Jojo Guingona held an architectural photography exhibit at the Filipinas Heritage Library. Ben Cabrera, Wig Tysmans, Pancho Escaler and Quincy Castillo attended the opening of the show.

A few days later, Jojo invited BenCab, Wig Tysmans, Pancho Escaler and Quincy Castillo to a dinner at his home and the other person who came to this dinner was  Bien Bautista.

Before dinner Quincy mentioned to the group that since they were all photographers, why not talk about holding a group exhibit. Everyone got excited. The group started talking about abstraction as a theme. More excitement filled the conversations. They talked about holding it not in a gallery but in the middle of a huge mall so that as many people as possible would see it and it was also decided that the images would be large. Pancho immediately mentioned that he knew the president of SM SuperMalls, Ms. Annie Garcia.

The following day, Pancho called Quincy to inform him that he had already spoken to the SM SuperMall people and they were interested in such a show. A couple of days later, BenCab told us that we should go ahead and plan the show and that he was already shooting abstractions. What very few people know is that BenCab is also a very talented photographer outside of being National Artist for Painting 2006.

Jaime Zobel held a show called “Emergence” at the Ayala Museum shortly after our dinner/meeting and Bien Bautista attended the opening. In the course of their conversation, Bien mentioned our plans for an exhibit on photographic abstractions. Jaime Zobel is the one who started awareness about photo abstractions which has been a recurring theme in many of his exhibitions.  Bien asked Jaime if he would consider joining the group exhibit and he agreed.

Emil Davocol, who is one of the most talented and successful photographers in the Philippines also agreed to join the group upon the invitation of Quincy. With the addition of Emil, the group became composed of 8 photgraphers which explains the name of the show: Large 8

This is how the abstraction exhibit came to be.

“LARGE 8” – An exhibit on  Photo-Abstraction

The 8 Photographers are:

1. Bien Bautista
2. Ben Cabrera
3. Quincy Castillo
4. Emil Davocol
5. Pancho Escaler
6. Jojo Guingona
7. Wig Tysmans
8. Jaime Zobel de Ayala Sr.

EXHIBIT CONCEPT: “Bringing Art to People”

Fine art photographs like paintings are appreciated by people who visit galleries. However, the majority do not find the time to view them for a variety of reasons. One of the more practical reasons is that most people can not afford to collect art or fine photographs.

This is the reason we are launching this exhibit at the Mall of Asia. From there the show will travel to 7 other SM Supermalls including MegaMall, Baguio, Clark, NorthEdsa, Davao,  Bacolod and Cebu. The fine art prints, sponsored by Epson, will be the largest fine art prints ever exhibited in the Philippines. Each print will be 80” inches X 120” inches.

This brings us to the rationale behind this undertaking. We want to increase the awareness and appreciation of photographic art among Filipinos. The fact that the theme is abstract is meant primarily to make the majority ask themselves what it is they are seeing. The experience of viewing the abstractions will make people wonder about not only what the images are or how they were made but also, why people like us bother to spend time making them.

The show is also designed to inform or educate people about artistic endeavors. It is a wake up call to artistic sensibilities. Making these images is our passion and we want to share our hearts and minds with as many people as possible. This is the essence of LARGE 8.