“8888 Uprising”: Thirty Years Later
By Sharaad Kuttan (650 words, four-minute read) Despite the flash of contemporary retail – some garish, some tasteful – Yangon’s old-world charms prevail. Today, walking past the crumbling moss-covered walls that advertise the pleasures of late 20th century globalisation –…
“Closer” at Both Sides, Now: What Do We Choose to Remember?
By Loo Zihan (1430 words, six-minute read) “What will we forget? What do we hold on to? What will we remember? What do we let go of?” These were the questions posed by a volunteer in Mandarin to my 67-year-old…
“The Misinterpreted Futures of George Town 2068”: Missing Futures
By Akanksha Raja (960 words, four-minute read) Prior to stepping into the mystifying world of The Misinterpreted Futures of George Town 2068, I was curious and fascinated by that science-fictioney title, coupled with the exciting premise of a performance with…
The Artist-Curator’s Eye: Manit Sriwanichpoom’s “Rediscovering Forgotten Thai Masters of Photography”
By Elaine Chiew (1,600 words, eight-minute read) Art historian Patrick Flores first addressed the phenomenon of the artist-curator in his seminal essay Turns in Tropics [1] as someone who holds a certain power and who has become a key figure…
Making Our Own Centres (Of) Ourselves: Latiff Mohidin’s “Pago Pago (1960-1969)”
By Nabilah Said (2,220 words, 11-minute read) Had Malaysian artist-poet Latiff Mohidin been French, he might perhaps strongly identify with the idea of the flâneur. Coined by French poet Charles Baudelaire, the French word for someone who strolls in the…
In the Mood of Brian Gothong Tan: Lost Cinema at Institute of Contemporary Arts (via Invisible Flâneuse)
The woman in the cheongsam and upswept hairdo walks into the audience’s line of sight from behind a pillar, carrying a tiffin carrier. She poses, every gesture and expression countenanced to project drama and artifice, and many of her poses are…
“Railtrack Songmaps Roosting Post 1”: The Featherlight of Complexity
By Marcus Yee (970 words, 7-minute read) Tucked in Queenstown Residence Committee Centre is a heartfelt homage to Tanglin Halt and the nearby Rail Corridor, nexus of human and bird relationals, collected by Railtrack Songmaps Roosting Post 1. Conceived out…
Dinh Q. Lê’s “Monuments and Memorials”: A Double Haunting
By Elaine Chiew (1,135 words, six-minute read) Spectral and iconic, Dinh Q. Lê’s first major solo exhibition in Singapore premieres his Monuments and Memorials series of works, created as artist-in-residence at STPI – Creative Workshop and Gallery. Born in 1968…
The Artists’ Colony: A Review of OH! Emerald Hill
By Ng Yi-Sheng (1,585 words, eight-minute read) In the assembly hall of Chatsworth International School hang six statues of Sir Stamford Raffles. However, these aren’t your typical heroic effigies of Singapore’s chief colonist. They’re headless, legless, composed of patchwork fabric…
Lui Hock Seng: The Past and Passing
By Akanksha Raja (920 words, four-minute read) On the heels of Objectifs Centre’s January showcase “we will have been young”, a group exhibition of works by fledgling Southeast Asian photographers themed on contemporary youth culture and the future, comes a…
“The Past is not the Past”, an exhibition to remember (via The Online Citizen)
“The party is not the….”, a visitor beside me squints into a portrait, trying to make out the tiny words handwritten just below it. After the words, an ‘Erica’ is signed. “The past is not the past”, I corrected him….
