JP/ Dian Kuswandini
Dian Kuswandini, The Jakarta Post, Singapore
| Thu, 10/15/2009 9:56 AM | Life
Attention, art lovers! There’s a special buffet waiting for you at the Singapore Art Museum.
It’s not like an ordinary buffet offering scrumptious dishes. Rather, the museum is serving up something special for those of you who are hungry for a different kind of “food”: Art.
We’re talking about the “Art Buffet Singapore!”, the exhibition part of this year’s Singapore Biennale. With contributions from 29 “chefs”, Art Buffet is serving 30 “dishes” at the main table — all of which are set to satisfy your soul’s hunger for beautiful and thought-provoking pieces of art.
And when the organizers call it a buffet, they mean it.
The buffet concept has been adopted as a means of display and cultural consumption. Artists were free to choose from a “buffet” of 12 themes — food; material; ritual; spectrum; signs; gesture; craft; body; time; space, order; and humor.
| Thu, 10/15/2009 9:56 AM | Life
Attention, art lovers! There’s a special buffet waiting for you at the Singapore Art Museum.
It’s not like an ordinary buffet offering scrumptious dishes. Rather, the museum is serving up something special for those of you who are hungry for a different kind of “food”: Art.
We’re talking about the “Art Buffet Singapore!”, the exhibition part of this year’s Singapore Biennale. With contributions from 29 “chefs”, Art Buffet is serving 30 “dishes” at the main table — all of which are set to satisfy your soul’s hunger for beautiful and thought-provoking pieces of art.
And when the organizers call it a buffet, they mean it.
The buffet concept has been adopted as a means of display and cultural consumption. Artists were free to choose from a “buffet” of 12 themes — food; material; ritual; spectrum; signs; gesture; craft; body; time; space, order; and humor.
These 12 themes were translated into some 400 works, from which the panel of judges picked the best 30, which happen to fall into four thematic categories: humor, order, time and space.
The buffet concept also offers an opportunity for audiences to savor visual feasts of creative productions from both the traditional and the contemporary art spectrum, spreading across different subjects and forms.
So if paintings aren’t your cup of tea, for example, you can enjoy some unusual installations and find your own way to relate to the artworks.
One of the installations that has already generated a lot of talk is Self-Portrait (No More Tears Mr. Lee) — an artwork that perhaps many Singaporeans will relate to.
At first glance, this installation, measuring 380 x 324 x 30 cm and set on a wooden platform, appears as nothing more than a grayish-white undefined “image” placed in a dark room with minimal lighting.
But looking closer and from certain angles, the viewer could be surprised to realize that this “image” is composed of more than 8,000 shampoo bottle caps. These caps were meticulously arranged by artist Jason Wee as he played with their “on” and “off” directions.
While some caps are left open, others are closed — and with the help of the lighting, this arrangement produces a kind of “pixel” effect, which in turn creates a portrait of an old man.
And who’s the old man? As the title suggests, it’s former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
According to the exhibition’s curator Seng Yu Jin, Wee’s piece represents notions of how the biographies and the histories of historical figures are multi-faceted.
“Jason takes us to see his work from different angles,” Seng said during the tour of the exhibition, run as part of the Singapore International Foundation’s program.
“It can be seen through many perspectives and perceived with multiple interpretations,” he added.
For his creative and thought-provoking piece, Wee won “The Voters Prize”, an award worth S$5,000 presented to the artwork most popular among the public.
If Wee won the people’s hearts, Chun Kaifeng claimed the judges’ attention and was named the winner of the Singapore Art Exhibition Prize.
His art installation He’s Satisfied from Monday to Friday and on Sunday He Loves to Cry won him a S$50,000 grant which he can use to undertake an art residency program and further creative endeavors.
The judges’ reasons for choosing Chun’s work are clear, as his artwork conveys the double-sided psychological state of most Singaporeans.
Chun’s installation adopts a diorama approach, a three-dimensional miniature model enclosed in a glass showcase as in museums.
Looking through the window, we can see a clean, simple and neat monochromatic workroom. It looks like any other room — until a sense of terror suddenly pervades us when we spot a large knife placed among the pencils and pens on the table, and an axe hidden under a small cupboard.
What’s that all about?
“It reflects how most Singaporeans are,” Seng explained. “They’re very clean, simple and organized … but … they have this sense of violence hidden within them.”
Chun himself hints that the room is a psycho-space that reflects a desire for transgression in a carefully controlled environment.
While Chun’s and Wee’s works are all in monochromatic hues, artists such as Tang Mun Kit and Liew Ting Chuang put some colors into their artworks — although the latter’s work is still dominated by broken-white.
Liew’s installation Re-visiting ‘Ah Kong’ in Memories is composed of a pillow sitting on a chair, facing a collection of colorful photographs in white frames. The photos, showing Liew’s family members posing in front of their grandfather’s portrait, were taken during one Chinese New Year celebration, a few years after the grandfather passed away.
The image of the artist’s grandfather from the family photographs evokes an emotional sense of loss and longing. In Liew’s own words, “for the younger generation like me, I believe one should know one’s family history to stay rooted in the midst of the fast-changing globalized world.”
Also turning the spotlight on the “globalized world” is Tang Mun Kit with his series of four colorful sculptured wall-hangings titled A for Assets.
