Photograph of Ma. Victoria Herrera, Head of the Cultural Center of The Philippines (CCP) Visual Arts Department, at the opening of Roberto Chabet's solo exhibition, 'To Be Continued' at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on 19 January 2012. Roberto Chabet (seated) is on her right.

'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 first presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore - La Salle College of the Arts last January 2011. It was also shown at Osage Kwun Tong last August 2011. The exhibition returns 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.