pipeline issue 39: the young and the restless

8/11/2019 Pipeline Issue 39: The Young and the Restless

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The young and

the restless Paul Khoo

Right

Raw/War 1by Jeremy Hiah, 2013.

Inkjet print, hologram, 90 x 130 cm.

Courtesy the artist and Sundaram Tagore gallery.

Pages 74/75

Never Mind the Planned Obsolescence, I Love You

by Indieguerillas, 2013.

Acrylic on canvas, 300 x 190 cm.

Pages 78, 79

From the series Sugar Lord Java

by Abednego Trianto Kurniawan, 2013.

Imported raw sugar in warehouse at

Cepiring Sugar Factory, Kendal, Indonesia.

Limited edition of 5+2 A.P.

Courtesy the artist.

70 PIPELINE Nov/Dec 2013


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Reviews

71PIPELINE Nov/Dec 2013


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The spectre of community

art haunts the Singapore art

scene. Much of this is the

indirect consequence of the

theory of creative industries

beloved by Singapore pub-

lic policy makers. The state

has spent more than S$1

billion over the past decade

on the creative industries,

mainly in infrastructure and

its administration. While this

should have resulted in a

prosperous new economy

or Web 2.0-type giants,

spawned by the fusion of

creativity and technology,

the actual outcomes have

been modest. Even the

much-vaunted Gillman Bar-

racks art clusters first an-

niversary was marked by

ennui, limited enthusiasm

and jaded crowds, resulting

in artist Ian Woos desper-

ate letter on September 14

to national newspaper TheStraits Times, which fore-

cast doom for Singapore

artists if the project were to

fail.

There has already been a

predictable type of adverse

reaction from the govern-

ment, in the form of subtle

communication around

community art. In 2012,

the bodies of art and heri-

tage administration, the Na-

tional Arts Council and the

National Heritage Board,

were transferred to Minis-

try of Culture, Community

and Youth. These days the

mega-investments in art

need to be justified by pub-

lic engagement.

Not surprisingly, in this at-

mosphere, even the elite

private galleries are jump-

ing onto the community-art

bandwagon. This takes mul-

tiple forms, given that the

results of these endeavours

make problematic art prod-

ucts. The ubiquitous young

artist show is one solution,

a typical example being

Anthropos: Navigating Hu-

man Depth in Thai and Sin-

gapore Contemporary Art,

presented by the Sundaram

Tagore Gallery at Gillman

from September 13 to Oc-

tober 13. As a motif to ad-

dress social issues, curator

Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani

shows younger Thai and

Singaporean artists rumi-

nating about the human

body in multiple media.



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The show is fairly ambi-

tious in its transnational

and cross-media scope,

and serves the historical

gallery function of mentor-

ing and promoting younger

artists. Some of the Thai

work shows tactile delica-

cy and nuance. Kamolpan

Chotvichai (b.1986) takes

digital prints of body parts

and then dissolves them via

layered cuts in Brest(2013),

blending Thai artisan tra-

dition with modern media

to comment on Buddhist

concepts of the fragility of

the self. Prasert Yordkaew

(b.1986) also crosses the

traditional vernacular with

a modern medium: in this

case, installations. In Kin-

naree(2012), he seamlessly

blends the traditional repre-

sentation of a goddess with

a bicycle, creating a fantas-

tical hybrid creature.

But the need for commu-

nity art makes the show

uneven. One of the lows is a

site-specific piece, Parkour,

by Sufian Hamri (b.1980),

aka TR853-1 (pronounced

TraseOne). Climbing

the wall of the tony Tagore

space, TraseOne spray-

paints a silhouette of his

body to commemorate the

event. While Pazzini-Parac-

ciani sees it as a physical

affinity to ones own space,

the piece also plays on the

context of community art in

Singapore, where the state

wants the public to do art,

but in very regulated spac-

es, with court cases against

numerous street and graffiti

artists, notably SKLO, the

Sticker Lady. This contin-

ued valorisation of sanitised

transgression is also ob-

served in Raw/War 1(2013),

a photograph by Singaporeartist Jeremy Hiah (b.1972).

