Singapore Biennale 2013: Highlights

Posted by Wai Lin Coultas on Wednesday, October 16, 2013

If the world changed, what would it be like? – Especially in the world we live in and want to live in? This provocative question, in particular relation to the ebb and flow of time in South East Asia, served as unquenchable fuel for artistic creation to art makers invited to take part in Singapore’s 4^th Biennale.

The result are 80 master pieces by 82 artists and artist collectives from the South East Asian region and beyond that explore the myriad ways and labyrinth of layers in which they conceive and perceive internal and external time and where we live. They entreat us to reflect on what they mediate, envision and propose as plausible scenarios in our ever changing contemporary planet.

To give you a taste of the delightful treats installed for the duration of this mega exhibition, here are my top 10 picks of not-to-be-missed highlights:

Artwork #1 : “The End of Art Report”

Artist : Urich Lau

(Malaysian, Singapore-based)

Lau’s 3 multi-channel videos ask: “How does the news media inform us of the art world? How does it influence the way we perceive art?” He offers his take by creating 3 fictional news reports that 3 of Singapore’s cultural institutions (including Singapore Art Museum) will be permanently closed.

To add the element of reality into the reported news, Lau recruited the retired newsreader Duncan Watt (an icon in Singapore’s media world) to professionally read the evening TV news on this impending closure; giving in detail the economic, political and social challenges that are forcing these institutions to shut down for good.

Artwork #2 : “Terra Sensa-Lovell”

Artist : Jeremy Sharma

(Singaporean, Singapore-based)

Man has always been obsessed with extra-terrestrial life and the universe’s, as well as his own, afterlife. And when the electromagnetic pulse (called a pulsar) of a collapsing, and so dying, star was first recorded by scientists in 1967, the world truly thought that it was an attempt by little green men to make contact with us.

Sharma captures the 3-dimensional contours of these pulsars onto 4 high density polystyrene foams to mark the passing of each decade since that faithful day: he uses their eerie similarity to the forms of earth’s and lunar terrains in the same way as early mankind had used cave paintings and temple wall reliefs to commemorate the passing of time and significant events. And yet, each denotes a form that does not exist in any time, place, culture or history – ‘living’ only in a luminal, suspended space and time.

Artwork #3 : “Crystal Palace: The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All

Nuclear Nations”

Artists : Ken & Julia Yonetani

(Japanese, Australia-based)

South East Asia is a region of the world without nuclear power. Yet, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, happened almost at its doorstep, waking the world within Asia Pacific to the real issues of having neighbours with nuclear ambitions.

The Yonetais’ work is a response to this realization: their 31 chandeliers are created from antique chandelier frames that have been fitted with uranium glass and UV lighting. Once switched on, the UV bulbs cause the glass beads to glow a haunting green.

Each chandelier represents the 31 nuclear nations in the world and their sizes correspond to the number of operating nuclear plants in that nation: the largest represents the United States of America while the smallest alludes to Armenia. They bring to reality the tension between human ambition, technological development and its costs and consequences.

Artwork #4 : “I Have Seen a Sweeter Sky”

Artist : Nopchai Ungkavatanapong

(Thai, Thailand-based)

The Peranakan Museum in Singapore is sited in the former premise of Tao Nan School and, later, the Asian Civilization Museum: the building has, therefore, had a total transformation in multiple functions and histories since it opened its doors in 1912.

Ungkavatanapong is thus inspired to encapsulate this evolving history by finding and acquiring well-used objects, including a clock, a chest, a ladder, a spindle and a bed frame, and deconstructing and reconstructing them with his trade-make use of neon lights. The end result is a towering ceiling-suspended sculpture that presents a haunting and evocative sense of each thing’s former existence within its present space. That this space is in the hallway of the Peranakan Museum magnifies its history with an almost mystical quality.

Artwork #5 : “Specula”

Artist : Nguyen Oanh Phi Phi

(Vietnamese American, Vietnam- and Spain-based)

“Specula” is latin for ‘mirror’ and this gigantic lacquered installation serves as one through which Nguyen examines her transnational identity as a Vietnamese living abroad: she gazes upon herself as Vietnamese and sees her reflection as an American. This creates a tension between what can be clearly seen in her genetically-endowed physical form with the experiences growing up outside of Vietnam has placed inside of her.

This her artwork succinctly captures with its hermetic exterior and an interior wall that has been profusely embedded with highly ritualistic motifs. At the same time, it pulls the tension up a couple of notches by having a shape that casts illusions and shadows in ways that interrogate how we relate to our own image and identity.

Artwork #6 : “Tiempas Muertos (Dead Season)”

Artist : Nikki Luna

(Filipino, Philippines-based)

Luna crafted with resin and the sugar gleamed from the sugarcane plantations in Barcolod, the ‘Sugar City’ in the Philippines, into more than 800 humongous diamonds to draw global attention to the historical and never-ending story of the sweet life enjoyed by all plantation owners who do not even blink when their casual labourers are paid for as little as S$1 a day to undertake most of the back-breaking farm work.

Now, with the real impending danger of declining sugar prices, the threat of a dearth of work during the “dead season” of June to September threatens to become permanent, spelling a permanent lack of financial means by these labourers to tide over this annually recurring period of no available work opportunity.

Like blood diamonds, Luna’s sugar crystals become a treasure tilled from the earth that has been gleaned at ever increasingly high human cost.

Artwork #7 : “Payatas”

Artist : Oscar Villamiel

(Filipino, Philippines-based)

Villamiel’s installation consists of thousands of dolls salvaged from “Patayas”, the Manila landfill of the same name. He spiked these dolls with wooden poles and filled a shanty shed with them, signaling the fact that they were once playthings upon which little girls cast their hopes and fantasies; but have now ended up in the city’s mountainous garbage dump – home to around 200,000 people who scavenge whatever they can from the dump to recycle and repair into something that can be sold. One person’s trash has become another’s treasure.

Salvaged from the dump is also a child’s drawing which the artist centered in the very heart of his dilapidated shed and inscribed in its gestural marks a prayer – making it his dedication to the lost child as a symbol of his hope for humanity.

Artwork #8 : “Mandi Bungo (Flower Bath)”

Artist : Sharon Chin

(Malaysian, Malaysia-based)

These highlights and the other equally enticing 69 artworks are exhibited in buildings iconic to the throbbing heart of Singapore’s art centre – the Bras Basah.Bugis Precinct: