December's Museum: Yuchengco Museum

This weekend was the only time that we could find to fit in a visit to a museum this month, as the majority of the month will be spent traveling for Christmas (One more week! I'm so excited that I'll be in Myanmar soon.) and next week I am in the provinces with a group of students for a week of community service.

Hanging Zen Garden

Needless to say, with all of the stress and busyness that comes with the end of the semester we did not want an all day commitment for our museum visit. Turns out that there is a second museum in Makati, one of the closest neighborhoods to where I live, and so we set off to visit the Yuchengco Museum. It is a fairly new museum, having been started in 2005 to house the private collection of Ambassador Alfonso T Yuchengco. Located on four small floors, the museum seems to be mostly dedicated to changing exhibits with a few small rooms of permanent works on display. One of those permanent installations is a hanging zen garden of paper rocks that was a definite focal point.

Special Exhibit: Blessing Manila

Butterfly symmetry

The exhibit on display during our visit was a entitled Blessing Manila and had two floors of work by the Taiwanese artist Yang Ding Xian. We were absolutely enthralled by his symmetrical butterfly pieces that resembled kaleidoscope images on the third floor. Then when we hit the ground floor and came across some mountain inspired work a woman stepped up to us and said "You know, that is the artist right there." So we had the unexpected pleasure of spending 20 minutes talking with Mr. Xian about his work and his inspiration while a nice older man generously translated for us. I will admit that having that opportunity not only made me appreciate his work a lot more, but made me realize just how special it can be to truly understand what an artist is trying to represent with his work. I would have never dreamed that our random museum choice would result in a one-on-one discussion with the featured artist, but it definitely made for a special visit.

Katie listing to Yang Ding Xian

Yuchengco Museum
RCBC Plaza
Corner Ayala and Senator Gil J. Puyat Avenues
Makati City, Metro Manila
Hours: Mon-Sat 10 am-6 pm
Entry Fee: 100 pesos