Experience high tea inspired by National Artist Federico Aguilar Alcuaz

“We work here for money but art feeds our soul,” Grace Lim, The Peninsula Hotels’ Public Relations officer and eCommerce manager officer-in-charge, told DAILY TRIBUNE at a high tea last Thursday, admitting that she never knew any Filipino artist, until she got to work with The Peninsula Manila or as generations before her fondly called it, the Manila Pen.

Until the end of the month, the Manila Pen’s extensive permanent Filipino art collection — including Jose Joya, Cesar Legapi, Ang Kiukok and the giant Napoleon Abueva sun that shines over the hotel’s magnificent The Lobby — will be accompanied by three never-before-seen Art Protis tapestries by National Artist for Visual Arts, Painting, Sculpture and Mixed Media Federico Aguilar Alcuaz.

To experience art, one must simply visit a museum. But at the Manila Pen, Aguilar Alcuaz’s art can be indulged not only as an exhibition, but as an afternoon high tea that provides a different experience of the art, said the exhibition’s curator, Ricky Francisco of Fundacion Sanso.

Francisco told DAILY TRIBUNE that he has never experienced a high tea inspired by an artist before. It is, said Lim, the Manila Pen’s first high tea inspired by an artist, although Aguilar Alcuaz was not the first to be exhibited at The Lobby.

First, there was artist Mano Gonzales, who was feted with a dinner concert. Then, there was Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera, making the exhibit on Aguilar Alcuaz the first time for the hotel to feature two National Artists in succession, Lim noted.

But choosing an artist that would follow BenCab was not easy, said Manila Pen Public Relations director Mariano Garchitorena.

“We went through a lot, believe me! Even all over Metro Manila as well, several other artists and the big names. And we also need to work with what the brand. All of these also needed to be sent to Hong Kong, to head office,” Garchitorena explained the process of having the featured artist approved since the exhibition is part of Art in Resonance, the Peninsula’s global arts program dedicated to supporting local and international artists, while creating deeply immersive art experiences for guests.

“It needs scale, that’s true, but it also needs to look like it belongs in The Lobby,” Garchitorena affirmed. “And we need a bit of pop, yet not overpowering.”

Aguilar Alcuaz’s tapestries fit right in — in both size and in blending with The Lobby.

Christian Aguilar Alcuaz, the National Artist’s eldest son, told DAILY TRIBUNE that his dad created tapestries from 1967 or 1968 to 1985. The three on display at The Lobby were made in the former Czechoslovakia, when it was still under the “Iron Curtain” of the former Soviet Union.

According to Christian, his dad created the tapestries with no layouts and tediously layer by layer using wool, before being compressed by a machine and stitched. His dad gave its production a “Filipino touch” by eating and working side-by-side with workers in the spirit of “Bayanihan;” whereas European artists also working at Czechoslovakia that time worked separately from artisans.

“At a time when tapestries are regarded as decorative craft, Aguilar Alcuaz elevated it into modernist art, creating large woven works that merged the traditions of European ateliers with his own distinctly Filipino sensibility,” the exhibition notes said of the artist.

If the tapestries are the extension of his painterly vision into the realm of textile, the high tea is a visual and sensual interpretation of his tapestries.

According to Lim, like Aguilar Alcuaz’s selection as featured artist, the high tea also underwent a meticulous creative process before being approved by the hotel’s regional general manager.

The result is a three-tiered treat of savories and sweets that captures the “abstractness” and vivid colors of the tapestries, said Lim.

The condiments — strawberry jam, calamansi curry and platted cream — can be used for the plain and raisin scones. The savory delights include curry chicken, smoked salmon and cucumber cream cheese sandwiches, as well as the main lobster brioche. For dessert, there are the Filipino-inspired mango coconut, coffee Barako, ube truffle and raspberry calamansi. These are placed on top an edible sugar paper printed with Aguilar Alcuaz’s art, with a chocolate easel as “cherry on top.”

These, according to the hotel staff, go well with subtle flavors like black or green tea, or with the hotel’s own house champagne, exclusively brewed for the hotel.

Aguilar Alcuaz himself used to sip vodka tonic at The Lobby, Garchitorena recalled.

The artist used to play a small piano-like instrument while enjoying his cocktail, then later on, he would grab some green apples or oranges from the buffet. He loved these fruits so much that these made it to some of his works.

His dad, according to Christian, was friends with Abueva. The exhibition, therefore, was a reunion of sorts for old friends, as Aguilar Alcuaz’s tapestries can now be seen conversing with Abueva’s sun perched from above.