Best of the Best 2025: Art
Best of the Best: Silverlens Galleries
Silverlens Galleries has defined what it means to be a premier art space in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and beyond. Under co-directors Isa Lorenzo and Rachel Rillo, the gallery is known for a strong curatorial vision that consistently showcases world-class contemporary art while championing Filipino voices, both in Manila and at its New York outpost.
Through carefully mounted exhibitions, participation in top-tier international art fairs, and collaborations with leading cultural institutions, Silverlens has established itself as a vital bridge between Philippine creativity and the global art world. Works by its artists have entered major museum collections worldwide, including the Guggenheim (Martha Atienza), Tate Modern (Atienza, Maria Taniguchi), National Gallery Singapore (Yee I-Lann, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Judy Freya Sibayan), MoMA (Stephanie Syjuco), Getty Museum (Wawi Navarroza), and Singapore Art Museum (Yee I-Lann, Pio Abad), among others.
Beyond exhibitions, the gallery has built a reputation for professionalism and integrity, cultivating lasting relationships with collectors, curators, and museums. Its commitment to excellence has elevated the profiles of its artists and advanced the standing of Philippine contemporary art on the global stage.
Cultural Legacy: Cultural Center of the Philippines
The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) remains at the heart of the nation’s cultural life, advancing both Philippine art’s heritage and its contemporary perspective. Its current exhibition, Selections from the CCP 21st Century Art Museum (21AM), showcases the depth of its holdings. CCP’s role in shaping global dialogues on Philippine modernism is underscored by landmark programs like the Thirteen Artists Awards—which has recognized groundbreaking practices since 1970—and partnerships with institutions such as the National Gallery of Singapore, to which CCP has lent works for the museum’s Fernando Zóbel exhibition.
In dance and music, CCP supports companies and ensembles that premiere original works while also presenting international artists, ensuring Manila remains a cultural destination. Theater, literature, and film—most notably the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival—likewise find a stage in CCP’s year-round programming. By advancing Philippine creativity across visual arts, dance, music, theater, and film, the CCP affirms its place as a vital force in national identity and global cultural exchange.
Collective: ALT Philippines
ALT Philippines emerged in 2020 as a bold, gallery-run platform that foregrounds collaboration, curatorial intent, and social relevance. With founding galleries including Artinformal, Blanc, The Drawing Room, Galleria Duemila, MO_Space, Underground, Vinyl on Vinyl, West Gallery, and 1335 Mabini, ALT has grown to feature over 200 artists across multiple editions.
Beyond exhibitions, its program embraces project spaces, performance art, moving-image installations, and a Conversations series where artists, curators, and gallerists engage in critical dialogue. What makes ALT exceptional is its commitment to curatorial rigor and experimentation. Instead of individual showcases, participating galleries present cohesive, museum-quality exhibitions that blur boundaries between commercial and institutional spaces.
This collective effort underscores the strength and diversity of Philippine contemporary art—and demonstrates how collaboration can expand audiences and amplify impact.
Midcareer Survey: Maria Taniguchi, Body of Work
Maria Taniguchi: Body of Work presents a compelling account of the artist’s explorations of time, surface, memory, and sustained labor. Organized by MCAD Manila, the exhibition brought together painting, installation, video, and archival pieces spanning Taniguchi’s career, revealing how her repetitive mark-making develops into meditative fields that invite reflection and immersion.
Her works—whether in precise grid paintings, layered geometric forms, or site-specific installations—challenge notions of monumentality and detail, balancing formal rigor with conceptual depth. With evocative references to history and the textures of place, Taniguchi’s pieces register an astonishing quantification of work across time.
Body of Work matters because it demonstrates the artist’s continuing evolution—her capacity to refine and redefine her visual language while remaining deeply anchored in process and material.
Outdoor Art: 10 Days of Art
10 Days of Art is more than a festival or a showcase of public, outdoor art; it is a dynamic, citywide initiative that transforms Makati and partner cities into an open stage for contemporary art. Conceived by the organizers of Art Fair Philippines to lead up to the main fair, it extends the reach of the event by bringing art beyond gallery walls and into the rhythm of daily life.
