About the Prize

To encourage the practice of art criticism and to broaden its reach to a wider public, the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes present potential writers with the opportunity to contribute articles on art to a national newspaper and an international art magazine. The winner of the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for The Philippine Star will be awarded a regular column under ‘Platforms’ in the Arts and Culture section of the paper, to be published twice a month with a total of 24 articles for a year. The winner of the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for ArtAsiaPacific Magazine will be contributing to this bi-monthly publication, with a total of six (6) articles for a year. In addition, the two winners of the Ateneo Art Awards–PKL Prizes in Art Criticism shall contribute writings to Perro Berde, an annual art and culture publication of the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines and Instituto Cervantes.

A panel of jurors will shortlist a maximum of six (6) writers from the submitted entries. From this list, two (2) winners will be chosen by the editors of the partner publications – The Philippine Star and ArtAsiaPacific. Winners will be announced during the Ateneo Art Awards ceremony held every August at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Soledad V Pangilinan Arts Wing, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University.

QUALIFICATION OF PARTICIPANTS:

  1. Employees, whether full time or contractual, of AAG and KLFI are not allowed to participate.
  2. Must be based in the Philippines.
  3. Bloggers defined as writers of online journals, websites, or whose written work is published in electronic social media may join.
  4. To avoid conflict of interest, the participants must not have a regular column and must not hold an editorial post in any broadsheet or local/international magazine. Regular columnists are not allowed to join but contributors, defined as any person whose written work is published with a byline but not identified as a columnist, may join.

The Ateneo Art Awards-Purita Kalaw-Ledesma (PKL) Prizes for Art Criticism was launched in 2014 by Ateneo Art Gallery and Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation, Inc. (KLFI). It was named in honor of Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, art patron and founder of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP). Purita believed in art criticism’s “vital role in the development of culture,” citing its capacity to “guide both artists towards new directions and public taste towards the best in past and current artistic output.”

John Alexis Balaguer

John Alexis B. Balaguer is currently the Head of Research at Casa de Memoria, an auction house in Parañaque City. He was previously Writer & Researcher at Ayala Museum where he wrote for exhibitions and publications, and was editor of the Ayala Museum Magazine. He was also previously a gallerist at Archivo 1984.

John is currently taking his MA in Art Studies at the University of the Philippines. He finished his AB in Communication, and Minor in Creative Writing from Ateneo de Manila University. His works have been published in Heights, Stache, Kanto, and several online publications. He was a fellow in the first Ateneo Heights Artist’s Workshop in 2010, and fellow in the Curatorial Development Workshop sponsored by UP Vargas Museum and Japan Foundation in 2018. He received the Loyola School’s Award for the Arts in 2012.

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For More Information

Estela Bagos
Museum Education Officer
ebagos@ateneo.edu
+632 8426-6488

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Fabian dela Rosa, Portrait of Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, Oil on Canvas | 1932