CONFABULATION (May 2010)

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COMING UP14

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FEATURESLu Peng吕鹏: An Interview

Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng: An open-ended encounter

Catching up with Terence Teo Chin Keong 赵振强

REVIEWSSeries of Artists Talks

Kaleidoscope 2010 Torch of Friendship

WHOLE: A chance encounter with the grid

Pushing the Boundaries of the ModernChinese Painting: A Review of PainterNg Joon Kiat’s Latest Works

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Wishful thinking

Elucidation: Sculptures with a Narrative

Asian Festival of Children Content

Artists’ Book Exhibition: Centre to Periphery

International Museum Day

Singapore Arts Festival 2010

Making History: How Southeast Asian Art reconquers the past to conjure the future

CONTENTS


The Regent Singapore, 1 Cuscaden Road Ground Floor Unit 3, Singapore 249715 · Tel.: +(65) 6725 3113 Email: [email protected]

www.galeriejoaquin.com.sg

S I N G A P O R E

Representing young emerging artists, successful contemporary talents, as well as

the masters, the gallery serves as a platform to showcase the best of Filipino art

Arturo Luz

Federico Aguilar Alcuaz

Juvenal Sansó

Mario Parial

Lydia Velasco

Dominic Rubio

Carlo Magno

Ramon Orlina

Jerry Morada

Eufemio Rasco IV

Jaspher Penuliar

Vincent De Pio

Aileen Lanuza

Jovan Benito

Dominic Rubio 48 x 84 in. oil on canvas

Galerie Joaquin Singapore specializes in museum-quality artworks from the Philippines

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CREATIVERESOURCES

POSTSCRIPT

DIRECTORYSingapore Art & Heritage District MapSingaporeMalaysia

Performance art in the everyday:The death of things now, the death ofeverything later

CONTENTS


Issue #6 (May 2010)ISSN 1793-9739 / MICA (P) 183/02/2010www.confabmag.com

Editor-in-chief // Sabrina Sit / [email protected]

Art Director // Amalina MN / [email protected]

Photography Director // Michael Tan (Ambious Studio)

Account Executive // Kayla Hoo / [email protected]

Contributors // Yvonne Low / Singapore Contemporary Young Artists / Syed Muhd Hafiz / Smriti Rajgarhia-Bhatt / Yow Siew Kah / Richard Chua

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Cover Lu Peng Leaving the Garden of Dreams 11 <游园惊梦11> Acrylic on Canvas 145 x 170 cm

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Every effort has been made to contact the copyrights holder. If we have been unsuccessful in some instances, please contact us and we will credit accordingly.Even greater effort has been taken to ensure that all information provided in CONFABULATION is correct. However, we strongly advise to confirm or verify information with the relevant galleries/venues.The views expressed in CONFABULATION are not necessarily those of the publisher.Printed in Singapore.

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All editorial, design requests, advertising bookings and materials for June issue of CONFABULATION should be received by 18 May.


Hair maestro Kim Robinson has mastered another type of brush - the paintbrush. The style icon and mane master, who is the go-to name for many A-listers in the region, will reveal another facet to his artistic side through his first art at the Museum of Art and Design (M.A.D.) from 8th to 21st May.

Entitled Wishful Thinking, the series of more than 21 visual presentations will unveil Kim’s secret passion, painting. Although his own mother was an artist by profession, he did not get into painting proper until much later in life –out of necessity. Being a visual person, he was helping to decorate a client’s home and found it frustrating to find art that complement the look and feel he was trying to achieve. The man literally took matters into his own hands and produced pieces to complete the home. The result was very well received, and word soon got out.

Under the persuasion of those who believed in him and were drawn to his works, Kim took a quiet foray into his first show in Hong Kong. Only Kim was surprised that the exhibition did so well with every painting sold but critics had already caught on to the scent of a new emerging artist.

Six years later, Kim is now fulfilling his wish to hold his first exhibition in Singapore. “Singapore is becoming a regional arts hub and so I felt it would be the best place to showcase and launch my art endeavors officially,” says Kim.

Kim’s work centers on the raw expression of love – sex and the physical form. Likewise, the elements in his paintings always seduce and flirt with glimpses of the human desire through a bold combination of acrylic, watercolour, oil and typography.

As with his strong belief that love is, and should be abstract, indefinable and a little bit elusive, the idea of passion is strongly conveyed by the choice of colour and texture as the physical form assumes a secondary role by never being fully or clearly seen. Kim draws and deconstructs his artistic drive from everything around him – fashion, people, landscapes, interiors, experiences –and the beauty in every situation. Like a beloved pair of well-worn jeans or the peeling patina of a wall from distant past, his art pieces evoke warmth, quiet comfort and an old soul stirring within.

Exhibition: Wishful ThinkingDate: 08.05.10 – 21.05.10Venue: Museum of Art and Design (M.A.D.) 333A Orchard Road #03-01 Mandarin Gallery Singapore 238897

www.mad.com.sg

The man in white shirt Mixed media on Canvas 160 x 120 cm

COMING UP COMING UP


Here’s an absolutely engaging showcase of solely sculptures by five artists – Vidyasankar Sthapathy, T.R.P. Mookiah, P. Gnana, B.R. Ravi and Velmurugan. Each sculpture in this collection flaunts an intriguing narrative; a story to imagine and ponder over, within creative scenarios that include themes such as mythology, motherhood and romance.

The theme for this year’s inaugural AFCC is Asian Content for the World’s Children. AFCC aims to foster excellence in the creation, production and publication of children materials with Asian content in all formats and facilitate their distribution and access to parents, teachers, librarians and children in Asia as well as the world.

Organized and curated by artists, Eriko Hirashima and Noriko Suzuki-Bosco with additional support by Seiji Shinohara, the main objective of the exhibition is to promote Book Arts and Artists’ Books and to support the artists who use it as an art form to represent their ideas. The books vary in style. A broad range of original works by 35 artists in both Singapore and Japan has been selected for the exhibition.

There will be a book binding workshop on 8th May and 15th May at 10.30am and 2.30pm where the general public will be able to experience the experimental process of creating a book. For bookings for the book binding workshop, please contact +65 6775 0602 or email [email protected].

Centred on the theme I Love Museums – Kids’ edition, the National Heritage Board invites you to explore the diversity of museums and our enriching exhibitions and programmes in this annual cultural extravaganza. There will be free entry to NHB museums and participating museums with the IMD’10 Open House Day on 23rd May.

Between You and Me is the theme for the 33rd edition of this year’s Singapore Arts Festival. The Festival began in 1977 as a national showcase celebrating the local arts of Singapore’s diverse communities. Over the last three decades, the Festival, organised by the National Arts Council, has played a symbiotic and catalytic role in development of the artistic and cultural life of Singapore. It has helped to transform the city’s landscape, turning it into one of Asia’s major cultural capitals of today. It has influenced the work of artists and generated a growing public demand for the arts, spawning new capital platforms, events and movements that help underpin the lively cultural scene in present day Singapore.

