MANILA, Philippines - Except for ?Still Life, White Moon at the Vineyard? by senior artist Federico Aguilar Alcuaz that fetched S$25,200 (P756,000), the top 10 Filipino artworks which got sold for more than their estimated prices at the recent Borobudur auction in Singapore were all made by artists under 40.

The works that fetched the highest price were ?Into the Woods (Bear)? by 36-year-old Yasmin Sison-Ching and ?The Giant Watermelon? by 28-year-old Rodel Tapaya Garcia. Final price for both were P1,008,000.

Sison-Ching is a University of the Philippines graduate who belonged to the erstwhile Surrounded by Water art collective. She has exhibited in Manila and abroad. Her work, ?Into the Woods (Bear),? in oil on canvas, shows a little girl in the woods leaning forward against a tree, with a half-worn bear mask on her head.

Tapaya, who studied in UP and Parsons School of Design, has exhibited in Manila and abroad, and has illustrated for children?s books. ?Watermelon,? in acrylic on canvas, shows a man about to bite into a slice of watermelon.

Biggest gainer

Perhaps the biggest gainer was 27-year-old Eufemio Rasco IV, a Cavite-based artist who?s had only one solo show in Manila. All three of his works were hotly bidded for and sold way beyond their estimated prices.
?Hung,? a disturbing painting of a man who is either being punished or breakdancing as he lies upside down on the floor, a black shirt covering his head and right shoulder, exceeded its estimate price by S$20,000 (P600,000).

One of the bidders for that piece was 30-year-old Singaporean Bill Koh, whose year-old company, Times Art Investment, manages art portfolios.
?I learned about Filipino art through the Internet. I did a lot of research,? he says. ?Right now, everyone wants Indonesian art. Indonesia is more world-recognized. But I think soon it?s the turn of Philippine art to boom, and we want to be ready for that.?

Koh says some of the works he wanted to buy included those ?by this 70-something-year-old painter, but the prices were getting too high for me, it was already above my budget.?
That painter was Alcuaz, whose two other works, from the family collection and made in 1977, earned at least S$4,000 (P120,000) from its estimated price. His son, Christian, was present at the auction and was happy with the result.

Reopening the door

The performance of Filipino works at the Borobudur auction is good news for artists, collectors and gallery owners who see it as the new benchmark for Filipino art?s popularity abroad. A record number of 50 works were put on the block, and 86 percent were sold (see related article). The international door has been reopened.

However, influential Malaysian gallery owner Valentine Willie, who works with Borobudur in choosing key pieces from Southeast Asia, says the performance was ?good, but I wouldn?t say it went beyond expectation.?

The senior artists, in particular, fared poorly compared to young and relatively unknown names such as Rasco.
A painting by National Artist H.R. Ocampo was unsold. The highest gain by a Ramon Orlina sculpture was S$3,000 (P60,000) above its estimated price. An Arturo Luz was undersold. Juvenal Sanso?s abstracts were sold, but only within the estimated price.

Willie says one of the reasons is because the market was not so informed. The investors, he notes, were not so much in evidence this year ?perhaps because the economy is not doing so well.?

Raising the profile

?We need to raise the profile of artists like Sanso,? says Mike Magee of Galerie Joaquin Singapore, the only gallery in the Lion City that exclusively sells Philippine art, ?because there are already people interested in his works. It?s just that collectors are not so aware of him.?
A private equity, he says, has expressed keen interest in purchasing a bulk of his works.

The British IT and management consultant says the market now likes ?edgy, figurative art? like Rasco?s, which Galerie Joaquin carries. ?We try to position the artworks as auction pieces,? he says.

Borobudur, which only started Singapore operations last year, is also tapping on a younger market of collectors. Willie says the auction house is adventurous and carries a wider range of artists compared to older establishments like Christie?s and Sotheby?s whose selection is predictable.

These two houses tend to concentrate on either deceased artists like Juan Luna and Manansala, or senior artists like Anita Magsaysay-Ho. In 2002, Christie?s also sold the most expensive Philippine artwork to be sold at an auction: ?Parisian Life? by Juan Luna, at P46 million.

Compared to these two auction houses, Borobudur has a wider price range. Which is good news for startup collectors like Koh.

?Borobudur concentrates on regional buyers like me. And while Christie?s sometimes has a better selection of Chinese art, for Southeast Asian art this one has more, and they?re still affordable,? he says.