Colour, Shape, Quantity, Scale at 15 Jln Mesui

A little late, and we’re rather sad the show is already down, but we’d like to give our 3 thumbs up to Liew Kwai Fei’s exhibition at 15 Jalan Mesui. A sharp clean breath of air, and we loved the way it worked in the unapologetically gritty space. Read more on arteri.

If in Singapore this week, we strongly recommend you try to catch the last few days of FX Harsono: Testimonies at Singapore Art Museum, which ends 9 May.  If you can’t, download the exhibition catalogue from the SAM website.

While at SAM do also go see Ming Wong, Life of Imitation, which runs to 22 August - well worth the price of the tickets!

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We were recently in Taipei and have concluded that despite the four-and-half hour flight time, grim weather and so-so food, the trip to Taiwan was definitely worth the time (and money) in order to catch Cai Guo-Qiang’s solo ‘Hanging Out in the Museum’ at the Taipei Fine Art Museum. As photography was strictly not allowed, it is quite impossible to describe the power and epic scale of the artist’s elaborate installations and gunpowder projects presented in this retrospective exhibition. Nevertheless, Rachel managed to sneak a few shots when the guard was not looking. (Please see below for scenes from the show, and apologies to TFAM for breaking rules!) The artist’s attention to detail, precision and the power of his underlying messages are literally mind blowing! The exhibition was divided into two parts: “Dramatic Time Condensed” on the first floor explores Mr. Cai’s tendency to “counteract time, so that movement and dramatic movement –which are only possible in time– are condensed into still objects”, while the second floor, titled “Contradictory, Changeable Gunpowder”, traces the development of Mr. Cai’s gunpowder exploits from early paintings with gunpowder to the blowing up of his ’sketches’. A comprehensive collection of video documentation also provide further understanding to Mr. Cai’s pyromaniacal ‘drawing’ process and gunpowder performances , and these range from earlier works such as the “Project for Extraterrestials” series (made during the 1990s) to the recent opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“Head On“, an installation with 99 life-sized wolves, fabricated from sheepskins and stuffed with hay and metal wires, barreling in a continuous stream towards (and into) a glass wall, is definitely a Rogue favourite. Loaned from Deutsche Bank’s collection, this work is a critique of the German reunification. We found the artist’s statement “invisible walls are the hardest to dismantle” –describing the German condition – very apt for Malaysia too. All in all, we spent between three to five hours at the museum (twice!) and found ourselves quite reluctant to leave. To quote our travel companion Mr. Lau,  “Cai Guo-Qiang has single-handedly beat 5000 years of Chinese history” as he held our attention far longer than the National Palace Museum exhibition –5 hours as compared to 1 hour– displaying treasures from the Chinese world. We heart Cai Guo-Qiang : )

Please don’t miss out on this show if you are in Taipei, the show closes on 21 February 2010 (closed on Mondays and CNY).

The Taipei Fine Art Museum

Cultural Melting Bath : Project for the 20th Century

Rent Collection Courtyard

Rent Collection Courtyard

Head On

Inopportune : Stage One

Reflection - A Gift from Iwaki

Lucky Draw Prizes

Rachel was particularly excited about the Lucky Draw at TFAM. The prizes are: (Week #1) A pair of return tickets to Hong Kong; ( Week #2) Tea with Cai Guo-Qiang and a signed exhibition catalogue; (Week #3) TWD $ 20,000 (approx RM 2,200) Voucher from Eslite Bookshop; (Week #4) 1 iphone 3GS; (Week #5) A pair of return tickets to New York to visit Cai Guo-Qiang’s Studio and tea with the artist at the Empire State Building. WOW!!!

To make the trip even more worthwhile, we also caught Takashi Murakami’s print show at Arki Gallery near the Taipei Main Station, which will run until April 2010. We were impressed by the Taiwanese audience’s enthusiasm for art! There were at least 3 rows of people in front of any artwork at any one time when we visited Van Gogh’s exhibition at The National Museum of History. We also had to return to MOCA Taipei twice before we had the opportunity to enter the museum as we could not bear the 2-hour ticket queue outside the museum on our first visit. Rachel managed to squeeze in time to catch the ‘Visual Attract and Attack’ at MOCA Taipei (after the 2nd attempt) and here are pictures of some of the works on show.

The 2-hour queue outside MOCA

The Queen of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Yang Moa-lin

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Yang Moa-lin

PixCell-Elk by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa

A sculpture by Takashi Murakami

Movement Age by Chen Zhiguang

Superheroes in fetus stage by Alexandre Nicolas

Baby Hulk

Baby Wonderwoman

Malaysia Boleh! It was a lovely surprise to see Chan Kok Hooi artworks here too!

(RN & AO)

The “WORK” exhibition was launched last saturday to a large crowd. Many thanks to all the participating artists who came early and all the guests that came to support this project!

Please visit the WORK exhibition page for more details on the project.