Through public installations, special exhibitions, and activations in museums, restaurants, and partner spaces, 10 Days of Art engages audiences who might not otherwise step into a fair booth or gallery. It fosters inclusivity, accessibility, and dialogue, while spotlighting Filipino and international artists in new ways.
By weaving art into the urban fabric, 10 Days of Art has encouraged cultural engagement in Manila—underscoring the Philippines’ vibrant cultural scene and its growing role in the global art conversation.
Retrospective: Fernando Zobel, The Future of the Past
Zóbel: The Future of the Past was a landmark exhibition at Ayala Museum in 2024, coinciding with Fernando Zóbel’s centenary. Adapted from the acclaimed 2022 Museo del Prado exhibition—which drew over 80,000 visitors—the show underscored the Spanish-Filipino artist’s rare stature as one of only two 20th-century artists, alongside Pablo Picasso, to be exhibited at Spain’s national museum.
Featuring more than 200 works—paintings, sketchbooks, photographs, films, and archival materials—the exhibition traced Zóbel’s artistic evolution from Harvard in the 1950s to postwar Manila and ultimately to Cuenca, Spain, where he became central to the city’s rise as a hub for abstract art. His practice, rooted in intellectual inquiry and painterly experimentation, revealed an artist equally engaged with tradition and innovation.
The exhibition mattered not only for its scale but for highlighting Zóbel’s intellectual rigor, cross-cultural impact, and lasting influence on modern art history in both the Philippines and Spain.
Original Play: Grace
In 1948, Teresita Castillo, a young Discalced Carmelite postulant, claimed to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Church officials in the Philippines and the Vatican would later dismiss the visions as fabrications, but the devotion they inspired—centered on Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Grace—endured. To this day, the conversation lingers, suspended between faith, politics, and skepticism.
This tension forms the core of Grace, the late playwright Floy Quintos’s final masterpiece. With political undercurrents, theological debate, and drama woven seamlessly together, the play transforms history into riveting theater. Grace had its final acclaimed run earlier this year at the PETA Theater Center, revisiting a moment of national fascination and exemplifying why Quintos remains one of the most compelling voices in Philippine drama.
Original Musical: Pingkian
Most Filipinos know Emilio Jacinto as the “Brains of the Katipunan,” yet fewer are aware of his other moniker—Pingkian, the Tagalog term for the stone that sparks a flame. This duality is explored in Pingkian: Isang Musikal, staged by Tanghalang Pilipino, which opened in September at the CCP’s Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez.
With words and lyrics by Palanca Award–winning playwright Juan Ekis and music by Gawad Buhay–winning composer Ejay Yatco, the production delves into the enduring legacy of the young Katipunero as he navigates the turbulent final years of the Philippine Revolution and the onset of the Philippine–American War. Rich in artistry, history, and the complexities of youth, Pingkian exemplifies the profound narratives currently animating the Philippine theater scene.
Legacy in Modern Dance: Alice Reyes Dance Philippines
Alice Reyes Dance Philippines (ARDP) began as a collective of homegrown Filipino dancers whose livelihoods were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Founded by National Artist for Dance Alice Reyes, it has since evolved into a prestigious institution in the Filipino dance community that continually highlights the works of National Artists.
Under Reyes’s leadership, the company has become an incubator of talent for future generations of dancers, choreographers, and educators. At ARDP, artists embody their craft and strive to advance Filipino dance on both national and international stages. In every performance, ARDP reaffirms its profound commitment to Filipino artistry.
Heritage Dance Company: Ballet Philippines
For more than five decades, Ballet Philippines has been the country’s flagship ballet company and one of its most enduring cultural institutions. Known for a repertoire that spans the classical and the contemporary—as well as original Filipino works—the company has cultivated generations of dancers while showcasing the depth and versatility of Philippine artistry.
Urban Revolution: Royal Mansour, Casablanca, Morocco
Under the artistic direction of Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, with an original score by National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab and choreography by Gerardo Francisco Jr. and Martin Lawrance, Ballet Manila transforms Francisco Balagtas’s literary masterpiece into the language of dance. With music, movement, and stagecraft in harmony, the Filipino poet’s themes of love, heroism, and identity are brought to life in a different art form.
For a complete list of Robb Report Philippines’ Best of the Best awardees, click here.