Contingent Spaces: “Discipline the City” at the Substation
By Chloe Ho (998 words, 8-minute read) Discipline the City (23 August – 26 November 2017) is a three-act multi-arts exhibition held at The Substation. Going beyond a static presentation commonly utilised in exhibitions, the show includes permanent exhibits, site-adaptive…
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ArtAsiaPacific: After Darkness, Southeast Asian Art in the Wake of History [SEA, USA]
“A lasting impression one got from the exhibition “After Darkness: Southeast Asian Art in the Wake of History” at the Asia Society Museum in New York was the sense of art’s power to propel. Walking a tight rope between personal…
“SUNSHOWER”: Encounters with Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia
By Leow Puay Tin (1645 words, 14-minute read) The “SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now” exhibition in Tokyo has collected so much material that it could be split into two substantial halves, one at the Mori Art…
“Ghosts and Spectres”: The Burden of History and Artistic Narration
By Elaine Chiew (1350 words, 10-minute read) The stitching together of alternative histor(ies) within artistic exploration as a kind of “false radical chic”, to borrow Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s term[1], can cloud the tougher question of where lies the…
YAYOI KUSAMA: Life is the Heart of the Rainbow, National Gallery Singapore
By Eva Wong Nava (1390 words, 14-minute read) Pumpkins, phalli, polka dots, stainless steel balls. These are the iconographies of YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929), the influential Japanese artist, who is equally famous for her commission by Louis Vuitton to imprint…
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ART JOG 2017 | Fresh Paradigms [Indonesia]
“As I step into the Jogja National Museum – ready to absorb the pieces on display, to analyze cultural and aesthetic values, maybe freshen up my Instagram feed – I’m greeted by a number of giant, psychedelic-looking eyeballs resting suspiciously in…
Fieldnotes from The LASALLE Show Exhibition 2017
By Elaine Chiew (970 words, 9-minute read) The biggest show of the year for Lasalle College of the Arts opened on the evening of the 18th with fanfare: speeches, tinsel, music, a buffet of food, tons of people. The variety…
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Review: Oh Soon-Hwa’s “Coastal Regions (Delta)” at The Private Museum [Singapore]
“From its headwaters in the Tibetan plateau, the Mekong River flows past six countries for over 4,000 kilometers to the South China Sea—but its journey is unquiet. Since the 1990s, the river has been punctuated by a string of Chinese…
Empire Strikes Back: “Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies”
By Akanksha Raja (1500 words, 15-minute read) There is a distinctive break made between the modern, sans-serif typeface of the word “Artist” and the classical serif typeface of the word “Empire” in the title/publicity material of the National Gallery Singapore’s…
Thailand: Review of Pichai Pongsasaovapark’s “Looking and Seeing” (via ArtAsiaPacific)
Thailand’s rapid economic growth has come at a traumatic cost to its environment. The northern city of Chiang Mai is notorious for its “smoky season,” during which farmers torch fields to make way for new crops. Decades ago, Bangkok’s canals…
ArtAsiaPacific reviews Chun Kai Qun’s “Solid Prayers” at FOST Gallery Singapore
The deceptive immutability of objects propels “Solid Prayers,” a solo exhibition by Singapore artist Chun Kai Qun at Fost Gallery. The multimedia artist presented over 20 of his characteristically off-kilter works, including paraphrasings of older pieces, a deft video installation,…
The Curatorial Complex: A Roundtable on the Singapore Biennale
By Elaine Chiew, Luke Chua, Usha Chandradas, Candice Li Liting, Eunice Paola Ramos Lacaste, Teng Yen Hui and Seng Yu Jin (3392 words, 30 minute read) Seng Yu Jin: Our roundtable comprises students from the MA in Asian Art…
Singapore Biennale 2016: A/political Performance – Atlas of Mirrors in Context
By Wei Er Xun, Finalist, Best Essay by an Emerging Art Writer Competition* (2700 words, 30-minute read) Introduction The stakes of exhibitions have always been high. Before the advent of the cinema, television and other mass media, large-scale exhibitions and…
Singapore Biennale 2016: The Performative Curator
By Eunice Lacaste, Finalist, The Best Essay by an Emerging Art Writer Competition* (2900 words, 30-minute read) Introduction Entering the Singapore Art Museum[1] during the media preview of the Singapore Biennale 2016[2], we could barely disregard the museum staff installing…
Full View: Women in Photography 2016
By Akanksha Raja (800 words, 8-minute read) The second edition of Objectifs’ annual Women in Photography 2016 programme, co-presented with the Magnum Foundation, is a group exhibition featuring photographic works from 18 contemporary female artists associated with Magnum. While…
Histories, Practices and Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary Art
Marcus Yee of RightAfters reviews a collection of Singapore art writing, Histories, Practices and Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary Art edited by Jeffrey Say and Seng Yu Jin.
Review of Era Mahathir Exhibition
Chen May Yee explores the contradictions of Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister in her review of Ilham Gallery Kuala Lumpur’s Era Mahathir show. (Source: New York Times)
In Conversation: Review of Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies
Arthop’s Michelle Liew reviews the National Gallery of Singapore and Tate Britain’s Artist and Empire: (En) countering Colonial Legacies on at the National Gallery of Singapore until March 2017.