Celebrate the best in Philippine contemporary art for 10 days with our partners all around the city.
ARTFAIRPH/Talks
Sunday
19
Feb 2023
03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Talks Tent, RoofdeckARTFAIRPH/Talks
Passions & Points-of-View: A Collectors Talk
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Passions & Points-of-View: A Collectors Talk
This panel features Filipino collectors who have created important assemblies of contemporary art both by Philippine and international artists.
Join Anton Ramos, Carmen Jimenez-Ong, and Bryan Villanueva as they share the excitement, exuberance, lessons learned, and memorable experiences in the course of putting together three very distinct but equally remarkable art collections. Moderator Sandra Palou will delve deeper into the kind of work that appeals to each one, as well as probe their motivations and the criteria they employ in their acquisition process.
On photo:
"Sitting Still II"
Nona Garcia
Oil on canvas
2009
From the Bryan Villanueva Collection
About the Speaker/s
Music, and now, art figure prominently for Anton Ramos. As Chairman and COO of National Book Store, he is part of the senior management team of the country’s leading purveyor of books, school and office supplies. Twenty years ago, while still an active DJ, he started Music One, then the only large scale music store in the country. He also produced The Chillout Project, a radio show on 99.5 RT and also the best selling electronica series in the Philippines on CD.
In 2010, a move into what is now the family home he shares with wife, Gia, and their twin daughters, led him on the road to another passion. As an art collector for thirteen years now, he has assembled an impressive array of contemporary art that features important Filipino and global names. He also founded Art Bar, a retail brand for artist supplies and art books, in the hopes of fostering the next generation of creatives.
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Carmen Jimenez-Ong is the founder and CEO of Menarco Development Corporation.
What sets her apart from other industry leaders is the fresh perspective she brings to everything she does. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Management from the Ateneo de Manila University, she pursued higher learning in Japanese Business and SEA Economics at Sophia University in Japan. She then pursued Art Studies at the Art Institute of Florence in Italy, and finally, she completed a series of Executive Education Business Courses at the Harvard Business School in the states.
She then served as Executive Director for the GMA Foundation under the guidance of her father, Menarco Development Corporation Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Menardo R. Jimenez. In 2001, decades preceding the current global health and fitness explosion, Carmen brought the world famous Stott Pilates phenomenon to the Philippines and founded the Balanced Bodies Studio which still operates to this day.
Thirteen years later in 2014, fueled by this burning passion for wellness and health, and after weaning her third child, she finally accepted her father’s loving challenge of constructing Menarco Tower in BGC, the family corporation’s first high-rise office tower. It now stands as the Healthiest Building in Southeast Asia, receiving the highest certifications from LEED and WELL, one that meets only the highest international standards of wellness, safety and sustainability. It is now home to the Menarco Vertical Museum. Launched last February 11, it is first of its kind in the country, with over 39 of the most thought provoking pieces of Filipino Contemporary Art pieces on display for the public to appreciate. This 7-year labor of love was carefully curated in collaboration with Silverlens Gallery and the Ateneo Art
Gallery.
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Bryan Villanueva has made his career in finance. After taking post-graduate studies in Wharton Business School, he has spent the last 20 years with Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Standard Chartered Bank, raising his family in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In 2017, he and his wife, Dinggay, relocated to Manila to allow their sons to reconnect with their roots, spend time with extended family, and open their eyes to the socio-economic realities of the Philippines.
As a couple, they started their collecting journey and appreciation for art and other beautiful objects in October 2000 when they moved to Hong Kong. Dinggay gave the movers all of Bryan’s second-hand IKEA furniture that he had owned since business school. This meant an empty house with empty walls.
Today, they continue to collect primarily Filipino art, mostly contemporary, with a few foreign names. In the pandemic, they began work on a private space where pieces that have been in storage will finally hang for their viewing pleasure and the enjoyment of guests. This has been a passion project and the culmination of a dream come true.
Bryan says “while I find finance and banking enjoyable, if I were to have another life, it would probably be more on the creative side - architecture, interior design and/or art.”
-
Sandra Palou, who has been involved in the visual arts since the age of 17, finished her AB History of Art with electives at the Graduate Program of Museology at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco and received her MA in Museology from Bank Street College in New York. From the late 1970s to early 1980s, she worked as a curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and, under National Artist Arturo Luz, as the Assistant Director of the Museum of Philippine Art. Through her marriage to Paul Schwartzbaum, the former chief conservator of the Guggenheim Museum, she has been in close contact with great art for thirty years.
In 2010, a move into what is now the family home he shares with wife, Gia, and their twin daughters, led him on the road to another passion. As an art collector for thirteen years now, he has assembled an impressive array of contemporary art that features important Filipino and global names. He also founded Art Bar, a retail brand for artist supplies and art books, in the hopes of fostering the next generation of creatives.
-
Carmen Jimenez-Ong is the founder and CEO of Menarco Development Corporation.
What sets her apart from other industry leaders is the fresh perspective she brings to everything she does. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Management from the Ateneo de Manila University, she pursued higher learning in Japanese Business and SEA Economics at Sophia University in Japan. She then pursued Art Studies at the Art Institute of Florence in Italy, and finally, she completed a series of Executive Education Business Courses at the Harvard Business School in the states.
She then served as Executive Director for the GMA Foundation under the guidance of her father, Menarco Development Corporation Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Menardo R. Jimenez. In 2001, decades preceding the current global health and fitness explosion, Carmen brought the world famous Stott Pilates phenomenon to the Philippines and founded the Balanced Bodies Studio which still operates to this day.
Thirteen years later in 2014, fueled by this burning passion for wellness and health, and after weaning her third child, she finally accepted her father’s loving challenge of constructing Menarco Tower in BGC, the family corporation’s first high-rise office tower. It now stands as the Healthiest Building in Southeast Asia, receiving the highest certifications from LEED and WELL, one that meets only the highest international standards of wellness, safety and sustainability. It is now home to the Menarco Vertical Museum. Launched last February 11, it is first of its kind in the country, with over 39 of the most thought provoking pieces of Filipino Contemporary Art pieces on display for the public to appreciate. This 7-year labor of love was carefully curated in collaboration with Silverlens Gallery and the Ateneo Art
Gallery.
-
Bryan Villanueva has made his career in finance. After taking post-graduate studies in Wharton Business School, he has spent the last 20 years with Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Standard Chartered Bank, raising his family in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In 2017, he and his wife, Dinggay, relocated to Manila to allow their sons to reconnect with their roots, spend time with extended family, and open their eyes to the socio-economic realities of the Philippines.
As a couple, they started their collecting journey and appreciation for art and other beautiful objects in October 2000 when they moved to Hong Kong. Dinggay gave the movers all of Bryan’s second-hand IKEA furniture that he had owned since business school. This meant an empty house with empty walls.
Today, they continue to collect primarily Filipino art, mostly contemporary, with a few foreign names. In the pandemic, they began work on a private space where pieces that have been in storage will finally hang for their viewing pleasure and the enjoyment of guests. This has been a passion project and the culmination of a dream come true.
Bryan says “while I find finance and banking enjoyable, if I were to have another life, it would probably be more on the creative side - architecture, interior design and/or art.”
-
Sandra Palou, who has been involved in the visual arts since the age of 17, finished her AB History of Art with electives at the Graduate Program of Museology at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco and received her MA in Museology from Bank Street College in New York. From the late 1970s to early 1980s, she worked as a curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and, under National Artist Arturo Luz, as the Assistant Director of the Museum of Philippine Art. Through her marriage to Paul Schwartzbaum, the former chief conservator of the Guggenheim Museum, she has been in close contact with great art for thirty years.
