Notes on the works of Roberto Chabet and Gerardo Tan in the group exhibition 'Authenticity', curated by Boots Herrera and Ana Labrador at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Small Gallery in September 2000.

For this exhibition, 'the original idea was for Gerardo Tan to deliberately copy the work of Roberto Chabet with his consent. As it turned out, both artists turned out with copies of each others' works, producing a collaborative installation of two related works.'

Gerardo Tan's work refers to Chabet's Unknown Objects, exhibited in 1969 in Joy Dayrit's Print gallery as part of the 'Words and Pictures' an exhibition of works that accompanied poems by Filipino poets chosen by the participating artists. Chabet's work consisted of three bell jars on the floor, with no text to accompany it. He said it was a work 'in search of a text - maybe a yet to be written poem.' In retrospect he said, 'Perhaps the title or label was text enough'.

Roberto Chabet's work Remains to be seen... footnotes Gerardo Tan's copy. The work quotes the beeswax found objects in Tan's Recent Diggings (1993), and references the sense of foundness and loss in the burning wax Virgin of Apparition (1999), the missing person of NOTHERE (1998), and the negative ID photos of Meetings (2000).