Art of the Guardians Panel Talk at AAMG Virtual Convening

Jevijoe Vitug and I as Aban-guard along with poet Louisa Lam were part of Art of the Guardians presentation by Lambert Fernando and panel discussion for the 2023 Association of Academic Museums and Galleries Virtual Convening. Lambert’s presentation topic was about the art of Security Officers at the Met and their profound relationship they have formed with the collection, their experiences during the COVID 19 pandemic, and the art that they created during the lockdown. The art was later exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC in a exhibition titled: Art Work: Artists working at the Met, which opened for the first time to the public and was very well received garnering international press coverage including NBC Nightly News, Aljazeera TV and German ARD TV. I discussed how museum guards and staff can be a vital collaborative and educational resource in connecting with communities by sharing Abang-guard’s projects and our translations of museum spaces and objects.

Handle with Care Performance at 601Artspace

On the final weekend of Invisible Hands, Abang-guard (Jevijoe Vitug+Maureen Catbagan) will be performing Handle with Care with special guests Louisa Lam and AIW home care workers.  The performance will be happening on Friday, Sept 15th, 6pm at 601Artspace, 88 Eldridge Street, NYC

The artists will discuss their works featured in the exhibition, No More 24! May Day Tapestry (2023) and Care Guardian (2023), followed by a meditative participatory performance including poetry by Louisa Lam and stories from AIW home care workers. 

Louisa Lam holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry, from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Queens and works as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her writing and poems have been published in New York Magazine, The Greensboro Review, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Perspective web series.

Ain’t I a Woman!? (AIW) is a campaign led by immigrant women home care workers organizing against 24-hour workdays in New York City. 

Invisible Hands is an exhibition curated by Emireth Herrera Valdés and highlights works by Abang-guard (Jevijoe Vitug+Maureen Catbagan), Margarita Cabrera, Brendan Fernandes, Jay Lynn Gomez, Zac Hacmon, Jamie Martinez, Patrick Martinez, Dulce Pinzón, Hernando Restrepo, Luis Alvaro Sahagun, and Betty Yu. Curated by Emireth Herrera Valdés. The show will be on view from July 22 - Sept 17, 2023 at 601Artspace on 88 Eldridge Street.

Abang-guard Street Museum at The Six Foot Platform

Jevijoe Vitug and I will be performing Abang-guard Street Museum at The Six Foot Platform in Dumbo, Brooklyn from 12-6 pm. The Six Foot Platform is an experimental art and performance program that presents work by Brooklyn-based artists on a 6 x6 platform at the intersection of Washington and Water Streets.

Abang-guard Street Museum is a participatory platform that enables the public to share their inner voice and creative expression via gallery format. Part workshop, part art space, Abang-guard will host and feature each piece made by the public. The platform museum provides an opportunity to showcase and uplift a diversity of voices while questioning what constitutes art and who can be an artist. Through democratic disruption, Abang-guard Street Museum empowers creativity while opening a wider field of access and authorship to the cultural production of value.

Presented by the Dumbo Improvement District in partnership with Brooklyn Arts Council.

Invisible Hands Exhibition at 601 Artspace

601 Artspace presents Invisible Hands, an exhibition highlighting works by Abang-guard (Jevijoe Vitug+Maureen Catbagan), Margarita Cabrera, Brendan Fernandes, Jay Lynn Gomez, Zac Hacmon, Jamie Martinez, Patrick Martinez, Dulce Pinzón, Hernando Restrepo, Luis Alvaro Sahagun, and Betty Yu. Curated by Emireth Herrera Valdés, the show will be on view from July 22 - Sept 17, 2023.

Invisible Hands features ten artists from a wide range of backgrounds who engage with the theme of domestic labor. Some are descendants of migrant domestic laborers who reckon with the legacy of this work in their family history, and some have directly performed domestic work themselves. Others look at domestic labor as part of a broader interest in narratives of immigration, labor, activism and resistance. Through socially engaged projects, sculpture, installation, performance, photography and painting, Invisible Hands illuminates hierarchical structures of class and race in the US as well as the resilience of domestic workers within these structures who sacrifice  to support their families and who organize in solidarity for fair wages and greater rights.

in pieces... exhibition extended June 10 - July 9

Excited that PS122 Gallery extended the Residency Unlimited (RU) 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program in pieces… exhibition curated by Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger until July 9. The show highlights works by Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan + Jevijoe Vitug), Tatiana Arocha, Miatta Kawinzi, and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow.

