Leon Gallery, together with its partners, will be awarding thousands of pesos to four winners for its Many-Faced Ang Kiukok and His Role in Filipino Art Video &Written Essay Competition during its Kingly Treasures Auction 2019 Cocktails on Wednesday, 27 November.
 
The first dual media competition of its kind in the Philippines spearheaded by a premier Filipino auction house, the competition was established in honor of National Artist for the Visual Arts, Ang Kiukok (7 March 1931–9 May 2005).
 
 

 
Established to promote not only the writing of criticism on and the production of commemorative videos about the late National Artist, the competition encourages further appreciation of the master Cubist known for his highly expressionist depictions of violence, conflict, madness, and struggle from 1954 to 1992 where he gained critical reception for their unique rendering of Philippine realities, political climate, and economic woes.
 
The competition is open to all professional and amateur artists and writers as well as to students, art aficionados, and bloggers who are encouraged to prepare a 5-minute video or a 250 word essay on one of the Ang Kiukok paintings featured in the year end Kingly Treasures Auction 2019.
 
Ang Kiukok’s painting career can be summed up as a dichotomy of a struggle for human expressiveness and constant perfection of cubistic pictorialism. The human condition at its most pathetic or angriest predicament has always inspired this artist. Suffering and torture were images familiar to him as he witnessed these in his boyhood during the Second World War. Ang’s first trip to the United States in 1965 also proved to be a profound experience for him. He saw at close quarters the materialism of a highly industrialized society that turns human beings into machines or robots—a society that dehumanizes.
 
Prizes for the Best Creative Video Essay Award and the Best Essay Award will be given to the best works based on content, originality, and style/production value, while the Audience Choice Award for Best Video Essay and Audience Choice Award for Best Written Essay Award will be awarded to the posts garnering the most number of aggregated likes on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
 

 
Winners of the Best Creative Video and Essays will each get a cash prize of P20,000 while the Audience Choice awardees will each receive P10,000 in cash.
Participants are encouraged to post as many entries on their social media accounts as they want based on Ang Kiukok’s “Seated Figure,” “Screaming Figures,” “Mother and Child,” and “Table with Fruit” with the hasthtags #KinglyTreasuresAuction2019 and #ManyFacedKiukokLeonGallery from now until Tuesday, 21 November.
 
Leon Gallery’s year-end Kingly Treasures Auction 2019 will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, 30 November at Eurovilla 1, Legazpi Street, Legazpi Village, Makati.