FRENCH-FILIPINO ART COLLAB HATCHES
You’ve probably seen it, driving up to Central Square, the Stores Specialists Inc. (SSI) building in BGC: a 25-meterhigh street mural decorating one side of the building. In it, colorful cartoon chickens (or “chicanos”) frolic along a vertical space that also incorporates vibrant abstract shapes (maybe you see a cross in there, maybe you don’t) and a black and white rooster on top of it all. The piece is called “Up to the Sky!” and it brings together street artists Ceet Fouad (France) and Egg Fiasco (Philippines), part of a months-long celebration of 75 years of French-Philippines ties that started up June 26.
With a strong French-Philippine exhibit ongoing at Pintô Art Museum (“Diamond in the Rough”), the just-completed Fete De La Musique returning to live stages in Manila and the islands for the first time in several locked-down years, and a host of gastronomical, sporting and musical events to come, it’s the French Embassy of the Philippines’ way of marking a strong, enduring amitié.
So I had to ask the two artists standing in front of the cornucopia of characters last Tuesday the ageold question: Which came first? The chicanos or the Egg?
“Egg did his parts first,” says Fouad. “Then I worked over it with the chicanos.”
Yup, they both took turns mounting a crane to layer in their contributions — a process not without incident, as we’ll see.
Also on hand at Central Square Mall to celebrate were French Ambassador to the Philippines Michèle Boccoz, SSI chairman-CEO Zenaida Tantoco, show curator Claire Thibaud-Piton and HoneycombArts event producer Kayo Cosio.
“Creating together between French and Filipino artists is the soul of this anniversary,” said Ambassador Boccoz, in praising the mural. “Congratulations to Ceet and Egg for elegantly and creatively illustrating this anniversary.”
Mrs. Tantoco had this message: “I wish to offer the heartfelt congratulations of SSI as well as the Tantoco family for this beautiful artistic collaboration to mark this 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations. We are proud to have been chosen, out of all the buildings in BGC, to be the recipient of this street art mural.”
Ambassador Boccoz also praised the two artists for “playing ‘hide and seek’ with the rain, and patiently working long hours 25 meters up in the air “when the crane decided to go on strike and they were stuck there on top.” (It’s true: Ceet was stalled up on a crane for about an hour, but all’s