SPOLIARIUM

Spring/Summer 2016, FAM presents an exhibition of contemporary art in response to the seminal Juan Luna painting Spoliarium. In this epic tableu of oil on poplar, which Luna (a Filipino artist living in Spain) painted in 1884, the depiction of dead slave gladiators being dragged from the arena was a clear allegory for the embattled colonial relationship between Spain and its colonies, namely las Islas Filipinas. By 1898, the Philippine Revolution would signal the birth of the Philippine Republic that would endure US colonization until 1946. Curator Edwin Ramoran will select and organize a constellation of work by artists of Filipino descent that may be seen as coming from the same political, psychic or artistic family as Spoliarium.