In the past few years, Laos’ art scene has remained relatively under the radar while neighboring Southeast Asian countries, such as Myanmar and Cambodia, have gained considerable international recognition (Vietnam and Thailand already having a notable presence). It was therefore a treat to see two Lao artists at this year’s Singapore Biennale.
Shooshie Sulaiman was born in Malaysia in 1973. After receiving a BA in Fine Art from the MARA University of Technology (UiTM) in 1996, she was given the National Art Gallery of Malaysia’s prestigious Young Contemporaries Award. Currently based in Kuala Lumpur, Shooshie also runs 12 Residence, an exhibition and project space and art-infused guesthouse.
Singapore’s premier contemporary art exhibition, the Singapore Biennale, will open to the public on October 26. This year’s edition named “If the World Changed” will have a strong Southeast Asian focus bringing in 27 curators from around the region. This new curatorial model is aimed at developing a deeper knowledge of art scenes in the region, filling in the gaps where the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) curation is not as strong. In choosing this year’s curators, former director of SAM and project director of the biennale, Tan Boon Hui, said that the selection of curators started from “where we don’t know, people who have access to the scene, new art practices. . . this approach is taken in hopes of expanding the capacity of the Biennale.” With greater focus and intensity on this part of the world, curators selected a wide-range of projects to contextualize the unique practices, concerns and perspectives of artists from Southeast Asia. 82 artists and collectives from 13 countries, were invited to reflect on the current state of the world while offering re-imaginings for the future. Many venues are clustered in the Bras Basah. Bugis Precinct—including SAM, 8Q, National Museum of Singapore and Peranakan Museum—but some works can be seen beyond the main hub at locations such as Fort Canning and Taman Jurong. Here’s a teaser of of Singapore Biennale 2013’s offerings.
Two days before the official opening of the 4th Singapore Biennale, the art community has already begun its celebrations. Art spaces around town took advantage of the influx of regional and international attention to open exhibitions and inaugurate new spaces. Here is a glimpse of the events on Wednesday evening that kick-started festivities in the lion city.
Satirical Internet cartoonist Pi San illustrates ironic critiques of the Chinese School system in his video animation Kuang Kuang. Fearlessly skirting the country’s Great Firewall, Pi delivers commentary on the absurdities of the modern Chinese society to millions of netizens. In “Blackboard” (2010), Pi asks: What happens to those students who fail to fulfil their national duty?
At the Brentwood Arts Exchange at the Gateway Arts Center in Brentwood, Maryland—less than a mile from the United State’s capital—the sounds of Katakhali, a small community on Barobaishdia Island in South-western Bangladesh, can be heard. Following the sounds, and turning a corner, one is led to Bangladeshi-American artist-activist, Monica Jahan Bose’s exhibition “Layer By Layer: Storytelling with Saris,” which is part of an ongoing conversation about literacy and eco-empowerment for the women of her home village of Katakhali.
“What’s left of the Left in Italy?” This question led Emily Jacir through archives in Italy, where she discovered little-seen films made in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
A mask can serve many purposes—disguise, restraint, identity, totem—but in the hands of Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho, it becomes something more: a wry avatar of the artist’s private mythos and an insightful rejoinder to sociopolitical absurdity. Since the 1990s, he has parodied the political issues that emerged following the collapse of the Suharto regime. Nugroho’s solo exhibit at Singapore Tyler Print Institute, “We Are What We Mask,” includes over 70 handmade paper works, all produced during the artist’s six-week residency, including some 20 mask-based incarnations of outrage and dissent.
More than 28,000 visitors flocked to the inaugural Sydney Contemporary art fair at Carriageworks, an inner-city art space housed in a historic warehouse. On the opening night alone, 14,000 crowded into venue, causing acute crowd-control problems and nearly exceeding the overall number of visitors projected to visit the harbor city’s first major international art fair.
Hong Kong streets have a deafening chatter, of the visual kind. Every night, the ICC Tower projects an LED light show in Central and down in the urban canopy hundreds of neon signs chart the alleys. “Visual culture is a fuzzily defined thing. But one can say for sure that neon signs are a very important part” said curator Aric Chen recently after an infamous Sai Ying Pun eatery sign was deemed illegal and subsequently claimed as an objet d’art in M+ Museum for Visual Culture’s permanent collection.
The New York-based artist Patty Chang has been making daring forays in performance art since the late 1990s. She once captivated viewers onscreen, appearing to be somewhere between throws of ecstasy and pain—but irreducible to neither—later attributing this to the live eels that filled her blouse and wriggled uncontrollably against her skin. In another work, Chang came uncomfortably close to incest by making chewing movements against the lips of her own parents which, at first glance, looked like awkward make-out sessions. Teetering precariously between humor and embarrassment, Chang’s early works push the body to its limits, alluding to the fluidity of identity by confounding any attempt at characterization.