The 21st century has been dubbed the Asian Century. But if the first decade of the new millennium has been dominated by China and India’s dazzling economic and social transformations, Southeast Asia, though less familiar, is changing rapidly too. Indeed, as one of the most culturally, religiously and linguistically diverse regions in the world, Southeast Asia and its distinctive pluralism uniquely embody a functioning globalised framework for local concerns. No surprise then that Southeast Asia’s complex history, evolving identity and national stories are often the focus of the region’s sophisticated and dynamic contemporary art.

This symposium will examine issues surrounding Southeast Asian contemporary art today.

Alwin Reamillo (Philippines), Green Zeng (Singapore), Khanh Bui (Vietnam), Mella Jaarsma (Indonesia), Nge Lay (Burma), Tang Da Wu (Singapore) and Vasan Sitthiket (Thailand). Hosted by Iola Lenzi.

Exhibition: Elucidation: Sculptures with a NarrativeDate: 05.05.10 – 20.05.10Venue: Gnani Arts Space 190 Middle Road #02-30/31 Fortune Centre Singapore 188979

www.gnaniarts.com

Exhibition: Asian Festival of Children ContentDate: 06.05.10 – 09.05.10Venue: The Arts House 1 Old Parliament Lane Singapore 179429

www.afcc.com.sg

Exhibition: Artists’ Book Exhibition: Centre to PeripheryDate: 08.05.10 – 21.05.10Venue: Japan Creative Centre 4 Nassim Road Singapore 258372

www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/JCC

Exhibition: Making History: How Southeast Asian Art reconquers the past to conjure the futureDate: 27.05.10 Venue: The Bay Room 1 Esplanade Drive Singapore 038981

www.esplanade.com

Exhibition: International Museum Day Date: 14.05.10 – 23.05.10Venue: Various museums

www.nhb.gov.sg

Exhibition: Singapore Arts Festival 2010Date: 14.05.10 – 13.06.10

www.singaporeartsfest.com

COMING UPCOMING UP


Lu Peng吕鹏:An InterviewLu Peng is a prominent and acclaimed artist whose works have been shown widely across the world in places including New York, London, Sydney, Boston and France. As with the majority of artists of his generation, those born during the Cultural Revolution, Lu Peng is preoccupied with the metamorphosis of Chinese society.

His solo exhibition, Empty City 2 <空城计 2> , at Plum Blossoms Gallery in Hong Kong opens on the 24th May and runs till 7th June and he is exclusively represented by Mulan Gallery in Singapore.

Lu Peng speaks to CONFABULATION about what inspires him and about symbolism in his paintings.

堆积，是吕鹏作品语言中最鲜明的特点，他的几乎每一幅作品，第一眼看去，给人强烈印象的，都是重重迭迭的一大堆东西。堆积，确实形象地把握了中国人普遍的一种生存感觉，中国人在这几十年的经历中，或者所受的教育中，不断地今是而昨非，茫茫然不知所措成为人们的常态，各种文化记忆，在没有价值的支撑下，必然呈碎片状态堆积在人们记忆中。因为文化作为一种价值系统，是一个有机的整体，主次层次分明。大到一个社会，具体到一座建筑，都可以使人感觉到这种文化主次层次与和谐的状态。堆积就是没有文化的体现，像中国的建筑，就是各种文化符号的碎片堆积，也像一个没有整理的图书馆，古今中外的书籍乱七八糟地堆在一起。在吕鹏的作品中，我们可以看到门神的形象、样板戏的形象、时髦青年的形象、戏曲形象、民间艺术形象的堆积，可以看到红墙城楼、传统戏曲水纹样以及盔甲、红卫兵袖章、弓箭、大刀、步枪的杂陈，可以看到鱼、战马、飞机、出现在同一空间中。整个给人的感觉是文化符号的混杂和时间、空间的错乱。

在堆积的形象中，它们之间关系是吕鹏作品的第二个特征。我还是使用建筑作为例子，在一个有文化价值系统支撑的社会里，比如欧洲的城市，在保留传统城市面貌整体中，现代文化和谐地存在其中。中国的城市，不但具体建筑是文化符号的堆积，整个城市中各种文化系统的建筑，同样是毫无次序的堆积在每一个城市的土地上，它们之间的关系常常显得非常的滑稽和可笑。吕鹏在处理他的画面中形象时，同样体现出一种游戏和滑稽的关系，既然我们没有文化价值系统的支撑，文化在我们的头脑中呈现混乱的状态，而且和谐并显示出一个系统化的状态，又不是任何一个人能够完成，那么这些文化符号在每一个人的头脑里就是随每一个的兴趣、教育背景、文化立场来组合的。吕鹏的组合是游戏式的，有意强调了一种滑稽和混乱或者混战的关系，步枪和大刀战在一起，战马和飞机搅和在一起，人和管道一起穿墙而过……，这或许可以理解成：穿墙而过作为一种传说通过气功热、法术在今天的流行，也正体现中国人信仰失落和混乱的结果，虽然滑稽，但这是我们真实的现实。——栗宪庭

FEATURES LU PENG


You are deeply affected by traditional drama, martial arts fiction, electronic games, and Hollywood films which is a rather eclectic mix to be drawing inspiration from. Tell us more about it.

Lu Peng: When I was in primary 3, 4 and in junior high, it was common for the radio to broadcast classic Chinese stories. I particularly like stories read by famous broadcasters like Liu Lan Fang, Shan Tian Fang’s “The story of Yue Fei”, “Legends of Sui and Tang Dynasties” and “The Three Kingdoms” (these were famous Chinese kung-fu classics). I was very attracted by those who are highly skilled in martial arts and who robbed the rich to help the poor. I also like to draw pictures based on these stories. Until today, I still like to listen to these stories. Normally artists would usually play some relaxing music in the background as they paint, but I will listen to these stories. I felt that these excellent traditional arts forms could fire up our imaginations. At that time, the ideal subject matter in my heart were said heroes in these stories. They were highly skilled in martial arts, traveled around and helped the good by eliminating the bad guys. My playmates and I would go to the construction work sites of today’s Jin Song area to play war games and ‘fight’. That’s why I always find myself going back and wanting to incorporate these childhood memories into my works. Later I found out that the same themes would appear in Hollywood movies and electronic games, I felt this was due to human kind’s common characteristics.

您深受传统戏曲，武侠小说，电动游戏和好莱坞电影的影响。这样的一个灵感来源组合比较奇特。可以告诉我们多点吗?

吕鹏: 在我小学三四年级和初中的时候，电台里正是在热播长篇历史评书的时候，象刘兰芳，善田芳等著名的评书演员的《说岳全传》，《隋唐演义》，《水浒传》，《三国演义》（以上为中国古代的著名的武侠故事）等，我都特别喜欢。特别迷恋那些武艺高强，杀富济贫的英雄好汉。所以也爱找这样的图片来画。直到今天，我还是特别喜欢听，别人画画时找轻松的背景音乐，但我则喜欢评书作为自己常听的。我认为这些优秀的中国传统艺术能够开启我们的想象力。

那时候，心目中的理想人物就是这些英雄豪杰，有一身的工夫，云游四方，除霸安良。那时候我们一群小伙伴到现在的劲松那边的工地上去玩打仗。因此总想把这些童年时期的记忆画到我的作品中去。后来发现电子游戏和好莱坞电影中也经常出现相似的情景和样式，我觉得这是人类共同的童心所使然。

FEATURES LU PENG


您认为文化是什么？您的绘画里常有不同时空的人和符号在同一幅作品里。这是为何？您想表达什么？

我觉得中国的传统因素不应该急功近利，因该是理性的，缓慢的，从内部逐步改变的，一点点地变化，最需要的是从其发展的逻辑演变中不断调整自己。才可以保证既保持传统，有有创新。这也是为什么我的作品中旧的和老的东西与新的现代的东西都混合在一起的原因。我觉得中国目前的社会状态就是这样，虽然，可以说中国目前仍然是很传统的国家，但我们的传统是碎片的，不连贯的，也是相互矛盾的，你也可以说中国是很现代的前卫的国家，但，中国的现代性也是各种西方先进东西的各种碎片的重叠，我们也没有一个完整的西方文化系统，同时也失去了传统的魅力。新的文化正是在这样混乱中萌生着。但什么是新的东西，新的中国现代文化呢？似乎还没有清晰的线索，虽然人们讨论现代的问题已经有许多年了。上次。栗宪庭先生给我写了一篇文章，核心是说我的作品就是文化碎片的堆积游戏，这些具有象征的文化意义的符号和图象堆积在画面中，在图像之间找一些关系。的确是这样，我几乎看不见各种文化符号之间的内在关系，只是各种因素纠缠在一起。

What, in your opinion, is culture? In your works, you place people from different times and space and symbols from the past and present together onto the same canvas. Why is that so and what are you trying to translate to the viewers with your works?

I feel that China’s traditional elements should not be one which demands fast returns or based on the material but should rather be logical, slow and changes made should be from within and slowly. Most importantly, it should adjust itself within the logic of development. Only in this way can it retain tradition and yet be creative. That is why the old and new can mix well in my art. I feel that this is exactly how the China society is like – although China is a very traditional country, our tradition is in bits and pieces, they are not linked and is also contradicting. You may also say China is a very advanced and avant garde country but these is also a stacking up of the western ideas. We do not have a complete Western culture system and at the same time, we have also lost the charm of our tradition. The new culture is being produced in the midst of these chaos. But what are the new things, the new contemporary Chinese culture? We do not have a clear clue although we’ve been talking about it for many years. The last time, Mr. Zao Xian Ting wrote an article for me, the main points were that my works are a stacking up (assimilation) of small pieces of culture together. I put icons and symbols rich in cultural meanings together in my works, to find some relationships among pictures. And true enough this is so, I can’t seem to find any relationships between these icons and symbols and it’s just a mixture of various elements.

您的作品里有许多代表性的符号，比如说墙代表了时下的社会－一面是盲目的，另一面是官僚的。是否有哪一个符号是贯穿您所有作品的，或者有哪一些是您目前在探讨的？

我曾经画过许多的和墙与城市有关的系列画，如《京城夜》、《穿墙而过》。因为墙是组成城市的最为重要的标志，墙具有维护和区分内外的作用，特别是中国式的墙更加具备这样的特性，从某种程度上说“墙”具有中国传统文化的象征，比如故宫的红墙等。。。另一方面，城市是有各式各样的墙所包围和割裂起来的，它使得人们生活在一起却又显得相距遥远。如果以墙来象征我们各自的文化，那么在我们的周围有着无数的我们无法看见却又能实在感受到的“墙”。再有，在我的作品中经常会发现一个白色的小牌子，一面是方形，一面是尖形。那时我用来签名和题写作品名称的地方，也可以看作是我作品的一个小的特色。最后，我在作品的创作中最为关心的是画中人物与人物之间，物体与物体之间的内在的逻辑关系，而不由这些人物与物体组成的一个实际的故事，换言之，它们不是来自有一个真实的故事而是来自一个梦。我的作品不属于政治性的，也不是简单的观念复制，而是想象力的最佳体现，因此像我这一类的作品是禁得起品味的。。。这也是我的目的。

There are many references made in your works. For example, walls symbolise present day society - the blindness of one side to the other and the still inscrutable nature of much of the administration’s doings. Is there any one particular reference that recurs in every series or a new icon that you are currently exploring?

I have painted many series related to the city and walls such as the “ Night of the capital“ and “Moving through the walls”. Because walls are the most important elements that make up cities, walls have the function of differentiating what’s inside and what’s outside. The Chinese walls especially, contain such characteristics; in some sense walls contain traditional Chinese culture characteristics like the red walls of the forbidden places…

On the other hand, the city is enclosed and segregated by different kinds of walls, this make people seem to live close together and yet they are far apart. If we use walls to represent our unique culture, then we are surrounded by numerous invisible walls that can be flat.

Also, you can often find a white signage in my painting consisting of one side that is a square and the other that is sharp. This is where I sign or where I would write the title of my works. This is a small unique characteristic of my works.

Finally, my primary concern in my work is the inter-relationships between the people in my paintings, or the internal logic between the objects I depict, rather than the story these people or objects make up. In other words, they are not from a real story, but a dream. My works are political, and not a multiplication from a simple concept but is the most exemplary exhibition of imagination. This is why my works can withstand repeated appreciation… This is also my aim.

FEATURES LU PENG


Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng: An open-ended encounter

Text: Yvonne Low 刘燕媚Image: Darren Ng

Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng turned out to be a deeply refreshing encounter. The exhibition, which opened on 5 March 2010 at NUS Museum, shows an immense array of works by the late Master, many of which are apparently exhibited for the first time.1 The curators, art historian TK Sabapathy, NUS Museum Director Ahmad Mashadi and Assistant Director Karen Lim, re-introduced to the local and regional art world new ways of viewing Cheong Soo Pieng and his practice.

CHEONG SOO PIENGFEATURES


The story of Cheong Soo Pieng’s art – the version most familiar and most frequently recounted – typically centred around his contributions to a possible Nanyang style and art, his designation as a ‘Nanyang artist’ and his role as among the ‘Four Masters’ of Nanyang. In particular, Soo Pieng’s painting trip to Bali with Liu Kang, Chen Chong Swee and Chen Wen Hsi was also a common focus in art historical discussions. Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng strayed away from such approaches. The exhibition tells us his journeys and encounters when he was an establishing young émigré artist in pre-Independent Singapore and shows us clearly how his artistic explorations and original creations had developed and the impact his art had on local and regional art centres.

Ahmad Mashadi explains in the accompanying exhibition brochure that the display is set out in two broad sections – the first, The Topical and the Formal, highlights aspects of Soo Pieng’s topical and formal interests, his preoccupations and transformations; the second, Departing and Arriving, makes references to Soo Pieng’s journeys, initiating possible ways of representing his world.

The objective of the exhibition in this instance is clear and the display of Soo Pieng’s renditions of still-life, landscapes and the human figure has been thoughtfully

arranged such that a singular viewpoint of looking at Soo Pieng’s practice is both inadequate and unsatisfying. In The Topical and the Formal section, the curators appear to walk the viewer through Soo Pieng’s explorations of the landscape as his key subject and through to his other equally dominant departures into the depiction of the peoples and cultures found alongside such landscapes. The continuity between his explorations and depictions of the two broad genres is clear – his treatment of the subject matter is not stagnant or rigidly grounded to a fixed style (approach). Soo Pieng has adopted innumerable ways of depicting his subjects by amalgamating and synthesizing a range of stylistic drawing and painting techniques; in doing so, he experimented with the colour palette, the medium and material, the use of rough, expressive brushstrokes as well as finer, more intricate painting techniques depending on the objective of his work. The curators have shown quite literally how a non-chronological representation of Soo Pieng’s paintings may initiate new approaches, intentions and responses.

In the conjoining room where the viewer may proceed to the next section, Departing and Arriving, the exhibition shifts away from showing to telling as a means to invite the viewer to consider Soo Pieng’s personal and professional life – his travels, successes

FEATURES CHEONG SOO PIENG


由美术史家TK Sabapathy，新加坡国立大学美术馆馆长 Ahmad Mashadi 和助理馆长Karen Lim共同策划的<敞观钟泗宾>展览，于2010年3月5日在新加坡国立大学博物馆开幕，展出先驱画家钟泗宾（1917－1983）一些内容丰富，题材多样化的画作，其中包括一部份从未公开展出过的作品。这个展览的特色是：它重新介绍钟泗宾的艺术和创作精神，给艺术界提供一个能以崭新角度去观赏与畅想他的作品的机会。

通过这次的展出的策划设置，似乎使观众能暂时撇弃对他最熟悉的观点，例如：先驱画家对“南洋风格”的贡献，尤其是与刘抗，陈宗瑞和陈文希结伴到巴厘岛绘画之旅之后，经常被称为‘南洋艺术家’，也被称为四大南洋画师之一......等往往成为一个在艺术历史被共同讨论的重点。

<敞观钟泗宾>偏离了这些话题。这次展出清楚的回述他的种种行程和经历。例如：他是如何从一个移居他乡的青年独自到南洋建立自己的艺术生涯，也清楚的呈现给观众他的艺术探索和发展过程；他那独特的艺术风格与创作思维是如何影响了当地和区域艺术界。展览设置大体可分两大部分。

在第一部分<主题与形式>中的作品分为两大类型：（一）以人像为主题，（二）以景观为主题：从中可以看到画家是以一个非定型的的作画手法去运用各种画材来描绘和展示他的无数绘画技巧；从中也清楚的显露他那

the curators also included a wall display of books and objects found in Soo Pieng’s estate. Items such as traditional wood carvings and relief panels of the various indigenous cultures in Southeast Asia and books on Picasso and Modern art reveal important and interesting insights to Soo Pieng’s world.

Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng has marked an important milestone in the initiating of differentiated viewpoints of Cheong Soo Pieng’s art and aesthetic developments. The curators have been less-than subtle in stating their open-ended objective, their curation easily misconstrued as not asserting a clear stand; yet, it is precisely so, that this exhibition could justifiably announce its success for having achieved a worthy objective. //

Encountering Cheong Soo Pieng runs till 31st July at NUS Museum. The author thanks Cheo Chai-Hiang for his detailed reading and feedback for <敞观钟泗宾>.

---------------------------------------------------1 Ahmad Mashadi, ‘Introduction’ in Encountering Cheong

Soo Pieng (Exhibition brochure), Singapore: NUS Museum,

2010, p. 4.

and trepidations. There are no paintings hung on either side of the wall leading into the gallery space of that section. Instead, on one – a row of newspaper cuttings of Soo Pieng, photocopied and enlarged, lined the entire length of the wall; and facing it on the opposite side, the curators explained their ideas vis-à-vis wall text in one singular line, expanding each thought with a separate footnote that is included as a standalone reference document just below the wall text. By doing so and juxtaposing it against the visual and textual documentation of Soo Pieng’s work as a significant moment in Singapore’s history, the curators have cleverly conveyed their ideas as propositions, inviting the viewer to form his/her own opinion throughout the process of telling and re-telling.

In line with the spirit of speculation and negotiating possibilities, the curators included – almost as an afterthought or as an appendix – a small display of artworks and projects undertaken by Soo Pieng’s contemporaries and students. It also included works by contemporary artists who had consecrated their responses by conceptualizing their art on his work or related issues. Ho Tzu Hyen’s 4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art (2005) is selected as among such works. In the same room,

不屈不挠的实验精神。第二部分<出发与抵达>在另一个展览室展出，主要是呈献的画家的个人艺术生涯和成就记录，目的是鼓励观众参与讨论画家的艺术生涯及创作精神。

<敞观钟泗宾>的展出，是新加坡艺术界的一个重要的里程碑。

FEATURES CHEONG SOO PIENG


Catching up with Terence Teo Chin Keong赵振强

Tropical Colour Ink on Rice Paper 96x140cm

Introduction: W. Y. ChoyInterview: CONFABULATION

FEATURES TERENCE TEO


1. Wild Green, Ink on Rice Paper 178x96cm

2. Singular Beauty, Ink on Rice Paper 178x96cm

我喜欢自然，尤其是自然界里的花草树木，它们随着四季转变，呈现不同的变化；春雨、秋叶、夏山、冬花，多美丽的一首自然界永恒的四季交响曲。

我的热带雨林的作品，以激情奔放的笔墨线条，随性的延着感觉伸展，保留了传统的笔墨韵意，增添了些感性情趣。点、线、面在不同的层面上，相互交错；多种颜色在画片上涂抹、泼洒，融为一体。表现了热带雨林的湿润、葱翠，热情灿烂，艳丽多姿的色彩效果。希望给观者带来清爽、洒脱、喜悦的感觉。

赵振强

TERENCE TEOFEATURES


Who or what has influenced you the most?

My greatest inspiration comes from my life experiences. Life is full of ups and downs but I want to create natural, beautiful, warm, spontaneous and touching artworks to bring joy, hope and optimism to everyone who chance upon my artworks.

Art is a tribute to beauty. There are countless of subjects for me to paint. I believe that art is a reflection and collection of life experiences. I want to capture the beauty of nature and the magical moments of different seasons in different places through my brushstrokes and the palette of ink and colors.

I am fortunate to have been taught by Tan Siok Aik and I am influenced by his teacher, Ink Master, Fan Chang Tien (Shanghai School) as well as Singapore Ink Master, Lim Tze Peng. My friends and collectors are my teachers too. Every encounter is special and the way I perceive and experience it is different from the way you perceive it to be and I draw on that for my paintings.

Although you have been an artist for a long time now, more people know you better as Terrence Teo, art dealer and director of one of the leading galleries in Singapore. How do you reconcile the different roles?

It has been and still is a happy and rewarding experience for me to be a gallery owner and an artist at the same time. I enjoy painting leisurely in the mornings and evenings while my afternoons are spent at the gallery planning for the next exhibition, meeting with artists and art lovers. We (Cape of Good Hope Art Gallery) recently staged Exploring The Boundary - An Exhibition of Large Paintings in both Singapore and Malaysia. Other galleries are currently replicating this concept and holding similar exhibitions and this is one of the best affirmations one can receive. I will continue to wear both hats for as long as I can manage because this is what I love doing and it has been nothing but extremely enjoyable and rewarding. //

You are currently in a transient period, moving from the previous body of work that you presented in a monumental solo exhibition, The Romance in Shangri-la, early last year to working on this new series of work. Do tell us more about what you are working on right now.

After my solo exhibition last year, I felt inspired, motivated and encouraged to pursue my artistic aspirations even more and it allowed me to move on and be more open and experimental with colors and strokes in my works. I am exploring various ink techniques on different subjects. For the subjects of my composition, I would like to focus on capturing the colors, beauty and mystery of the tropical rainforests and I hope to travel more to exciting places and to paint. Essentially, I am interesting in creating ink works that are new, impressionistic and freestyle. I am still looking for the right word to sum this up and describe this sort of work!

Ambition, audacity, diversity – these were the elements which characterize Teo’s early development into the realm of arts. At 18, he plunged into photography. Three years later, captivated by the fascination of traditional Chinese Painting, he began taking lessons in the traditional art form from Tan Siow Aik, currently the president of Hua Han Art Society, who shared with Teo his enthusiasms and admiration of the masters of Chinese traditional art. Intrigued by the awe-inspiring achievements in the masterworks, Teo started collecting Chinese traditional paintings. The years 1979 to 1989 were motivated and uninterrupted ones characterized by a professional course in graphic design and photography at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1980 and in 1989 when art galleries in Singapore were in vogue, he opened the Cape of Good Art Gallery.

CONFABULATION catches up with Terence Teo to find out more about the two things that he enjoys doing best – painting and dealing in art.

FEATURES TERENCE TEO


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Series of Artists Talks by the Singapore Contemporary Young Artists Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts 01.01.10 - 23.04.10

Text: Jacklyn SooImage: The Respective Artist

Viewing an exhibition of artworks by a solo artist or artists often makes a viewer curious about the process, thoughts and numerous unused ideas by the person behind the artwork. The expression “The idea of the artwork/artist is revealed in the works he/she creates” is contradictory to the actions of audiences wanting more information and connection with the artist.

Community engagement and social activity encourages artists to voice the meanings behind their work and to involve their practices amongst group of people, audiences and spaces. At the same time, inspiring creativity, educational areas for development for both artist and the audience.

The series of Artists Talks at Nanyang Academy of Fine Art encourages students to engage with young artists from Singapore to educate on local artists and their practices. Some of the artists are common names in the industry while others are given first time opportunity to present their works in a public environment. The talk series provides the viewer a time to learn about the artist’s works, pose questions and comments as well as time for interacting with the artist him/herself.

The series is thematically designed to 1-3 artists presenting on discipline of art; graphic design, installation art, photography and street art. Soh Eeshaun, Jacqui Rae, Shubigi Rao, Tarmizee, Billy Soh, Mintio, Zul and Zahir Sanosi will be presenting at this series.

The first artist to kick start the series was Soh Eeshaun, a self-taught illustrator whose latest project involves the illustration of a mural project with LRT’s circle line.

Eeshaun presented his talk much like how his drawings relfects; humorous, irrational, spontaneous, and quirky. He is known for a doodle-like quality in his paintings, illustration, installation and video animation. Eeshaun comments that his inspiration and works derived from the daily sight and sounds, colours, shapes and form of the environment around him, his living landscape. He is also particularly drawn to creating characters which was the starting point of his interest in art.

The audiences were both humored and impressed with Eeshaun’s portfolio of personal and commission works that the artist has gathered for himself during the past 5 years. He mentioned that it was a

strong interest in drawing and creating images that got the artist taking up his area of passion seriously and diligently. A concern student asked what would be the future of illustration and the artist mentioned the future is now and that technology changes the art of illustration so does the artist at work.

The transition of space and memory through the use of ceramics and the material as a raw form captured the audience as Jacqui Rae presents her study of the material and the use of site specific spaces in her installation pieces. Jacqui’s sculptural works tend to be presented in a grey area of tangibility and impermanence. Completely fascinated with the emptiness of space and with stretching the properties of ceramics, she links these two subjects and creates beautiful installation pieces of ceramic works which sometimes are not able to last longer than a few days after a show’s opening.

Shubigi Rao presented her interest in creating a pseudo archeology as an attempt to achieve some sense of rootedness in her life. Her works translates into studies of excavation as a metaphor for cultural extinction and the interpretation of the human need to collect, collate and conserve which is then exemplified in several book forms. To Shubigi, human curiosity is best defined in our habit of collecting, mapping, labelling and categorizing.

The last artist in the installation section is Tarmizee, a multi-media artist whose work

is the ‘study of life’, extended to an interest to contradict the relation between audio and visual in all his multi-media installations of video and sound pieces. He mentions that the two forms are perceived differently and how the similarities among them can affect the voyeur. The point in theory is to manipulate the common understanding in seeing visual and hearing sound because sound and visual is critical in the mode of narratives; in the way we see “life”, where everything is never-ending.

In March, 2 photographers from very different background presented their practice and techniques used in photography. Billy Soh, a commercial photographer with several years of photography experience relates his interest in his own exploration of photography with music, which he describes it as a thematic system of looking at photography with classical music by studying the musical overlays, subject and composition matter. He approaches photography as though composing a piece of music.

The next artist also started out as a commercial photographer in Fashion, Portraiture and Dance, went on to study an BFA in Photography at NTU School of Art, Design and Media in 2005. Mintio started photography at the age of 16 having recently won a scholarship to UK to produce work in the Porosity Studio hosted by the British Council in 2009.

“Concrete Euphoria” is a series of photographs that was triggered by Mintio’s desire to capture the cultural capital that visually presents itself in contemporary


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1.Shubigi Rao, ‘The River of Ink’, Installation. 2.ZERO, ‘Pseudo’, Painting. 3.Zahir Sanosi, ‘Ice cream Goddess’, Silkscreen. 4.Tarmizee, ‘Achtung’, Video Installation. 5. Soh Eeshaun, ‘Hypercolour’, Illus-tration. 6.Jacqui Rae, ‘Indiscreet’, Installation. 7. Mintio, ‘Concrete Euphoria’, Photography.


urban landscapes. Growing up in Singapore, landscapes in her eyes have become a cycle of erasure and reinvention – the places we see today may drastically change or even cease to exist tomorrow. The inconstant and transient nature of a space as intimate as ‘home’ has created a mixture of both euphoria and disorientation which were then translated in transforming her feelings into the visual language of her work.

In the last of the series of talks at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts which will end on April 23rd, SCYA presents 2 Urban Artists whose works deal with roots in Graffiti and Street Art. in Zulkarnaen Othman also known as ZERO is a member of the urban arts collective ARTVSTS- art activist. Zul’s art revolves around street culture, pop culture and current affairs; constantly creating dialogue and social commentary through them. His work constantly evolves as he tries to integrate the function of design and advertising within the framework of conceptual and traditional fine arts.

