As Susan Sontag observed, “the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads”. Pure Satire by Maleonn at the 2902 Gallery in Singapore encapsulates this visual aesthetic, creating an open set of performative statements within a symbol-laden, dreamlike universe that amalgamates historical and contemporary trends, wherein protagonists are children with[…..]
A cursory look suggests that variations on the themes of individuality (as opposed to the collective social unit) and transcultural displacement dominate Do-Ho Suh’s oeuvre. Fabricated in nylon, Staircase (2003) is a gauzy blanket of red that hangs suspended from a ceiling spanning 2 floors, an ethereal, translucent replica of his living space in Chelsea, New York in which viewers can peer – rather obliquely –[…..]
The Singapore Biennale 2011: Open House threw open its doors to the public on 13 March 2011 with 63 artists from 30 countries presenting 161 works across four exhibition venues. Predicated on the belief that contemporary artistic practices are largely driven by discursive acts of exchange and transactions, Open House records the ensuing visual dialogue and contested ways of seeing that emerge when communication channels are[…..]
Not too long ago, I spoke with Howard Rutkowski, formerly of Sotheby’s and now director of Fortune Cookie Projects, intending to satiate my curiosity about art auctions and art dealing. While he probably scoffed at my naivety, he candidly said to me, “Plunging into the murky business of the art world is akin to swimming with the sharks. There’s a delicate dance that takes place[…..]
Beware of those guys who appear to paint the stuff of (mostly the Christian) religion. Often accompanying the gilded visual tales of Virgin and Child in various mediums are irresistible moral invectives, sexual innuendos and didactic spiritual laws, implicit political commentary and socio-cultural critique, which of course, make them loads of fun to look at. Yet these powerful undercurrents only emerge quite prominently if these[…..]
A shrine, or a tribute to abstract expressionism, or so I thought, as Saskia Pintelon’s more-image-than-text paintings came into view. Like Mark Rothko’s soft-edged, colored-rectangles that often alluded to metaphysical concerns that extended beyond the material boundaries of his canvas, Pintelon’s palette of muddy earth-tones that bleed black, greys and reds seems to suggest that the contemporary creative process remains primeval and transcendental but inescapably[…..]
Japan is utterly strange, if we are to follow in the footsteps of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) as visitors to a country for whose culture and language have (nor do they want to have) absolutely no affinity. Yet their acute sense of dislocation and turmoil in which we are caught up simply play out at the fringes[…..]