View of Zakii's and Kow's artwork

View of I-Lann's and Fuad's artwork

View of Siew Ying's and Jai's artwork

View of Hamir's, Fuad's artwork and Ramlan's sculpture

View of Ramlan's sculpture

View of I-Lann's and Fuad's artwork

Portraits of the artists by Tara

The participating artists, Tara Sosrowardoyo and RogueArt

The early birds...

Boss #1 & Boss #1 giving speeches

Raja Shahriman's sculpture and Tara's little room of portraits

The peak of the opening with crowds even on the 1st floor

The crowd spilling out of the house to the street...

RogueArt is proud to host 23 Reasons We Still Need Superman, a traveling video art festival devised and curated by Tim Crowley. This presentation is an extensive overview of video work from the last 15 years. In true Myspace/ Facebook fashion, the selection is both personalized and intentionally un-private, customized and compartmentalized yet available to all. It targets the interest of artists in investigating how images operate and construct our understanding of the world. They explore aesthetic concepts, everyday narratives, and sociopolitical realities and utopias. While some artists use the video to challenge our assumptions about the mimetic nature of the medium, the curatorial focus of 23 Reasons We Still Need Superman will be the relationship between performance and video, what reaction the works create in the audience and the subject matter as a catalyst for dialogue. Contemporary reality is an assemblage of whatever grabs our attention and we want these works to play part of the contemporary reality collage of the viewers, to form an alternative kind of map.

The opening of the video art festival is this Friday, 15 January 2010 from 7-10pm at 19 Jalan Berangan. The screening will also continue on Saturday, 16 January 2010.

Supported by Timeout KL and 19 Jalan Berangan.
The video art festival will continue its travel to Beijing, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

It’s been an eventful September and October. The regional Art Market seems to have picked up, with a successful Sotheby’s Southeast Asian sale in Hong Kong, coloured by some supersize prices for people to talk about, and a couple of near sell-out shows at home in Kuala Lumpur. So people who are into the Art Market should feel a little more comfortable.

Chong Siew Ying, Jumping Dog in the Village (KIAS, Valentine Willie Fine Art, KL)

Natee Utarit, Alice in Ordinary Land (Tales of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Richard Koh Fine Art, KL)

While I’ve wondered if 2009 might be a good year for galleries to keep a low profile, I’m pretty pleased to have caught a few great exhibitions these past two months.

Painting may remain predominant in contemporary regional practice, but when faced with such a proliferation of “up-and-coming” young painting talents (at times questionable), it’s good to be reminded why we continue to put faith in the medium. Phuan Thai Meng’s Made in Malaysia exhibition at VWFA KL in September was impressive - beautifully painted, carefully considered, with a strong and clever socio-political undercurrent. It’s really heartening to see this artist come into his own with a first major solo show of such sophistication and punch, a formidable talent bearing bountiful fruit.

Phuan Thai Meng, Artificial Fountain

Phuan Thai Meng, Rewards

During Raya break in Manila, I managed to find my way to the opening of Geraldine Javier’s Butterfly’s Tongue at West Gallery in Quezon City. Harrowing, exquisite, extraordinary, Javier has once again outdone herself in this ambitious show. Fascinating species of beetle glow darkly on rich floral embroideries in gilt frames, placed like referential insets on paintings about sacrifice, wonder, Pre-Raphaelite romance, madness. The show resounds with the mystery and romance of craft, manmade, natural, insidious, violent, while casting an interesting light on the mythical narrative of painting. Someone liked it so much that it has now moved across Metro Manila to Manila Contemporary in Makati for another run.

Geraldine Javier, The Perfect Blossom

The Perfect Blossom (detail)

Also while in Manila I made my first visit to SLab (Silverlens Lab) which was exhibiting Tears, Cuts and Ruptures: a Philippine Collage Review, cutting across influential veterans like Roberto Chabet and Gerardo Tan to young artists like Poklong Anading and MM Yu. We tend to forget the subtle pleasures of collage and assemblage, and these Filipino artists possess the wit, bravado and that eye for the esoteric that make the old-fashioned cut-and-paste well worth poring over.

Down in Singapore for the art fair, Agus Suwage’s CIRCLE at STPI made my trip - Suwage’s sensibility really seems to have gelled with the project, playing off the wide range of technical possibilities of print and paper and the strategies of reproduction, as well as the whole high-end glamour element of STPi (Suwage used his controversial work Pink Swing Park - and his original model for that installation, Izabel Jahja - as a springboard for the project). Very cool, very yummy, very desirable.

Agus Suwage, Self Dot 1

Agus Suwage, Rain Dot 1

(BY)

Oops. Yet another post about Indonesia. You must be wondering what is the matter with us Rogues. Apologies for going back on our word but it is simply beyond our control as Indonesia’s bustling art scene is far too exciting to avoid. We were away again in Jogja several weeks ago to catch Agus Suwage’s 20 year survey exhibition, “Still Crazy After All These Years”. It was an exhibition we could not miss as this show presented a rare opportunity to view a number of Suwage’s most important works from local private collections as well as from the artist’s personal collection.