Featured in the exhibition is Abang-guard’s Little Manila Monuments, an ongoing research-based project that draws inspiration from the Rizal Monument in Manila, Philippines that commemorates the national hero, Dr. José Rizal and is guarded by the Philippine Marine Corps’ Marine Security. The multi-media installation presents brick-and-mortar businesses in Little Manila, Queens, as landmark monuments in New York City to pay tribute to the working-class immigrants who built them, and acknowledge them as modern-day transnational heroes. Abang-guard acts as sentinels in front of restaurants and convenience stores, framing their value and significance as bridges and lifelines between families and their homeland.

in pieces... exhibition at PS122 Gallery

PS122 Gallery is pleased to host Residency Unlimited (RU) to present in pieces…, an exhibition featuring works by Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan + Jevijoe Vitug), Tatiana Arocha, Miatta Kawinzi, and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow. The exhibition is the culmination of RU’s 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program, and will be on view from June 10 – 25, 2023.

Residency Unlimited (RU) presents in pieces…, an exhibition that is the culmination of RU’s 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program, where artists focused on research and the development of multidisciplinary projects around the history of Little Manila in Woodside, Queens, and the intersections to immigration, labor, and visibility (Abang-guard); the coca plant, colonization, scientific discoveries of cocaine, and the development of Coca-Cola (Arocha); the links between the United States and Liberia reflecting upon personal, national, and transnational histories (Kawinzi); and the interplay between sugar cane plantation slavery in Jamaica and the sugar cane industry in Scotland (Lyn-Kee-Chow).

in pieces… encompasses a broad spectrum of narratives to shape a fuller and more nuanced understanding of historical knowledge and the intertwined formations of identity, memory and place. The exhibition draws its title from Katherina Grace Thomas’s essay “Nina Simone in Liberia,” published on guernicamag.com in 2017. In the essay, Thomas recounts an anecdote shared by a friend: “Liberia’s past is in pieces, he said, and here’s one of them. Maybe it’s the one you’re looking for.” The text was among many shared by the artists during weekly salons that considered materials related to their research.

in pieces… is curated by RU Guest Curator Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger.

Quiet Before - The Brown Vanguard

Quiet Before is a series of panels co-ordinated by Nancy Bulalacao that examines anti-Asian violence by “capturing history through conversation.” Recently the series featured artist Lambert Fernando, poet Louisa Lam, and Abang-guard (with me and Jevijoe Vitug) as we talk about our groundbreaking work inspired by being museum art guards and the community we have built along the way.

Continuation - A Tribute to Colin Chase

Colin Chase was my advisor and close mentor. My encounter with him was the main reason why I chose City College to pursue my MFA degree. Continuation, a tribute exhibition honoring him, is on display at CCNY Compton-Goethals Gallery from April 14-May 4, with an opening reception on Thursday, April 20, 5-9pm.

This image that I made titled Allegory of the Cave is dedicated to him. Colin prompted me to perceive objects through its many layers of relations; not only its materiality but also the intangible shadows connected to it. Not only its historicity but also what is sensed and unsaid. It made me think about how dark matter is unseen and yet holds all that is seen in the universe. How a shadow in Plato’s cave can be both an illusion and a revelation.

RU 2023 NYC-Based Artists-in-Residence

Thrilled and honored that my collab Abang-guard (with artist Jevijoe Vitug) is part of Residency Unlimited’s (RU) 2023 NYC-Based Artist Residents. Other artists that were selected include Tatiana Arocha, Miatta Kawinzi and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow.

The cohort was selected from an open call for artists who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color who have research-based practices that fill in gaps in historical knowledge. During the three month residencies from April 3 - June 30, 2023, Abang-guard will focus on the research and development of the history of Little Manilla in Woodside, Queens, and the intersections of immigration, labor, and visibility. We will be participating in a culminating group exhibition at PS122 Gallery in June.

The artists were selected from more than 180 applicants by a panel of three arts professionals: Elvira Clayton, Rachel Gugelberger, and Dario Mohr.

2022 Recap: Osmosis Exhibition

During November, I was part of OSMOSIS, an exhibition which highlighted the art of guards in New York City’s most acclaimed museums. The show ran from November 11-13 in Art Cake and was presented by Gentle Cowboys and organized and curated by Gabriel Sehringer. Highlighting the rich artistic lives of cultural workers within museums is a valuable resource in creating personal connections to communities which institutions serve.

PUSH / PULL PERFORMANCE AT AROS PUBLIC ATELIER

On September 8, Flux Factory at ARoS Public Atelier in Denmark featured PUSH / PULL, which is a collaborative project/performance dialogue between me and artists Abdul Dube, Makoto Chill Okubo, and Wren Noble. PUSH / PULL is a multimedia performance that examines the interplay between constraint and attachment, tension and dependency through different acts of tethering and marking. Through the lens of queerness and charting astronomic movements, the piece explores personal histories and interrelations between bodies. The performance was followed by a film screening of Makoto Chill Okubo’s Moippen Mama!

