Conceptual artist Roberto Chabet dies - report

(Updated 1:20 a.m., 1 May 2013) Known as the father of Philippine conceptual art, Roberto Chabet, 76, died Tuesday night of cardiac arrest at the UERM Medical Center in Sta. Mesa, Manila. Chabet was brought to the hospital on Monday because of chills and a high fever, according to a report by Yahoo.com. He suffered a first heart attack on Tuesday afternoon, but was revived. Unfortunately, he succumbed to a second attack that evening. Roberto Chabet was born in 1937 in Manila, and held his first solo exhibition at the Luz Gallery in 1961, according to King Kong Art Projects Unlimited, a non-profit artist organization supporting alternative Philippine art. Chabet was a graduate of Architecture from the University of Sto. Tomas and was highly regarded for his experimental paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures. "Breaking away from the rigid formalisms of Modernism, Chabet insists on a more inclusive approach to art, a search for the sublime not just in abstract ideas but also in the immediacy of the quotidian and the commonplace. In his works, abstraction and the everyday collide, creating spaces for new meanings," it said. Chabet was the founding museum director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). — DVM, GMA News