Founded in 1970 by Roberto Chabet, this year’s Thirteen Artists Awards recognizes Filipino contemporary artists who have impacted the country’s landscape of art
The Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Awards is one of the country’s oldest and most respected contemporary art prizes.
Since 1970, the award has been recognizing important and trailblazing Filipino visual artists, marking over five decades of institutional support for artists whose works have revitalized and reshaped the landscape of Philippine art.
Fifty-four years ago, the Thirteen Artists Awards began as a curatorial initiative by Roberto Chabet, the CCP’s first curator and the father of conceptual art in the country. The award was created to spotlight artists who push the boundaries of “artmaking and art thinking.”
Past recipients of the award include National Artist Benedicto Cabrera, Nestor Vinluan, Roberto Feleo, Agnes Arellano, Soler Santos, Elmer Borlongan, Nona Garcia, and Geraldine Javier.
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Fast forward to today, 13 new recipients have been announced—Catalina Africa, Denver Garza, Russ Ligtas, Ella Mendoza, Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan, Issay Rodriguez, Luis Antonio Santos, Joshua Serafin, Jel Suarez, Tekla Tamoria, Derek Tumala, Vien Valencia, and Liv Vinluan—each embodying distinct processes, visual languages, and contexts.
The 2024 selection committee, composed of Phyllis Zaballero (1978 TAA recipient), Antipas Delotavo (1990 TAA recipient), Buen Calubayan (2009 TAA recipient), Wawi Navarroza (2012 TAA recipient), and CCP Visual Arts and Museum Division officer-in-charge Rica Estrada Uson, reviewed portfolios of over a hundred nominated artists, focusing particularly on each nominee’s body of work from the past three years.
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Juror Zaballero, 1978 CCP Artist Awardee, recalled the prestigious selection process. “Each candidate sent in a very complete portfolio with a video and a lengthy written piece. CCP was very thorough in letting us know our duties. It was very well done by CCP. They had whittled it down from 108 artists, and each juror was asked to choose five. Can you believe it? It was a good mix. I’ve done my bit. I was just paying back.”
The weight of the Thirteen Artists Awards today
In a contemporary art world flooded with prizes, residencies, trends, auction records, fairs, and biennales, we spoke to four of the 13 recipients of the Thirteen Artists Awards and asked, “What is the weight of the Thirteen Artists Awards today?”
Multidisciplinary artist and one of ArtReview Magazine’s 2024 Future Greats Derek Tumala believes the Thirteen Artists Awards serves as a platform for visual artists to deepen their engagement with the contemporary cultural landscape. “Awards are not just accolades today but a platform to make our voices louder in defining what is our contemporary,” he says.
Meanwhile, multi-awarded visual artist Luis Antonio Santos sees the weight of the Thirteen Artists Awards in its 54-year legacy and the fact that its selection process is juried by established Filipino contemporary artists—many of whom are past recipients themselves.
“Nung nagsimula akong mag-art, isa ito sa mga pangarap kong makamit dahil sa malalim na history nito at dahil mga kapwa artists ko ang magbibigay nito. Isang malaking pagkilala at honor ito para sa aking artmaking. Nakikita ko rin itong responsibilidad na magpursige pa at mas pagbutihin. Isang malaking challenge ito para sa akin,” says Santos.
For multidisciplinary artist and former mental health worker Denver Garza, being a recipient of the Thirteen Artists Awards has affirmed the meaningful relationships he has forged within the art scene.
“To be honest, I am still processing and learning what this award means to me and the people around me. What I am truly grateful for is how this award showed me the meaningful relationships I’ve built along the way in my journey, both in my arts and crafts bazaar community and in the art scene, and how it has shaped me into the artist I am. I think how I can harness the opportunity from being named as one of the recipients of the Thirteen Artists Awards is the challenge I have to face,” Garza shares.
Filipina fiber artist Tekla Tamoria sees the Thirteen Artists Awards as an opportune moment to expand the limits of her studio practice, with plans to create her largest tapestry to date for the 2025 National Museum exhibition of the 13 recipients.
“Yung pagkapanalo ko ng Thirteen Artists Awards ay nakaka-validate ng practice at nakaka-push to do my best. Mga sampung taon na rin ang aking studio practice, kaya’t ’yung mga recognition ngayon ay nakaka-overwhelm. Lagi kong sineseryoso ang gawa ko—the process of artmaking, lalo na ang pagtatahi. Pakiramdam ko ay privileged ako na maging artist at mabigyan ng oras at plataporma para makapag-exhibit. Gusto ko magawa ang pinakamalaking tapestry ko para sa Thirteen Artists Awards exhibition sa National Museum next year,” says Tamoria.
Meet the rest of the 2024 13 Artist Awards recipients
Catalina Africa
Represented by Silverlens Gallery, Africa is a multidisciplinary artist whose studio practice weaves together painting, sound, sculpture, video, and performance. Working across various media, her artworks serve as invocations to the natural landscape, channeling nature’s rhythms and energies into tangible forms and dazzling pictorial fields.
Ella Mendoza
Manila-based ceramic artist Mendoza has transformed her ceramic practice from creating functional pieces to exploring the conceptual, sculptural, and installation potential of the medium. Her work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, showcased at leading art fairs, and presented at events such as the Australian Ceramics Congress.
Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan
Tackling Philippine history and material culture through hand-pulled prints and drawings, Pagkaliwangan echoes the precision of natural history illustrations. She won the grand prize at the Don Papa Rum Art Competition, which resulted in a residency in Florence, Italy.
Issay Rodriguez
Rodriguez’s work weaves together humanism and ecology, investigating the intricate connections between art, technology, and the natural world through interdisciplinary collaborations. As a trustee for both the Philippine Botanical Art Society and the Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society Inc., she extends her practice into the areas of conservation, bridging the artistic and the ecological.
Jel Suarez
A self-taught artist from Bacolod City, Suarez won the Italian Embassy’s Purchase Prize at the Ateneo Art Awards and was a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. In 2017, she took part in the Rimbun Dahan Southeast Asian Arts Residency, and earlier this year, she joined the Leipzig International Art Programme in Germany.
Joshua Serafin
Bacolod-born multidisciplinary artist Serafin explores themes of otherness and queer politics, blending dance, performance, visual arts, and choreography. Named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, Serafin’s work has been presented in Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Esplanade in Singapore, the Anti Festival in Finland, Beursschowburg in Brussels, and BIT Teatergarasjen in Norway.
Liv Vinluan
An alumna of the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Fine Arts, Vinluan’s work tackles history, mortality, the cyclical nature of time, and the contradictions of human behavior. Her father Nestor Olarte Vinluan was a recipient of the Thirteen Artists Awards in 1974.
Russ Ligtas
The Cebu-born artist uses alter egos as vehicles to unravel the Filipino body as both a living, evolving myth and a complex historical, geopolitical, and anthropological artifact. Ligtas’ multidisciplinary approach deconstructs the body as a site of cultural memory, myth, and history. His work challenges how identity is perceived—both individual and collective—through layered, sometimes disruptive, explorations.
Vien Valencia
Valencia’s work explores environmental and social issues, creating objects and spaces where community, time, site, and anthropology intersect. In 2023, he received the Ateneo Art Awards’ Fernando Zóbel Prize.
CCP announced the 2024 13 Artists Awards last Dec. 5, 2024
