OF MOUNTAINS AND MYSTERIES AT VENICE BIENNALE

VENICE, Italy — There's a moment during the looped video shown at the Philippine Pavilion of this year's Venice Biennale, "Sa kabila ng tabing lamang sa panahong ito / Waiting just behind the curtain of this age" (featuring artworks by Mark Salvatus and curated by Carlos Quijon Jr.), that seems to encapsulate the artist's approach: a brass instrument in a forest, shyly peeking out from behind a tree like an alien.

- SCOTT GARCEAU

Foreigners everywhere: Artist Mark Salvatus and curator Carlos Quijon Jr. at Stazione di Napoli Centrale bird beak, then retreating just as shyly (slyly?) from view.

"In a way, it's kind of like the spirits are like that," Salvatus says of his native Lucban, where he grew up gazing at mystical Mt. Banahaw from his boyhood window. "They're inserting their presence in our lives, like they're just there, but you don't feel them. It kind of makes you feel, 'Ah, okay, there's something..."

A mystical mountain retreat. A Filipino folk hero in the form of Hermano Puli. Healing energies and massages. Maybe even UFOs.

Mt. Banahaw is the backdrop for "Curtain of this age," and Puli — whose pre-revolutionary Cofradia inspired a grassroots spiritual movement outside the Church, and whose final enigmatic statement provides the show's title — didn't exactly change history; he inserted himself in sly ways, like that brass instrument.

"So, yeah, this idea of small movement," says Salvatus. "Hermano Puli didn't create a big movement, but it impacted history, because Jose Rizal was inspired; he didn't even meet him, just through stories."

Psst!

Listen: That's the sound of the Philippines, calling out to visitors at this year's Biennale. Aside from human sounds ("Psst!" or "Hmm..."), birdsong, whistles, trickling water and occasional trumpet bleats emerge. Swathing the space are sheer curtains, leading you... somewhere. Mammoth boulders embedded with marching band instruments surround a central screen, where images of Mt. Banahaw and its ephemera loop endlessly, along with ambient sounds of nature. On its closing day, the Philippine Pavilion rang up some 9,000 visitors.

Poo-tee-weet?