Zul has been involved in numerous events and exhibitions and have been an integral part in the growth of ARTVSTS collective since its formation in late 2003. Zul is also a shortlisted candidate nominee for President’s Young Artist Awards 2005 and Associate Artist with the Substation. Zul is currently a lecturer with LASALLE College of the Arts.

Zero has a unique style in his approach. He created a character to express his concern

for the materialistic world and immobilizing this character through brightly coloured paints to contrast the nature of a darkly personality.

The use of characters is a common feature. Zahir Sanosi also employs a similar approach to his own set of characters.

Constant appearances in forms of babies, beautifully sad girls, insects and rabbits are part of Zahir Sanosi’s works. They are meant to confuse, impress, and question the minds of viewers. The drawings are inversions of what is considered safe, sane and real. Unlike Zul, Zahir’s works are not be easy on the eyes and may sometimes be offensive. He emphasis his methodology of countering norms to art that demands to have an impact.

Zahir began practicing his art professionally as an artist/illustrator in 1994/95 where he was actively involved in the hardcore/punk scene in Singapore. Doing show posters and even starting an independent hardcore/punk fanzine. He also contributed by designing cd sleeves, and record covers, and handling t-shirt designs and merchandise as well.

In 2004, Zahir starts his line of diy self screened/t-shirts called KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET and later got more interested in spreading his art in all forms of medium, from vinyl stickers, to skateboards, shoes, toys, canvases. Zahir work with mainly minimal colors and up till today, he is recognized for his warped and twisted art. //

Kaleidoscope 2010 Torch of FriendshipDunman High School01.04.10

Text: Syed Muhd Hafiz

Approaching the school lobby at Dunman High School (DHS), I could already hear the loud cheers of the students decked out in various coloured t-shirts. I was told by a teacher that this was a biennale event. So, the ‘biennale syndrome’ had even penetrated into our local schools here? Before I made any hasty deductions, I decided to tour the school vicinity and see what was on offer.

Kaleidoscope 2010 is an arts festival first staged in 2000. More than just an regular school production, what I witnessed was in effect, a full-scale arts festival that involved both the visual and performing arts aspects lasting for more than a month. Furthermore this year’s edition had an extra festive cheer because it is the first involving all the six levels of the Integrated Program at the new Tanjong Rhu campus since its move back in 2009.

Launched by the Guest of Honour, Dr Lee Boon Yang, Chairman of Keppel Corporation and former MICA Minister, this year’s theme was Torch of Friendship. Perhaps having one eye at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games, the festival included a cultural component in raising awareness on the impending arrival of international athletes. Included within the school complex were booths by student

groups like the Girl Guides and Japan Culture Club. These booths had creative displays showcasing the food and culture of Japan and Sierra Leone.

The presence of the visual arts community was felt in the form of external collaborators. Active Batik practitioner, Kamal Dollah and artist management agency Y2ARTS carried out their outreach activities there, widening the students’ visual arts engagement. Kamal, also a renowned caricature artist was sharing his insights into the technicalities of this traditional medium while facilitating what he called, Community Batik. Spreading the wax-resistant cloth over a big table, Kamal spreading the wax-resistant cloth over a big table, Kamal’s Batik exercise enabled the students to work collectively, creating a Batik masterpiece of mural proportions.

I stumbled into a hall which had been transformed into a gallery. Interspersed with various students’ works were artworks by well-known Southeast Asian artists, courtesy of a loan from Y2ARTS. Based at the heart of the arts industry within the MICA building, Y2ARTS is also an art dealer agency brokering deals between art dealers and the finest young talents from the Asian region. Talking to the gallery

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manager Mr Ken Chang, he mentioned that the artwork loans, besides being a way of giving back to the community, are also an important outreach activity to expose the young students to works from professional artists within the region.

Walking around the gallery hall, I noticed a few students scrutinizing the artwork up-close, as if recalling and re-confirming what their teachers might have taught them during art lessons. I have to admit that the artworks by the professional Asian artists might ‘overpower’ the other student works located within the same exhibition. However beyond the jarring differences in quality, I felt that bringing artworks into the community through exhibitions like these serve an important function in nurturing future artists. A common gripe amongst industry people has been the local audience not being ‘mature’ enough to appreciate artworks that might seem ‘avant garde’ or the futility of converting the unconverted. I think it is a two-way dialogue where the earlier the audience has been exposed to art, the better their reception to ‘avant garde’ works and their aesthetic sensibilities.

Besides holding previews or exhibition openings for the selected few, galleries should also consider doing more outreach activities such as these, to contribute towards a more ‘mature’ local audience. It might not be a financially-viable endeavour and the resulting effect might not be immediate but in the long-run, it is definitely fruitful for the galleries to nurture new generations of collectors and arts enthusiasts.

Going off from the event, I could see the DHS students enjoying themselves. The student councilors had also been eager in guiding visitors to various parts of the sprawling school grounds, to catch different segments of the festival. Now, if only we can have more of these initiatives in other schools… //

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1. Abir Karmakar, Untitled-2, 2010, Acrylic on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

2. Vibha Galhotra, Intruder - 1, 2010, Digital print + acrylic on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

3. Jenson Anto, Untitled-2, 2010, Acrylic on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7cm.

4. Archana Hande, All is Fair in Magic white, 2010, Mixed Media on Paper, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

5. Surekha, Silk Veil - 2, 2010, Photographs, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

6. Farhad Hussain, Untitled - 2, 2010, Acrylic on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

7. Puneet Kaushik, Untitled - 1, 2010, Steel, beads and mixed media on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

8. PG Dinesh, The ‘General’ Parrot, 2010, Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

9. Pratul Dash, Untitled - 2, 2010, Acrylic on canvas, 45.7 x 45.7 cm.

WHOLE: A chance encounter with the gridIndigo Blue 07.04.10 – 11.05.10

Text: Smriti Rajgarhia-Bhatt

The exhibition at Indigo Blue showcases a panoramic view of Indian art today with the intent to experiment with conventional display of art and curatorship. The collection does not revolve around a given concept or theme, but instead collects varied pieces of art from contemporary Indian scenario and collates them through an experiment with display. Each piece of art is treated as an individual within a matrix of time, differing from the other works; stylistically, by medium and/or by subject. What binds them all together is the size of the artwork, and the disparity that is ordered through the display – or otherwise known as ‘the grid’.

Each of the 20 artists selected for the show are chosen by the virtue of style, medium and content to achieve a variety that projects a holistic view of the trends in contemporary Indian art. From the collage based medium and style of Samit Das addressing the urban, to the tribal art influenced mélange of colors by Dhaneshwar Shah; the happy faces by Farhad Hussain to the abstraction of Probir Gupta; the real/unreal photographs of Atul Bhalla, to the images of the self by Surekha, the distinct quality of each piece is used to highlight the other. The exhibition does not include panel texts, in an attempt to achieve a pure viewing experience without the distraction of text to explain and attach onto the individual artwork. The grid acts as a whole, where the meaning lies in its parts; each part, each artwork, contributing and defining the whole and vice


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Pushing the Boundaries of the Modern Chinese Painting: A Review of Painter Ng Joon Kiat’s Latest WorksThe Esplanade

Text: Yow Siew KahImage: The Esplanade Co. Ltd

Ng Joon Kiat is a Singaporean painter who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) from RMIT University in Australia and a Master of Arts (Fine Art) from the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom. Ng has received a number of awards, including the Shell-NAC Scholarship, which is the most prestigious scholarship for the arts granted by the Singapore government. Art historian Yow Siew Kah reviews Ng’s most recent solo exhibition, Garden City II: A Collective Memory of Moving Images in Contemporary Painting, held at Jendela (Visual Arts Space) at the Esplanade from 12 March to 4 Apr 2010.

Ng Joon Kiat’s latest works explore how our understanding of the Singapore landscape is shaped to a large extent by moving images on television sets. The body of landscape paintings is significant in Ng’s art practice because it sees him pushing the boundaries of the modern Chinese oil painting, an art that came about in China in the early 20th-century, and subsequently became a central concern of migrant Chinese artists in Singapore. In particular, while Ng’s predecessors treated the painting mostly as a two-dimensional image, he attempts to introduce a three-dimensional quality into his art, both in the way it is created and in how it is displayed.

versa. The multiplicity of the medium from oil on canvas to acrylic, photography to relief or mixed media, is combined into the whole, through the encounter with the grid, expressing the individuality through the collective.

The grid is an organized structure, better expressed with the anomalies of disorganization, or of the movement of the pattern away from the expected. The conceptual framework of the parts creates a whole where the whole which is larger than the sum of parts, is extended to express individuality through a unified vision, based on the dialectical oppositions and dynamics that the works create with each other, through an experiment in display. The brief stated that each artist provide two works which best depicted themselves as creative individuals. The works in turn would be organized into a matrix or a grid expressing the above concept through display. The display comprises patterns, anomalies, deviations and deconstructive directions. Works of the same size framed in the same frame that expresses individuality would be expected by the viewer to be placed in a grid, but as the viewer moves along, the grid moves away from the expected to the anomaly, expressing contradictions and characteristics of the whole as well as the part. The movement of the viewer is not static but dynamic; perceptions of the show

through display are layered as a whole, as the parts and as the disintegration of the whole to its re-integration. As one moves from a broad overview to a close-up look at an individual detail, one sees, and lets the viewer see, how the two levels are related: a chance encounter with the grid. //

Ng Joon Kiat’s Untitled, 2010 (figure 1), a signature work of the exhibition, consists of two different types of Chinese oil painting. It has two layers: the first shows a cluster of buildings in gray, and the second is made up of thick swathes of paint in various shades of green. In the first, the artist attempts to create a credible representation, relying on subtly differentiated gray tones to approximate actual architectural structures. The second layer, in contrast, makes no pretense at verisimilitude: it aims to use lines and colors to convey the shape, texture and movement of the tropical landscape. The former appears related to pre-Impressionist Western painting, as well as to the Northern-style Chinese ink painting identified by late Ming art theorist Dong Qichang. The latter recalls European Postimpressionist works, and to the Chinese literati painting or wenrenhua, characterized by unpainted areas, schematic renditions and energetic brushwork. There are thus two types of painting in Ng’s Untitled: the realistic painting and the evocative painting, both of which originated in China, and are key pictorial forms in Singapore art history.

The Realistic Painting and the Evocative Painting in Singapore Art History

Historically in Singapore, the two paintings


outlined above represent the divergent artistic sensibilities of the migrant Chinese artists: the first is often identified with the likes of Equator Art Society artists such as Chua Mia Tee and Lee Boon Wang, while the second is usually linked to the Nanyang Artists, including Liu Kang, Chen Wen-hsi and Cheong Soo Pieng.

Although the art makers were Singapore citizens, they drew their artistic inspirations substantially from China. Some of them spent their formative years in Chinese cities like Shanghai and Xiamen, moving to Singapore around the time of the Pacific War. Others studied and taught at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), an art school that was modeled after the modern educational institutions in China that emerged in the early decades of the 20th-century.

The Singapore-based members of the Chinese diaspora had at least one thing in common with their mainland Chinese counterparts: a desire to modernize Chinese art. From the late 19th-century onwards, a large number of Chinese intellectuals, including educators, writers and artists, believed that China was weak, and needed an overhaul on all levels. In particular, traditional ways of art making were thought to be outmoded, and needed to be reformed so that they could be brought up-to-date.

However, there was no consensus on how Chinese art should be changed. For some artists, the visual devices in traditional Chinese ink painting should be completely replaced by Western ones, which were thought to be better suited at producing a realistic image of their surroundings. Others insisted that much could be learned from Chinese art of the past: the evocative quality of literati painting was especially important for an artist looking to express his or her individuality. Thus, whether or not modern Chinese art should be realistic or evocative — or both — came to be a key concern for Chinese artists involved in artistic reform.

From the 1930s onwards, a number of artists from China began moving to Singapore to escape the worsening war conditions, bringing with them a desire for a “new” Chinese art. Some became teachers at NAFA, passing their art making philosophies onto a generation of young art makers.

In the 1950s, when political independence from the British was becoming a reality in Singapore, the “evocative vs. realistic” debate that originated in China shaped the different

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In figure 2, we see that the painting is hung above eye level, giving the impression that it is a cinematic image that towers over the viewer. In order to take in the painting, one needs to step back and look up.

Displayed right below Untitled, closer to the gallery floor, is another similar-sized painting. Completed entirely in an evocative format, this work appears to be related to the one on top. A sense of continuity is conveyed by a thick line on the right side of both canvases, creating an illusion that the paint from Untitled has dripped onto the lower work.

Presented this way, the evocative painting in Untitled communicates a sense of “presence” more clearly than the realistic painting. The gray layer has a recognizable landscape, but its monochromatic tones and misty appearance suggest the unreal and the transient. Despite its lofty position, it is also ephemeral: when the viewer attempts to move closer for a better look, it disappears from his or her view.

In contrast, the top or evocative layer of Untitled is about immediacy and permanence. Although it may lack discernible resemblance to a physical landscape, it is dominant and vivid. Rather than vanishing like the realistic layer, it exerts its presence even more strongly as the viewer approaches.

For Ng, the Singapore landscape is constructed from at least two types of encounters. The first is with the television image. Enclosed within a frame, the image is transitory even as it attempts to communicate a sense of reality by

journalism, for Ng, who grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the dominant mass medium was the television. Living on a diet of television programs, the moving image provided him with a vision of the world with a mix of evocative and realistic representations.

A work such as Untitled, mentioned above, is an image of the Singapore landscape that has both evocative and realistic features. Ng infuses the realistic painting with evocative qualities, and includes a realistic dimension in the evocative painting, creating an art that questions received notions of both kinds of painting.

The bottom layer depicts a European town as a black-and-white TV image. The artist uses different shades of gray to emulate the gradation of colors of a picture on a cathode-ray tube. But the gray shapes also remind us of a traditional Chinese landscape painting with its characteristic monochromatic appearance. There is thus an evocative dimension in what is otherwise a realistic image.