Art of the Guardians Panel Discussion at the Smithsonian

It was an honor to be a part of the “Art of the Guardians” panel discussion at the Smithsonian on Tuesday, October 18, as part of the National Conference on Cultural Property Protection. The session explored how creativity and a love for the art that guards protect enabled museum security personnel to respond to, endure, and recover from the most acute challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. Panelists from The Metropolitan Museum included my colleagues Lambert Fernando @lambfern, Jevijoe Vitug @jevijoe, Emilie Lemakis @emiliebunnyl, and Louisa Lam.

During the discussion I mentioned that what I've learned to value during this difficult time is the complex humanity of my colleagues who deserve respect and admiration beyond being a body in a uniform. We've learned to look out for each other more and care at a deeper level. We have learned that each of us have rich lives and artistic visions that is in itself an untapped living cultural asset within museums. Through their lived experience, museum workers’ provide a valuable educational source that would further inspire and connect visitors to the art within cultural institutions. 

Featured in The Met Museum's Perspectives

An edited transcript of Abang-guard’s performative talk on Asian American Modernism accompanied by recordings of Louisa Lam’s poems is featured in The Met Museum’s Perspectives.

Video Projects in The Met Museum’s Art Work Exhibition

I’m excited to be part of The Met Museum’s Art Work: Artists Working at The Met exhibit highlighting museum workers with two collaborative video projects including artists Jevijoe Vitug and IV Castellanos. The show is part of a long-standing tradition of art worker creatives sharing their work within The Met community since 1935 and will be open for viewing to the public for the first time. The exhibition runs from June 6-19, 2021

Artists on Artworks at The Met : Abang-guard

Thrilled that Jevijoe Vitug and I as Abang-guard will be doing a performative lecture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We will be discussing works by four Asian American artists in the museum’s collection specifically Bumpei Usui, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Isamu Noguchi, and Martin Wong as well as creating a cross-dialogue through movement to poems by writer Louisa Lam.

After Image - Sensing Brownness

Amber Jamilla Musser writes about my Dark Matter photography series for her essay Sensing Brownness: On Racialization, Perception, and Method. She states that “visibility comes down to a question of valuation. In this way, Catbagan reminds us that our experience of art, museums, and even knowledge production more broadly is framed by work, people, and spaces that are often marginalized.” Her article is featured in the March 2022 issue of After Image.

Object II Body Studies on view at La Mama Galleria

Object II Body Studies is currently on view in La Mama Galleria’s Window Videos Program from 02.20-03.06.22 curated by C. Finley.

Object II Body Studies is a collaborative performance and video project with artist IV Castellanos that utilizes industrial objects found in various art institutions, restructuring their use to investigate the multiple dynamics between labor and tension. The movements focus on intimate object to body transfers.

The Family Show at La Mama Galleria

Catch my piece at the final days of The Family Show at La Mama Galleria at 47 Great Jones Street, NYC. The show, which runs from December 17, 2021 - January 7, 2022, is a long standing tradition to celebrate community.

Founded in 1984, La Galleria is a nonprofit gallery committed to nurturing experimentation in the visual arts. La Galleria encourages an active dialogue between new media, performance, the plastic and visual arts, curatorial projects, and educational initiatives. It serves the East Village community by offering diverse programming to an inter-generational audience, and expanding the parameters of a traditional gallery space. As a non-profit, La Galleria is able to provide artists and curators with unique exhibition opportunities that are largely out of reach in a commercial gallery setting.

Performance is Alive x Satellite Art Show - Art Basel and Miami Arts Week

Object II Body Studies, my performance and video collaborative project with artist IV Castellanos, screened at Performance is Alive x Satellite Art Show, Miami’s only Performance-Based Art Fair during Miami Art from 11/30-12/4.

Curatorial Statement: “In the wake of the pandemic, this program represents the re-emergence and reclamation of the body. The selected artists recognize the revolutionary power of the body through actions that often serve as a release from the trauma inflicted through centuries of heteronormative and colonial conditioning. In addition, this year’s program seeks work that actively rejects the systems perpetuating injustice and serves as a safe space for historically marginalized communities. This is the liberation of the body.” -Quinn Dukes

Grounding and Automatic Drawing at Governors Island

Halloween Sunday was a magical day to connect and draw with the earth.

Thank you to everyone who was part of Sympoietica, specially @sholehasgary for linking us with sonic atmosphere and @e.connolly123 for the videos and pics, @governorsisland, @flux_factory, #CityArtistCorps, @nyfacurrent, @NYCulture, @madein_ny, and @queenstheatre.