{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":37245,"auction_id":48,"set_id":76,"lot_number":"115","artist":"Max Balatbat (b.1978)","title":"Balay-Palaruan","starting_price":120000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2013 (upper left)","medium":"acrylic on canvas","size":"48” x 48” (122 cm x 122 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private Collection, Quezon City","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Max Balatbat is an abstractionist with a social realist’s perspective. Balatbat creates a muscular aesthetic, what with their combinations of angular elements these works which hint of even a sculptural presence. His early creative formation and works took inspiration from the “International Cabaret”, a children’s playground by day and brothel by night where he spent an unusual childhood. As a profoundly referential artist, this place reminds of every line every shape and every color which eventually came out in his works and everything about it has its own story beyond the glitzy images and the sale of women’s bodies. From its own title, it connotes hat entertainment is seen in its present use as a vehicle for domination. Entertainment is also a victim of rabid commoditization.   The canvas contains a series of geometric compositions which juggled color and pattern with equal temerity. Given Balatbat’s architectural — sculptural feeling for his social malaise themes, be it top view or front view is always marked by certain cragginess, a fragmentation. The buildings are almost ephemeral, and yet this is the same delicacy that holds the composition together. His abstractions reveal a style that has not completely given up imagery. The artist depicted plaid and stripes patterns of fabric print patterns alluding to the skimpy dresses of dancers, rendered in acrylic, to build up the surface forms, as well as to bringing rhythm and balance to the overall compositions. The fabrics are a motif which can be made to carry various meanings by which the artist can continue to explore the forces underlying this form of entertainment.   Balatbat's visual interpretation of life among prostitutes tends to universalize as much, as particularize places. To the artist, his art is a registry of his unique upbringing. His works are personal statements inferred from experiences since childhood. The seediness of the canvases is full of anonymity. The random fabrics represent the many parallel experiences occurring at any one moment in the same scenario.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":220000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":220000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":256960,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":35275,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/48/76/lot/115.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[220000,240000,260000,280000,300000,320000,340000,360000,380000,400000,450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":114,"next":116,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}