The upper layer is executed using a technique that dominates Ng’s older works: thick brushstrokes that look like three-dimensional constructions of the tropical landscape. While aiming to evoke the relief of the Singapore landscape, the sculptural forms are also like realistic scale models of geographical features.The way that Untitled is displayed plays an important part in how it communicates meanings. It exemplifies how Ng treats his painting as a three-dimensional object with interesting physical properties, and not merely as an image-bearing surface.

replicating the viewer’s visual field. The second is with the tropical rainforest, which Ng probably came into close contact with when he served in the military. Unlike the TV image, the forest can never be comprehended in totality. The lack of visual order fills the soldier with a sense of immediacy, but also leaves him uncomfortable and confused. It is the tension between the phantasmagorical images of mass media and the physical reality of an encounter with the tropical flora that characterizes Ng’s latest works in Garden City II.

Contemporary paintings in Singapore are often evaluated using frameworks borrowed from the metropolitan centers of the West. Such approaches tend to consider the Singaporean works as poor cousins of their Western counterparts. They also do not take into account how Euroamerican artistic ideas are appropriated and translated in Singapore, with the attendant creation of new meanings. Although Ng Joon Kiat received part of his art education in the United Kingdom, his early art teachers were diasporic Chinese artists in Singapore who understood Western aesthetics in Chinese terms. These artists were not so much interested in the theories that underpinned Western art movements, but were attracted to the intellectual and visual stimuli they offered. By attempting to expand the vocabulary of the modern Chinese painting, Ng’s works are continuous with those of his migrant Chinese predecessors. //

approaches to making “Malayan art”. The Nanyang Artists attempted to offer a polycultural vision of the emerging nation by using expressive brushstrokes, vibrant colors and varying textures. The Equator Art Society artists, on their part, aimed to bring to light the plight of the common people under British colonial rule with vivid images of hardship and suffering, enabled by skillful use of graduated colors.

Infusing the Modern Chinese Painting with Sculptural Qualities

Like the migrant Chinese artists before him, Ng also aims to offer a vision of Singapore society using the realistic painting and the evocative painting. His art from previous years tends to evoke the Singapore topography using three-dimensional forms. In this regard, he is similar to the Nanyang Artists, who experimented with various formal devices in order conjure up the equatorial scenery. However, the current exhibition also sees Ng taking into account some of the concerns of the Equator Art Society artists. More than the Nanyang Artists, the “realistic” artists took a strong interest in visual images that were produced by newer technologies. For example, they worked with woodcut, a medium associated with the print revolution that swept across China in the first few decades of the 20th-century. They were also intrigued by promises of photography, and their realistic painting borrowed extensively from the true-to-life photographic images.

While Chinese artists in Singapore in the 1950s sought inspiration in print

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Text: Richard Chua

PERFORMANCE ART IN THE EVERYDAY: THE DEATH OF THINGS NOW, THE DEATH OF EVERYTHING LATER

Printed in Singapore and published monthly, complimentary copies of CONFABULATION are available at several places around Singapore including the National Library, Singapore Tourism Board’s Singapore Visitors Centre at Orchard, MICA building, leading art galleries (such as Linda Gallery, Opera Gallery, Sunjin Galleries and The Luxe Museum), art groups & venues, and museums.

To accompany your daily dose of caffeine, browsing copies are also made available at all good coffee chains in town.

For the environmentally-conscious, the PDF format of CONFABULATION can be downloaded from www.confabmag.com every month or simply flip through the magazine on the website using the online reader.

POSTSCRIPT

Asia’s contemporary art magazinewww.confabmag.com

64 // CONFABULATION MAY 2010 // 65 64 // CONFABULATION

I had wanted to create a performance art piece on 19 February 2010, outside the The Esplanade, to respond to the cultural monolith that Chinese Language theatre was dead, since Chinese Language production nowadays in Singapore have become just commercial spin-offs and re-production of old works. Nothing new. I envisaged that the piece will consist of a coffin, joss-sticks and rice papers. Rice papers will contain wordings such as “Aiya, Pao Kun, how? Chinese Theatre has become like that already ...”, or the equivalent. Right after, I will pull the coffin to the Stamford Arts Centre, where late Kuo Pao Kun’s company stands, and place it right outside the door!

Well, the above performance art event did not happen. For it was a fragment of my imagination. Since I have articulated here in the opening of this short essay, and it has been documented in this space and time, would it constitute an act of performance art? Well, maybe, or maybe not.

If the event had taken place, it would be a meaningful event. One, it was done during the period of Chinese New Year. Kuo Pao Kun’s company The Theatre Practice would have a hard time getting all the Chinese rituals done to get the misfortune out of the company, having seen a coffin sitting outside the company. In addition, the reference coffin would have made to his seminal play The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole would have been poignant. For the play which he has created has been played to all people around the world, and many times over, in the place of new works that should have been created for this culturally impoverished country.

Not to mention the response the performance art event to the Chinese Language theatre event in The Esplanade would have been insulting and critical, for Chinese Language theatre has fallen to just a hegemony of one theatre company The Drama Box.

Back to reality, the event did not happen. Hence there wasn’t a response at all. In short nothing has happened. But one thing remains: the performance art. There are at least 3 performance art act in this essay: (1) Richard Chua’s articulation of his non-existent performance art act which aims to counteract

the performance act Singapore Chinese Language theatre company The Drama Box and arts centre The Esplanade had executed in February 2010; (2) To highlight Singapore theatre company Drama Box’s performance art act in re-visiting Chinese Language theatre in Singapore, which in itself was a act of cultural hegemony, privileging Mandarin over others; (3) To highlight the death of everything, for everything is just talks of a privileged social class: the artists, in Singapore.

Chinese Language theatre company Drama Box’s idea to get a Chinese Language theatre event which aimed at presenting the history of Chinese Language theatre spanning over 80 years in Singapore, re-presenting plays of their choice from yester-years hinting that these plays were worth presenting, publishing a collection of plays that seems to be indicative of Chinese Language theatre in Singapore canonizing the scripts within is a performance art event. It took place during the time when Singapore theatre, not to mention the study of Singapore history, has started to critically reflect on its role, aesthetics and direction to this country. The Chinese Theatre people - in this event, consisting of the usual suspects working with the theatre company - have come to together to chart the future of local theatre-making in Singapore, and garnering the reactions of the viewer - mine included.

Perhaps, my comments and views on this performance art event The Drama Box - under the auspices of The Esplanade - are totally irrelevant and alienating, in the eyes of the people of the everyday. To them, it is the talk of a bunch of so-called cultural elites in this country. Social class in the Singapore arts scene is hardly talked about. Perhaps a piece of art work should be done on this, to communicate to the audience, or artists in the scene on how deluded and discriminatory they have been to have systematically othered other artists in their own process of defining what good art is.

In a nutshell, the death of everything in this country is itself the greatest performance art event, and the artist is non other than the state, in its art-work that erected a Chinese death tablet right in the city centre of the country. //

POSTSCRIPT


68 // CONFABULATION

CONFABULATION (May 2010)

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Transcript of CONFABULATION (May 2010)