Before form, color, texture, and volume, there is the line.
For its 18th edition, ManilART presents Where the Line Begins, a celebration of the line as the fundamental language of visual art. This year celebrates the line as the first gesture that transforms thought into image, imagination into form, and ideas into visual reality.
ManilART’26 runs from October 14 to 18, 2026, at the SMX Aura Convention Center in Taguig City, bringing together galleries, artists, collectors, cultural institutions, and creative communities for five days of exhibitions and special features across the visual arts.
Tracing the Filipino Line: From Komiks to New Forms
A major feature of Where the Line Begins is a celebration of the Filipino comics tradition, where the drawn line becomes character, movement, humor, and story.
Presented with the Seven Lakes Komiks Festival, as supported by the Komikero Komiks Museum, the first museum of Filipino comics, based in San Pablo, Laguna, the feature pays tribute to pioneering figures who shaped Philippine comics, led by National Artist Francisco V. Coching, the celebrated “Dean of Filipino Illustrators”; Mars Ravelo, creator of Darna; Gerry Alanguilan, a leading figure in the Philippine comics renaissance who championed the preservation of the country’s Golden Age of komiks; Tony Velasquez, widely regarded as the father of Filipino comics and creator of Kenkoy; and Alfredo Alcala, whose extraordinary draftsmanship and imaginative worlds, including Voltar, earned him recognition in the Philippines and abroad. Alanguilan also founded the Komikero Komiks Museum and worked extensively to preserve the work of earlier Filipino komikeros.
Featured partner Larong Atin brings the comics tradition into contemporary play with games based on beloved Filipino characters, including Darna, Lastikman, and Combatron. Its latest project, Encantadia: War of Gems, based on Original Filipino Intellectual Property with multi generational following GMA fantasy series Encantadia, will make its much-awaited launch at
ManilART. Larong Atin has also taken Filipino game design to international fairs and markets, and co-organized the inaugural Asian Board Games Festival Philippines in 2026.
Celebrating 100 Years of Larry Alcala
If you missed Return to the Popular: Drawing the Filipino Imagination, the centennial exhibition of National Artist Larry Alcala at the Metropolitan Theater, ManilART’26 offers another opportunity to encounter the production in a special roadshow feature. The exhibition celebrates Alcala’s enduring contribution to Philippine popular visual culture, from his iconic Slice of Life cartoons to the distinctive characters and observations that made his work part of the Filipino visual memory.
Patis Tesoro: Illustrating Heritage
Maria Beatriz “Patis” Tesoro, recently conferred the title of National Artist for Design, is celebrated for her lifelong work with Filipiniana fashion, indigenous textiles, and traditional craftsmanship. At ManilART’26, a selection of her illustrations and visual works reveals another dimension of her practice, featuring colorful Filipiniana themes rendered in a playful, naïf inspired illustrative style.
Her participation also coincides with the launch of a coloring book project developed with the Department of Education (DepEd), featuring her illustrations and bringing Filipino visual culture and creative expression closer to young learners. The project extends Tesoro’s continuing work of connecting cultural heritage with the next generation through art and education.
ManilART and Taguig: A Creative Hub for the Art Season
ManilART returns to Taguig City, which has hosted the fair for 17 years and has grown into one of the country’s most dynamic centers for culture, enterprise, and the creative industries. This year, the partnership expands into a city-wide celebration as Taguig headlines its Museums and Galleries Month (MGM) program with ManilART as a banner event of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ (NCCA) October celebration.
Throughout October, a calendar of satellite exhibitions, cultural activities, and art programs around Taguig will connect the fair with the city’s museums, galleries, cultural spaces, schools, creative communities, and other venues, extending the ManilART experience beyond the SMX Aura Convention Center.
The 18th Edition: A Once-a-Year Platform for Big Art
This year, more than 35 large pavilion booths will bring together a roster of more than 600 artists, giving ManilART one of its broadest presentations yet. The scale of the venue allows galleries and artists to roll out major works rarely seen in conventional settings—from huge sculptures and ambitious installations to monumental paintings and other significant pieces.
For collectors, institutions, designers, and developers, ManilART offers a unique once-a-year opportunity to discover major works and scout art for public and large-scale spaces. For artists and the galleries that represent them, it is a rare platform to present ambitious work at scale and under one roof.
Education and the Arts
ManilART continues its arts education platform in cooperation with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), offering talks, workshops, tours and public programs for students, educators, artists, and audiences.
As a banner project of the NCCA’s Museums and Galleries Month celebration every October, ManilART helps bring museums, galleries, artists, and the public together in a national celebration of Philippine cultural life.
Partners and Supporters
ManilART’26 is co-presented by the ManilART Foundation and the City of Taguig, as a banner event of the National Committee on Art Galleries and Subcommission on Cultural Heritage for Museums and Galleries Month.
ManilART’26 is made possible through the support of Ladder Events Production, Vision Prime Media, Phoundry, Future Studios, SMX Convention Center Aura, SM Aura, Via Mare Catering, Purefoods Deli, Grentek Solutions, Quatro Arts, Art Caravan, Ticketbooth.ph, Museo Orlina, DB Coffee Roasters, Sebastiao Cocktails, Jade’s Temple Brewery and BDO Credit Cards,
Media partners include Inquirer.Net, Pop, Alike Media, The Manila Times, Manila Standard, Manila Bulletin, WhenInManila.com, Business Mirror, HueTV, Experience Travel and Living, and Negosentro Media Group.
Visit ManilART’26
Tickets for ManilART’26 will be available through Ticketbooth.ph. Follow ManilART on Facebook and Instagram for announcements, the full program, participating galleries and artists, and the October calendar of activities.
For group bookings and school tours, contact manilartsecretariat@gmail.com.
Alike was created to inspire, built on society and storytelling — from curating the best features of the country’s brightest luminaries and orchestrating events catered towards the country’s top, to showcasing the finest gems in art, lifestyle, and culture.
Alike is the next generation: the movers, the shakers of today.
We are Alike.
