Photograph of Roberto Chabet's installation Cargo and Decoy in the Main Theater Lobby of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, as part of Chabet's exhibition 'To Be Continued' at the CCP from 19 January - 31 March 2012. The work was especially installed in the Lobby for the exhibition's opening weekend, before it was moved to the Main Gallery for the rest of the exhibition.

The work is originally part of Chabet's 'Cargo and Decoy', the closing exhibition of the Pinaglabanan Galleries in 1989. It is the last of a trilogy of works, which began with Russian Paintings in 1984 and House Painting in 1986. In these works, Chabet utilises his signature material – store-bought plywood boards. 'It is a material which has become not only the surface and support of his paintings but to a large extent its subject matter and content.' In Cargo and Decoy, Chabet refers to the South Pacific cargo cults from which the title of the work is derived.

'To Be Continued' is a landmark survey exhibition of Chabet's works, which gathers seminal pieces such as Russian Paintings (1984) and Cargo and Decoy (1989), as well as other works that utilise plywood boards, a material, which has become not only the surface and support of his paintings and installations, but to a large extent their subject matter and content. He first used plywood in his early kinetic sculptures in the 1970s, but it was in the 80s when he adapted the material to painting. Breaking away from the rigid formalism of Modernism, his seemingly ‘purely’ geometric and abstract plywood constructions are often juxtaposed with particular everyday objects that would appear and re-appear in his other installations and become part of his familiar inventory of anxious objects. Highlighting process and the provisional nature of these works, the exhibition illuminates a key aspect of Chabet’s practice, which gives precedence to the fugitive and contingent nature of art.

Also included in the CCP mounting are a selection from Chabet’s China Collages (1980 – 1990), a series of large collages done over a ten-year period; Bakawan (1974), a closed door installation in the CCP Small Gallery; the Apple Painting Lesson (1983), an early collaborative work with over forty artists; and Day and Night (2011), the artist’s most recent installation. The CCP Little Theater Curtain, which was designed by Chabet, is also highlighted. 

'To Be Continued' was presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore - La Salle College of the Arts on January 2011 and Osage Kwun Tong on August 2011. The exhibition returned to Manila as the final installation of 'Roberto Chabet: Fifty Years,' a year-long series of exhibitions organised by King Kong Art Projects Unlimited in various venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Manila from 2011 - 2012.