Atmospheric Effects of
Stolen Sunsets
Photographic Series
In his ongoing visual poem, Atmospheric Effects of Stolen Sunsets, Könneker responds to Esteban Pichay Villanueva’s ‘Basi Revolt’ paintings (1821). Spanish colonial authorities originally commissioned these paintings to warn against rebellion.
Könneker’s series consists of fragmented stills of these paintings captured at an exhibition in the National Museum of the Philippines located in Vigan, a former Spanish colonial town on the northern coast of the country. This setting reflects over three centuries of Spanish rule, a brutal colonial era that was abruptly replaced by American occupation at the turn of the twentieth century. He brings into conversations visual traces of Catholic influences from Spanish religious imposition, the enduring but waning influence of American imperialism, and the fetishized Philippine sunsets of contemporary tourism with the fragmented imagery of opression and resistance from Villaneuva’s paintings.
Könneker worked on this series during his year living and teaching Art & Design in Manila, Philippines.
