{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":39561,"auction_id":58,"set_id":86,"lot_number":"171","artist":"Danilo Dalena  (b. 1942)","title":"Tulog-Tulog (Jai-Alai Series)","starting_price":600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1975 (lower right)","medium":null,"size":"29 1/2” x 39” (75 cm x 100 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private Collection, Makati City","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Art, said Picasso, is “a form of magic designed as a mediator between this strange world and us…” And closer to home, the strange world of jai alai bettors during the martial law years is captured by Danilo “Danny” Dalena. \nDalena’s compositions are highly visually cohesive in form and mood. A purgatorial view of life is conjured amid the atmosphere of strangeness.  A monobloc chair and figures peeking from the awning window add to the atmosphere of strangeness.  In the Jai Alai series, in the words of Alice Guillermo: “…done in the bleak martial law years, the betting hall becomes a metaphor for the human condition, particularly for society in crisis.  The game, like an arbitrary throw of dice with its winning combination  of numbers, mesmerizes and provokes in crowds of the oppressed and unemployed a temporarily heightened existence  compounded by hope and despair., by monstrous jubilation and drunken despondency…” the latter of which is depicted in  this work.\nDalena’s first foray into the arts after graduating from UST (where he had as professors Victorio Edades and Galo Ocampo) was in the publishing industry where he did illustrations and editorial cartoons for publications such as the Philippine Free Press and the Asia Philippine Leader.\nThis raised the standards of editorial art in the country.  He did some political sculptures, and a series of drawings of urinals  begun in the late 60s which he called the Toilet Series.  The Toilet Series was composed of on-the-spot pen and ink drawings  of urinals in the bistros and beer gardens which he frequented. Since then, Dalena has been actively producing works that  are biting, probing commentaries on the prevailing human condition in the country.  With a penchant for plump figures with obscured faces, coupled with heavy brush strokes, his paintings contain a surrealistic emotion peppered with the artist’s dark and acerbic humor. \nIn 1974 shortly alter the declaration of martial law caused the closing down of the Philippine Leader, Dalena found himself without work.  He then began the Jai Alai Series that portrayed not the game itself, but the swirling mass of bettors who arrived hopeful but left as losers. One of the paintings in his series grabbed the grand prize in the Art Association of the Philippines competition the following year.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"<p><strong>Danilo Dalena</strong> (b.1942)<br /><em>Tulog-Tulog (Jai-Alai Series)</em><br />signed and dated 1975 (lower right)<br />oil on canvas<br />29 1/2&rdquo; x 39&rdquo; (75 cm x 100 cm)</p>","alias":null,"hp":1900000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":1900000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":2219200,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":37897,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/58/86/lot/171.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[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":170,"next":172,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}