Photograph of a detail of Roberto Chabet's installation, Day and Night.

In Day and Night, Chabet assembles his familiar GI sheets and neon texts with objects culled and salvaged from long-forgotten situations: a Jose Rizal magic slate that serves as a palimpsest of lost writings, school desks that are an allegory for wanting to be somewhere else, and cast off ship bells that alert arrivals and departures. The neon sign triggers associations of cultic and psychological transformations, but it is actually the namesake of a house of nightly pleasures that was leveled after World War II. The installation is a tableau of signs that re-engage and re-enact the makeshift walls of a classroom from a childhood memory. Its host of meanings, anachronistic and synchronous, highly sentimental and romantic, objectifies ‘a greater personal mythology.’

Day and Night was exhibited at Paseo Gallery, SM Megamall, from 1 - 16 December 2011. The exhibition is part 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.