Besides the menacing title,

totally incongruous in no-

toriously safe Singapore,

the work consists of two

portraits of a thug in a bala-

clava mask, undercut by a

pastiche of flowers or stick-

ers pasted on it. Typical of

most conceptual photo-

graphic pieces, its effect is

rather transitory: it is practi-

cally a one-liner. Presumably

the show is using the piece

to establish a type of street

credibility that also signifies

community. As in the name

of the ministry in charge of

the arts, community gets

equated with youth, inevi-

tably resulting in a sanitised

street vibe.



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In contrast to the awkward

interactions between the

street and art in Anthropos,

the Sip! Indonesian Art To-

dayshow at the Arndt Sin-

gapore gallery manages to

balance these dynamics.

Sip!is an ambitious project

covering the artistic practic-

es of several generations of

Indonesian artists. Curated

by art historian Enin Supri-

yanto, it has an encyclope-

dic scope and is sensitive

to the idiosyncratic spirit of

Yogyakartas environment,

where artist development

has always been intricately

tied to community initia-

tives. While Yogya art has

its problems, there is a less

self-conscious need there

to invoke community for its

own sake. As such, even the

street-oriented work comes

off as much more elegant

and natural, less contrivedthan its Singapore equiva-

lents. While small compared

to the earlier rendition of

the show at Arndt Berlin,

the Singapore version is an-

chored by a painting by In-

donesian artist Indiegueril-

las, Never Mind the Planned

Obsolescence, I Love You

(2012). In the style of comic

books, the piece captures

five very flat figures be-

decked in a plethora of con-

sumer images referencing

Nike, Campbells Soup and

Marvel Comics. Besides its

easy playfulness, the piece

is also beautiful in terms of

classical symmetry, almosthieroglyphic, invoking tradi-

tional Sanskrit text, and with

a colour palate that is loud

but not garish.

But to call Sip!a young art-

ist show would be a bit of

a stretch. Despite its inclu-

sion of street and comic-

style practitioners, these

are mainly artists in their

30s who emerged in the

early 2000s. Outside Gill-

man, in September the in-

novative 2902 Gallery put on

young artist show Re:union,

comprising of works from

photography graduates of

the School of Art, Design

and Media. ADM was the

centrepiece of the states

creative industries strategy

of 2002, built to churn out

creative professionals for

clusters like design, anima-

tion, film and the visual arts.

Despite the lack of bombas-

tic themes, Re:union works,

with a very strong personal,

local grounding that doesnt

rely on forced narrative. The

pieces feel organic, absent

of what curator Jane Koh

calls presupposed theoreti-

cal narrative or discourse of

Singapores contemporary

art scene the usual tropes

of community or nostalgia.

Abednego Triantos photo

series Sugar Lord Javacap-

tures the legacy of Dutch

colonialism on the sugar

economy of Indonesia via

a juxtaposition of ghostly

images and modern digital

prints. The piece is distin-

guished by an ambitious his-

torical scope, with detailednarratives about the past,

as opposed to the usual

conceptual one-liner tactics

or nostalgia-themed pho-

tography pieces. The New

Nativeseries by Willis Turner



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Henry (b.1989) is among the

most politically direct works,

combining portraits of new

immigrants with consumer

product packaging. She

talks about the ambiguity of

identities and stereotypes in

hyper-globalised Singapore,

where new migrants form a

substantial percentage of

the population, causing a

backlash from the locals.

Reading the fine print of

the packaging, one realises

that such dichotomies are

fairly empty, as many of

these individuals have been

educated in the country and

are not the stereotypical ex-

patriate carpetbaggers. The

dynamics of globalisation

are terrifyingly ambiguous,

calling for deeper insight

and critical analysis rather

than kneejerk recourses to

populism, be it in the form

of community, the street ornostalgia.


pipeline issue 39: the young and the restless

Documents