An exhibition of gallery posters personally collected by art patron, writer and cultural worker Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, Collecting the Moment: Art Exhibitions in Print, offers viewers a glimpse into the evolution of modern and contemporary art in the Philippines.
“Exhibition posters are designed for immediacy. They announce, invite, and communicate a show through the interplay of graphic design, text and image,” curatorial consultant Anna Rosete explained.
“While they help shape an artist’s identity and situate a body of work within its historical moment, they are also ephemeral — often disappearing once the exhibition ends, surviving only in memory,” she added.
The exhibition features 130 printed materials that highlight typography, imagery, and graphic design, each reflecting shifting popular aesthetics, curatorial approaches and cultural conversations across time.
“Displayed on tables designed by curator and creative director Gabriel Lichauco as a nod to the library, the posters form an open archive — one that reveals how moments of artistic production, debate and community were once shared in print,” Rosete noted.
Spanning the 1970s and 1980s, many of the posters — now part of the collection of the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Inc. — reflect two pivotal decades in Philippine cultural history.
“During the 1970s, visual culture often conveyed ideals of discipline, order and refinement under Martial Law,” Rosete explained. “In the 1980s, as the country moved toward democracy following EDSA, these visual languages became more varied and open, expressing a broader and more democratic cultural identity.”
Rosete also emphasized the significance of the posters for students of art, design and visual culture, noting that they document how exhibitions framed artistic value and authorship.
“They record first solo shows, group exhibitions and landmark retrospectives — moments when artists claimed space, audiences gathered and art history quietly took shape,” she said.
“While the exhibitions themselves were temporary, this collection preserves what once passed, inviting new readings of how art is introduced, remembered and sustained.”
The exhibition, co-presented by the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Inc. and the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde Center for Campus Exhibitions, forms part of the Art Fair Philippines 2026 Collectors Circle Program and 10 Days of Art, with support from Art Caravan PH.
Collecting the Moment: Art Exhibitions in Print runs until 31 March, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at A1201 Benilde Design + Arts Campus, 950 Pablo Ocampo Street, Malate, Manila. It is open to the public.