Using the everyday objects around him, Tang reused and reconfigured dolls, paper, cardboard and sticks to create imaginary surreal landscapes.
Repeated patterns such as the inverted letter “A” subvert what society generally values as assets: Any tangible and intangible resources that can be converted into cash.
Through his work, however, Tang also challenges this narrow definition of assets to include the hidden potential value of all objects, even junk.
Touted as “snapshots” of the faces of Singapore today, the works by Tang and his fellow artists encompass many issues and are set to show visitors that an exhibition such as the Art Buffet can be an exciting, yet inclusive, arena for people to explore or simply enjoy all forms of visual art.
And for this kind of buffet, no dieting is allowed.
Art Buffet Singapore!
(The 2009 Singapore Art Exhibition)
Until Oct. 18
Singapore Art Museum
71 Brass Basah Road, Singapore 189555
Tel: (+65) 6332-3222
Website: www.singart.com
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/15/yummy-it%E2%80%99s-food-soul.html
The buffet concept also offers an opportunity for audiences to savor visual feasts of creative productions from both the traditional and the contemporary art spectrum, spreading across different subjects and forms.
So if paintings aren’t your cup of tea, for example, you can enjoy some unusual installations and find your own way to relate to the artworks.
One of the installations that has already generated a lot of talk is Self-Portrait (No More Tears Mr. Lee) — an artwork that perhaps many Singaporeans will relate to.
At first glance, this installation, measuring 380 x 324 x 30 cm and set on a wooden platform, appears as nothing more than a grayish-white undefined “image” placed in a dark room with minimal lighting.
But looking closer and from certain angles, the viewer could be surprised to realize that this “image” is composed of more than 8,000 shampoo bottle caps. These caps were meticulously arranged by artist Jason Wee as he played with their “on” and “off” directions.
While some caps are left open, others are closed — and with the help of the lighting, this arrangement produces a kind of “pixel” effect, which in turn creates a portrait of an old man.
And who’s the old man? As the title suggests, it’s former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
According to the exhibition’s curator Seng Yu Jin, Wee’s piece represents notions of how the biographies and the histories of historical figures are multi-faceted.
“Jason takes us to see his work from different angles,” Seng said during the tour of the exhibition, run as part of the Singapore International Foundation’s program.
“It can be seen through many perspectives and perceived with multiple interpretations,” he added.
For his creative and thought-provoking piece, Wee won “The Voters Prize”, an award worth S$5,000 presented to the artwork most popular among the public.
If Wee won the people’s hearts, Chun Kaifeng claimed the judges’ attention and was named the winner of the Singapore Art Exhibition Prize.
His art installation He’s Satisfied from Monday to Friday and on Sunday He Loves to Cry won him a S$50,000 grant which he can use to undertake an art residency program and further creative endeavors.
The judges’ reasons for choosing Chun’s work are clear, as his artwork conveys the double-sided psychological state of most Singaporeans.
Chun’s installation adopts a diorama approach, a three-dimensional miniature model enclosed in a glass showcase as in museums.
Looking through the window, we can see a clean, simple and neat monochromatic workroom. It looks like any other room — until a sense of terror suddenly pervades us when we spot a large knife placed among the pencils and pens on the table, and an axe hidden under a small cupboard.
What’s that all about?
“It reflects how most Singaporeans are,” Seng explained. “They’re very clean, simple and organized … but … they have this sense of violence hidden within them.”
Chun himself hints that the room is a psycho-space that reflects a desire for transgression in a carefully controlled environment.
While Chun’s and Wee’s works are all in monochromatic hues, artists such as Tang Mun Kit and Liew Ting Chuang put some colors into their artworks — although the latter’s work is still dominated by broken-white.
Liew’s installation Re-visiting ‘Ah Kong’ in Memories is composed of a pillow sitting on a chair, facing a collection of colorful photographs in white frames. The photos, showing Liew’s family members posing in front of their grandfather’s portrait, were taken during one Chinese New Year celebration, a few years after the grandfather passed away.
The image of the artist’s grandfather from the family photographs evokes an emotional sense of loss and longing. In Liew’s own words, “for the younger generation like me, I believe one should know one’s family history to stay rooted in the midst of the fast-changing globalized world.”
Also turning the spotlight on the “globalized world” is Tang Mun Kit with his series of four colorful sculptured wall-hangings titled A for Assets.
Using the everyday objects around him, Tang reused and reconfigured dolls, paper, cardboard and sticks to create imaginary surreal landscapes.
Repeated patterns such as the inverted letter “A” subvert what society generally values as assets: Any tangible and intangible resources that can be converted into cash.
Through his work, however, Tang also challenges this narrow definition of assets to include the hidden potential value of all objects, even junk.
Touted as “snapshots” of the faces of Singapore today, the works by Tang and his fellow artists encompass many issues and are set to show visitors that an exhibition such as the Art Buffet can be an exciting, yet inclusive, arena for people to explore or simply enjoy all forms of visual art.
And for this kind of buffet, no dieting is allowed.
Art Buffet Singapore!
(The 2009 Singapore Art Exhibition)
Until Oct. 18
Singapore Art Museum
71 Brass Basah Road, Singapore 189555
Tel: (+65) 6332-3222
Website: www.singart.com
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/15/yummy-it%E2%80%99s-food-soul.html
