience.”
Created in 2008 at the time of the Global Financial Crisis, the image depicted in Garibay’s Man Playing Flute is as straightforward as its title. But the power of the piece lies in Garibay’s capability to evoke genuine empathy in his viewers, even in rather ubiquitous scenes of the urban poor, which we all have grown accustomed to in this poverty-stricken country. Through his downright depiction of a man playing his flute for his daily subsistence, the composition emerges compelling and genuine, borne from a man with a profound understanding of the masses’ plight and who wishes to dignify the poor.
Empathy and familiarity can be found in those outcast by society. In fact, it is in their faces and personas where we can genuinely find and share our struggles. After all, we are but different ranks of the same oppressed class. (A.M.)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"
Emmanuel Garibay (b. 1962) Man Playing Flute signed and dated 2008 (lower right) oil on canvas 36\" x 36\" (91 cm x 91 cm)