Locally known as Agus Suwage’s birthday show –the artist had just turned 50 earlier in April, “Still Crazy After All These Years” is one the most comprehensive solo exhibitions the region has seen so far.  News about this project’s grand ambition (and hefty price tag) to bring together over 100 works from different parts of Indonesia as well as making the necessary improvements to the exhibition space had spread through the grapevine for over 6 months, putting further pressure on Suwage’s exhibition team and curator to put together perhaps the most amazing show Indonesia has ever seen.

And what is the verdict?

This show is definitely worth the trip. It is truly impressive and cleverly planned, charting the artist’s development in a clear and concise manner. The works were laid out chronologically according to major themes, taking the audience through Suwage’s 20 year journey as we witness his artistic explorations and personal obsessions. From early self-portraiture to address a wide spectrum of issues from society, politics to the personal, to the artist’s agile appropriation and reinterpretation of performance art documentation, his love affair with music, and lately ruminations of Death, the show reflects the artist’s consistency, the breadth and depth of his focus, his incredible wit and playful mischief.

On opening night, Suwage played host to nearly 2000 guests and well wishers from Indonesia and beyond. Despite several black-outs and the unexpectedly huge turn out –front of house was forced to turn away people at midnight, “Still Crazy After All These Years” has earned its place in contemporary Indonesian art history as a landmark exhibition.

Here are among RogueArt’s top picks from the exhibition (in no particular order):

And Rachel’s personal favourite:

Also, we would like to give a Rogue thumbs up to exhibition curator Enin Supriyanto and salute the formidable Titarubi and the rest of the team at iCAN for a fantastic a job well done! (AO)

“Still Crazy After All These Years”
(Selected works : 1985 - 2009)
curated by Enin Supriyanto
4 - 31 July 2009 at Jogja National Museum
Jl Amri Yahya No. 1

Find out more about the exhibition at www.agusuwage.com

We’ve just received our e-invites to Agus Suwage’s solo exhibition in Yogya and we would like to encourage anyone who is popping by to Yogya within the month of July to make a point to catch this show at Jogja National Museum. I heard from the grapevine that it is going to be one of the most amazing shows ever to be mounted in Yogya!!

Agus Suwage: Crazy After All These Years
Exhibition runs from 4 to 31 July 2009
Jogja National Museum
Jl. Amri Yahya (Gampingan) No. 1
Yogyakarta, Indonesia

We’ve recently returned from a quick trip to Yogya and Beverly had her first experience of attending a typical Yogyakarta art exhibition opening (with lewd comedy skits and artists singing and dancing). The said exhibition was “Rai Gedheg” (meaning “Shameless” in Java) at Bentara Budaya (23 June - 3 July) and will tour to Jakarta, Malang and Surabaya. Again, the artwork that I like “Lelah” by Agapetus Kristiandana has something to do with my collection of pigs… ☺. I was very amazed with the detailing - right down to the cardboard paper that the artist used to display the sculpture.

A typical art exhibition opening party in Yogyakarta

“Lelah” by Agapetus Kristiandana

“Seperti Chaplin” by Hedi Hariyanto

We heard that Bob Sick and S Teddy D were having an opening on the 24th but we were already leaving so we decided to preview the exhibition at Taman Budaya when we popped over to Malioboro the next morning. It is a pretty amazing showcase – Bob Sick made new paintings, S Teddy showed some of his old objects with new sculptures. I especially liked General, “Platoon, better you die? Ok!”.

General, “Platoon, better you die! OK?” by S Teddy D

“Show me the way to the next bridge” by S Teddy D

“The Farmer’s name is Hulk” by Bob Sick

“Black Gold” by Bob Sick

L-R: “Lady Coffee”, “White Lotus”, “Black Buddha”, “Meja Hijau” by Bob Sick

Opening night

The opening of Personal Effects, our first exhibition project for 2009, on 30 May was a roaring success. We were really happy to see so many of our friends from the art world and beyond come to the show. Thanks all for your support. Thank you especially to the exhibitors for being so forthcoming. I hope in the end they rather enjoyed having their prized possessions on display.

Jalaini Abu Hasan & Jaslena Amir setting up

Hayati Mokhtar, with Attachments

The first floor was a great crowd-pleaser, especially with the younger guests - they really took to Su Ann Wong’s shrine “The Dolphin is My Goddess” and Chang Yoong Chia’s clever shadow play “Shadow of Flora and Fauna”. Wong Hoy Cheong’s “Free Coffee” was also very popular, attracting such luminaries as Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal and his wife Datin Hamidah.

Free Coffee, served in person by Wong Hoy Cheong

Su Ann Wong, The Dolphin is My Goddess

Iqbal Pakhruddin with Shadow of Flora & Fauna

We apologise now for not having many photos of the night - sadly, while the crowd was wonderfully respectful of the fragility and preciousness of the exhibits, my camera went missing at the end of the night. If you came for the opening, please do post any nice images you may have!

For more about the show, and to download the PDF catalogue, go to our Exhibitions Page.

BY