Maria Taniguchi: body of work

Maria Taniguchi: body of work is the artist’s first survey show. Taniguchi, whose practice is largely recognized through her ongoing work of “brick paintings,” has produced a body of work diligent in its inquiry into the concepts of systems, surface, scale, and time. Her patient renderings on her massive wall-like canvases, which she first started in 2008, have expanded to some two hundred paintings; each one seeks to limn the possibilities of surfaces within a strict schema, while the artist through her labor carves out time into visible volume. Central to the production and development of her practice, the brick paintings serve as the artist’s “conceptual scaffold,” framing her other projects of sculptural drawings, video works, and objects. 

Trained as a sculptor, Taniguchi delves into proposals of materiality and its being, the conceptual capacities of painting and sculpture, as well as the rupturing of these categories through various media. This survey show serves as the space where the linchpins of Taniguchi’s artistic project can be laid out, bringing together some of her largest canvases to date, key video pieces, objects, and a site-specific commission of her Runaways.

Maria Taniguchi​ (b. 1981, Dumaguete City, Philippines)
Working across several media but known for her ongoing series Untitled, Maria Taniguchi encourages audiences to view her works as a sensorial experience, connecting material culture with notions of time, space, labor, and technology. Her conceptual approach to painting emphasizes the physical accumulation of individual time while eschewing the immediate cultural references often ascribed to artists from Asia. She is the winner of the 2015 Hugo Boss Asian Art Award. Her work was included in the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, and was part of the 2018 editions of the Gwangju Biennale and the Biennale of Sydney, Australia. Selected recent projects include Musée National d’Art Moderne - Centre Pompidou, Paris; 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane; New Sensorium, ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologien, Karlsruhe; HIWAR: Conversations in Amman, Amman; and Don’t You Know Who I Am? Art After Identity Politics, Museum of Contemporary Art (MHKA), Antwerp. 


Related events

Saturday, February 15, 2025, 3pm
The second of the series With Eyes Peeled will have architect, sculptor, and musician Micaela Benedicto guide viewers as they consider three of the sculptures in maria taniguchi: body of work. Limited slots.

Saturday, February 22, 2025, 3pm
A guided tour led by Maria Taniguchi will be followed by an artist talk on her practice.

Thursday, March 13, 2025, 3pm
The third and last of the series With Eyes Peeled will have artist and curator Lesley-Anne Cao lead viewers in their encounter with the brick paintings. Limited slots.

Full details for each program are available on our website.

Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila
G/F De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde
Design and Arts Campus, Dominga St.
Malate, Manila, 1004

T +632 8230 5100 loc. 3897–3898 / mcad [​at​] benilde.edu.ph

​The museum is open Tuesdays–Saturdays, 10am–6pm, and Sundays, 10am–2pm, except holidays. Appointments for online tours and private viewing for a limited number of persons may be arranged via the “visit” section of the website.