welcome...home?

Welcome Home

The Ang INK: 20 Taon Exhibit at the Ayala Museum is extended until February 26, 2012!

The Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang INK, Illustrators for Children) 20 Taon Retrospective exhibit at the Ayala Museum lobby which will be on show from November 22 to January 15, 2012, had me pondering about the practice of illustration:

When illustration becomes independent of the texts, what are the possibilities of its context?

When these illustrations without texts are exhibited and properly curated in a museum, does that transform them automatically to "art"? Or only when placed in the context of art history?

When illustrators are also authors, their personal ideas are expressed through illustration. If personal intentions are validation of what define works of art, is the work of an illustrator-author an art?

While some illustrators does not merely depend on someone else's ideas or story, they also have their own take on an idea, they have personal vision in the expression of an idea. Is the work of an illustrator who interprets another's idea, artless?

A discourse on whether illustration belongs to fine art or commercial design is irrelevant. How come the presence of a silent repudiation from painters, the art scene, and illustrators themselves can still be felt?