Develop young Ilonggo collectors, socialize the price

By Noel Galon de Leon

Yesterday, I deliberately visited Art for Everyone 2026, the annual art exhibition held at a private mall in Iloilo City. This is no longer a new initiative. It has been staged for several years and is consistently celebrated as evidence that the city is expanding spaces for art. Certainly, opening a shopping mall as an exhibition venue is commendable. Art no longer belongs exclusively to museums and galleries; it is brought into a space where ordinary people pass by every day. Yet as I walked through the exhibition, one question lingered in my mind: How far can we honestly claim that this is “Art for Everyone” when the exhibition itself still fails to cultivate a new generation of Ilonggo art collectors?

There is still much to be done if we genuinely wish to protect and elevate Ilonggo artists. Providing exhibition space is only the beginning; it should never be mistaken for the culmination of institutional responsibility. An exhibition is far more than paintings hung on walls. It should function as a pedagogical space, a site of public learning where artist talks, curatorial walkthroughs, panel discussions, and critical conversations encourage audiences to understand the processes, contexts, and conceptual foundations behind each artwork. If we aspire to broaden art appreciation, we must also broaden art education.

It is astonishing that after several years of organizing this exhibition, the artworks still lack QR codes that could introduce visitors to the artists, their biographies, artist statements, creative processes, and exhibition histories. There is still no exhibition catalog to serve as a lasting record of the event. Across many museums and galleries worldwide, catalogs are not mere souvenirs; they are archival documents that become indispensable references for researchers, curators, collectors, and even the artists themselves. Without proper documentation, exhibitions quickly disappear from cultural memory regardless of how many visitors they attract.

Another seemingly minor issue reveals a much deeper structural problem: the unequal lighting of the artworks. Some pieces receive carefully positioned illumination while others struggle in relative darkness. More troubling is what several participating artists shared with me: those who can afford additional lighting must pay for it themselves, while those who cannot simply have to accept whatever lighting is available. Organizers should not be surprised when tensions or disagreements emerge among artists over something as seemingly simple as light. Within exhibition practice, lighting is never merely decorative. It fundamentally shapes how color is perceived, how texture becomes visible, how spatial depth is experienced, and ultimately how viewers emotionally respond to an artwork. Unequal lighting is therefore not merely an aesthetic concern but an issue of curatorial equity. A better-lit artwork naturally commands greater attention and enjoys a higher probability of attracting potential buyers.

Yet what captured my attention most was the issue of pricing. Let me be clear: I have absolutely no objection to expensive artworks. Art deserves to command high prices because every work embodies years of discipline, experimentation, technical refinement, failure, persistence, and imagination. Artists should never apologize for valuing their labor. My concern is not that some prices are high. My concern is that many prices appear to have no discernible rationale. Looking at several price tags throughout the exhibition, I could not help recalling the Hiligaynon expression palagpat—pricing that feels arbitrary, impulsive, and unsupported. It creates the impression that attaching a large number to a painting automatically confers value.

Professional art markets do not operate this way. Pricing should emerge from a coherent system of valuation that considers an artist’s exhibition history, critical reception, museum acquisitions, medium, scale, rarity, provenance, technical sophistication, collector demand, consistency of production, and long-term career trajectory. Price is never simply a personal preference; it is a cultural statement about an artist’s position within the larger art ecosystem. When pricing lacks intellectual and market discipline, it is not only collectors who become confused. The credibility of the local art market itself begins to erode.

Perhaps this explains why Iloilo continues to struggle in cultivating a new generation of collectors. Imagine entering an exhibition for the first time and immediately confronting price tags that seem impossible to interpret. How would a young visitor know whether a work is genuinely valued according to market standards or simply priced without sufficient basis? Without adequate information explaining the logic behind valuation, potential buyers are likely to retreat. Rather than feeling invited into the world of collecting, they leave believing that art collecting belongs exclusively to an economic elite.

This is precisely why it is time to introduce a concept that receives remarkably little attention within our local art scene: socializing the price. This does not mean lowering prices or undervaluing artists’ labor. Instead, it means making the logic of valuation transparent and accessible. Why does this painting cost what it does? What is the artist’s professional history? How many years have they practiced? Why is this series historically or conceptually significant? Why should an artwork be understood not merely as decoration but as cultural investment? Once audiences understand the processes that shape artistic value, they become more confident and willing to collect.

Socializing the price also requires creating multiple entry points for young collectors. Not everyone should be expected to begin with large canvases carrying six-figure price tags. They can start with prints, drawings, photographs, artist books, small-scale paintings, editions, or works by emerging artists. Around the world, most collectors do not begin by purchasing masterpieces. They gradually build collections as their knowledge, confidence, and appreciation deepen. Acquiring one’s first artwork is never merely a financial transaction; it is an act of cultural participation and an investment in a shared artistic future.

If we genuinely hope to establish a sustainable art ecosystem in Iloilo, an annual exhibition will never be enough. We need regular public lectures on collecting, conservation, valuation, patronage, and cultural investment. Established collectors should be invited to share how they began. Workshops should engage students, young professionals, entrepreneurs, and first-time buyers who may become tomorrow’s patrons of Ilonggo art. Collectors are not born. They are cultivated through continuous education and meaningful encounters with art.

The future of Ilonggo art depends not only on the number of artists we produce but equally on the number of people willing to acquire, preserve, support, and live with their works. Artists cannot survive on admiration alone. They require a market, and markets do not emerge spontaneously. They are intentionally nurtured through institutions, education, dialogue, and public trust.

Perhaps this is the most important question every edition of Art for Everyone should ask—not how many artworks were sold, nor how many visitors walked through the exhibition, but whether even one young Ilonggo left that exhibition with a deeper understanding of art, the confidence to become a first-time collector, and the conviction that collecting is not an exclusive privilege reserved for the wealthy but a meaningful act of participating in the making of culture. Only when we can answer that question affirmatively will the title Art for Everyone truly live up to its promise.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in the Division of Professional Education and at UP High School in Iloilo. He is also the secretary of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts-National Committee on Literary Arts.