{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":44816,"auction_id":90,"set_id":119,"lot_number":"146","artist":"Jose John Santos III (b. 1970)","title":"Hide and Seek","starting_price":800000,"signed_dated":"dated 2014","medium":"83 resin-coated fabric bags","size":null,"property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":null,"exhibited":"The Link, Hide and Seek (Presented at Art Fair Philippines 2014), Ayala Center, Makati City, 20 - 23 February 2014<br /> Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, RE:collection: Jose Santos III (Exhibition organized by Artinformal and presented at Art Basel Hong Kong 2014), 15 - 18 May 2014","literature":"Ruoh Ling, Keong, Leo Abaya, and Kenneth Tay. ²hide. Singapore: Pearl Lam Galleries, 2014. Published to accompany the exhibition of the same name at Pearl Lam Galleries in 2014-15. Full-color illustration on page 10 and artwork description on pages 10 - 11.","write_up":"Re-collecting Recollections Jose John Santos III in Art Basel Hong Kong<br /><br /> The question above encapsulates Jose John Santos III's monumental installation titled Hide and Seek. The work was the centerpiece of Santos' participation at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2014, in his exhibition space titled RE:collection. Composed of 83 resin-coated fabric bags and showcased to the viewers by hanging them on walls, Hide and Seek seeks inquiry into the ambiguity of the hidden, revealing in the process how various stimuli can trigger and launch a string of past memories that have been long sunken under the sea of the subliminal.<br /><br />The late artist and production designer Leo Abaya writes in the catalog for Santos' Art Basel participation: \"The veiling renders the objects as residual, vestigial, and lingering forms. But while the gesture seems inertial, it paradoxically calls to mind the Proustian notion that appearances conceal the true nature of things.\"<br /><br />Santos himself says in an interview for the 2014 exhibition 2hide, which succeeded his Art Basel participation, that his \"previous works sought to contradict the order of reality under a convincing veneer of naturalism,\" a statement that refers to his Art Basel installations, particularly Hide and Seek. Central to understanding the work is the usage of fabric/cloth and resin. In commonplace scenarios, cloth is used to conceal, and resin is employed as an adhesive or a protective lining and coating. In Hide and Seek, Santos presents a dialogue between the visible and the invisible, the conscious and the subconscious.<br /><br />Santos plays into the concept of the Proustian memory \n(coined by Marcel Proust from his literary masterpiece In \nSearch of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past)), in which \na specific memory that becomes buried in the subconscious \n(referred to as the \"Involuntary Memory\") is triggered and \nelicited by the senses.<br /><br />According to the Danish professor and psychologist Dorthe \nBerntsen, in the article The Neural Basis of Involuntary \nEpisodic Memories published by the US National Library of \nMedicine, \"Involuntary episodic memories are memories of \npast events that come to mind spontaneously without a \ndeliberate retrieval attempt.  Such memories are central to \nour understanding of conscious mental processes; they are \nas frequent in daily life as intentionally retrieved memories \nand are functional, often directing our behavior.  By favoring \nthe recollection of recent events and events that share \noverlapping features with the ongoing situation, involuntary \nepisodic memories operate in ways that increase the \nprobability that they will provide information of relevance \nto the current situation.\"<br /><br /> In the work's context, the coated bags conceal memories \nof lived realities.  The solid tactility of the bags, dense in \nform and each having a distinct configuration, could evoke \nrecollections when touched and become representative of \nthe subjective nature of memories, i.e., engendering our \npersonal impressions of personal realities instantly provoked \nby various stimuli.  These stimuli evoke vivid emotions or may \neven relive the pains of the past that have been concealed \ndue to their overwhelming effect on one's consciousness.\n Hide and Seek draws the viewer to re-collect bags of \nhidden memories to arrive at an introspective recollection \nof encounters and circumstances that are established in \nthe past and may fill the voids in the present—re-collect to \nrecollect.  In doing so, one finally sheds light on what has \nbeen suppressed and deemed forever hidden.<br /><br />Santos' Hide and Seek finally arrives at a full circle; to hide \ndoes not simply mean the concealment of things, but an \ninvitation to seek and venture into the invisible.  To hide is to \neventually unearth \"the essence of the past,\" the \"precious \nfragments\" of one's being.  (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":2600000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":2600000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":3124160,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":43198,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/90/119/lot/146.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"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":145,"next":0,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}