from “Camilo Ontiveros: In the Ring” by Idurre Alonso:

For MOLAAs' exhibition Camilo Ontiveros: In the Ring, the artist once again proposes abroad investigation including videos, projections and photographs of Filipino and Mexican boxers. The blazing career of the Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao in the last decade and his epic fights against Mexican boxers such as Erik "el terrible" Morales, Juan Manuel Márquez and Marco Antonio Barrera, have resulted in great interest by the mass media for matches between fighters from both countries. These matches have generated a relationship between the Mexican and Filipino public as well. In fact, the relationship between both countriesis not new and is far from being a mere historical coincidence. They have a connection that spans both more than two centuries that is significant in the cultural development of Mexcio and hte Philippines, albeit one that is unknown by the majority of the inhabitants of both countries…

…In this exhibition, as in the rest of his works, Ontiveros provokes the viewer to look beyond. The central focus of the exhibition is a boxing ring from which we are confronted with wall in which Filipino and Mexican boxers train or fight each other. To the side, a proiection with a mirror makes the viewer a participant in a training sesion in Mindanao. Camilo Ontiveros shows us that two centuries after the last ship sailed the Manila-Acapulco route, Mexico and the Philippines have found each other again, through a third country (the United States) that generates the relationship betwen them by staging milion dolar boxing macthes that create significant economic profit. In Camilo Ontiveros: In the Ring the artist focuses on the intersection of two cultures but far from mystifying the encounter, he proposes the possibility of repeating the colonial relationship of the past. Link.