The Singaporeans have certainly been laying the art on. Just two months on from Art Stage, we tramped down for the year’s second art blockbuster event, the slightly delayed Singapore Biennale, and a good seven or eight shows on the side.

By all accounts, SB2011 is less of a spectacle than its predecessors – no art statements running across City Hall in bright lights, no colourful containers brightening the urban shoreline. It shies well away from big beautiful themes like 2006’s Belief, and 2008’s Wonder. This year’s Biennale, themed “Open House”, is decidedly interior in its conceptual and physical architecture.

(Broadsheet’s 40th anniversary edition gives a good preview, including a lengthy interview with Artistic Director Matthew Ngui and Curators Russell Storer and Trevor Smith: http://www.cacsa.org.au.)

Less can be more, though, and, not expecting wow (there was simply not very much build-up to the event), I really enjoyed the Biennale as an experience. I found myself getting into works I didn’t expect to like, and that there was just about enough time to cover the 63 works over a day and a bit (ideally two though) without reeling over from too much information. The curatorial emphasis on process over subject, object and in a number of cases, presentation, I think worked on me, ranging through sometimes vastly different approaches from space to space, room to room, dark corner to dark corner (of the National Museum) – the question marks and surprises, as much as the resonances did force you to engage and explore. I particularly liked the Old Kallang Airport site – moving through the succession of rooms in the East and West blocks like changing levels of a video game, or the hide-and-seek of the main building. There was an Alice-in-Wonderland effect, you were tiny among the giant rolls of Michael Beutler’s Pipeline Field, or in Sheela Gowda’s magnified bathroom of horror, but god-like peering into the unrealised utopias of Michael Lee’s Office Architect. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Frequency and Volume: Relational Architecture 9 was a big hit with visitors as our bodies tuned into radio channels tracking the large shadows we cast on the wall.

Michael Beutler, Pipeline Field

Sheela Gowda

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Frequency and Volume: Relational Architecture 9

There was a definite sense of nakedness and exposure, sometimes as a challenge, sometimes as an act of trust or intimacy, sometimes conspiratorial. There were relatively few works that were all dressed up and ready to go for the ball. For Rumah Sulaiman Belakang Kedai Ah Guat, Shooshie Sulaiman relocated the structures of two sites of personal significance– in Titiwangsa KL and Malacca, to SAM’s 8Q building, and they contextualise a video of a conversation with Ah Guat, and drawings and collages from over the span of her practice, creating a layered reading of artistic process, space, and memory through an excavation of the personal.

Shooshie Sulaiman, Rumah Sulaiman Belakang Kedai Ah Guat

Confession, identity-construction and voyeurism seemed to play a big part in the curatorial conversation, from Ruang Rupa’s hilarious and touching fantasy lives of Singaporeans to Ise’s grocery-shopping adventures with local families to Jill Magid’s Evidence Locker to the poster-child of the Biennale, Candice Breitz’s Factum which compares interviews with identical twins and a set of triplets. I particularly enjoyed Tala Mandani’s tiny animated vignettes of clumsy men doing violence to themselves, and Simon Fujiwara’s extraordinary manifold reconstruction of Hotel Mumber using eroticism as an intriguing entry-point.

Ruang Rupa, Singapura Fiction

I was surprised by the amount of sex (as parody: Tracy Moffat, Ming Wong) and violence (to inanimate structures – Lisi Raskin’s muscled reconfiguration of the mezzanine floor of Kallang West Block, Mike Nelson tearing up walls and pedestals, Superflex drowning McDonalds). I found I quite liked the violence bit.

Mike Nelson

Other personal favourites which linger in my mind are Tiffany Chung’s poetic landscape installation Floating into the Future from a Distant Past, and earlier mappings of Vietnam, and Phil Collins’ wonderful music video The Meaning of Style, carving new spaces for imagining our third-world realities.

Tiffany Chung, Floating into the Future from a Distant Past

It’s worth catching the Biennale (to 15 May 2011) if you’re in this part of the world – not so much as a great new album of contemporary art, but certainly an inspiring and interesting playlist which can help to make us think more deeply about what some artists today are trying to get at.

For a “greatest hits” of Southeast Asian contemporary art, you can also catch Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia, 1991 – 2010 at SAM (to 26 June 2011). Do also make an effort to visit Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya at NUS Museum, a wonderful exploration, both as an exhibition and a publication, or what curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa describes as an “exhibitionary complex”, of the evolution of the museum in Malaya. Tap into some fantastic archival material including letters and recorded conversations on Malayan exhibitions in London in the 1920s, the genesis of the Raffles Museum, and the Asian Art Museum at University Malaya and their collections, Asian art objects from the NUS Museum and Asian Civilisations Museum collections, natural history artefacts from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (NUS) Collection, Dr Ivan Polunin’s remarkable Singapore film archive and the eclectic collection and paintings of artist and healer Mohammad din Mohammad, for new ways of seeing old ways of seeing.

Mella Jaarsma at SAM

Camping and Tramping Through the Colonial Archive: The Museum in Malaya

Bernando Pacquing, Untitled at ICA’s “Roberto Chabet : Complete & Unabridged”

I hit Manila with my skates on and headed straight to silverlens gallery for back-to-back openings last night. Who’s showing? Three of Manila’s hottest 30-something boys: Poklong Anading + Gary-Ross Pastrana at silverlens and Mariano Ching across the bridge at SLab.

2011 marks my 10th anniversary with Manila. I first set foot in this city in January 2001 and didn’t think I would survive my first 24 hours! Well here I am 10 years on and grateful for the experiences this city has given me. What is even more special is the people I’ve gotten to know along the way, friends and collaborators in the art community who make Manila feel very much like my second home.

Over the past 10 years, Poklong, Gary and Mariano have emerged from the black hole that is DIY territory and have become stars in their own right. As their art practice continue to mature, each artist has stayed true to his own path of interests and concerns and consistently challenged audience with works that are thought-provoking, witty and often humourous. Between Signs is a two-man show for Poklong and Gary, two old friends who have exhibited together in group shows across Manila and beyond. Sparse, minimal and slightly off-kilter – particularly in the Pinoy context where more is always more, this show may come across as “nothing much is happening” to those who are unaccustomed to the artists’ unique brand of aesthetics. Works in this exhibition feel as though “they just happen to be there”, featuring objects such as clear tape, breadcrumbs, a folio of dust, a ball of chocolate and a green tea and ube (purple yam) cake and a slab of concrete, literally, among others. The point of the exhibition is to blur the distinction between “who made what” and highlight the dialogue between works made by two friends who share similar concerns or “maps” but are moving along different journeys.

Fallen Map (by Poklong Anading) in the picture below is the kindred spirit of the First Attempt at Social Sculpture or Breaking the Fourth Wall (by Gary-Ross Pastrana) in that they both represent fragments from the urban landscape. For Fallen Map, Poklong went around the Metro and collected pieces of broken pavement and painted the flat side with colorful patterns derived from rags. Meanwhile, Gary’s edible concrete cake is made to look like a part of the gallery floor.

Image below :The concrete cake is actually a green tea ube cake, delicious despite its unappetizing appearance.

Across the bridge at SLab, Mariano Ching’s  Even Bad Days Are Good tells us that beauty can be found in the grotesque, the ugly and the details. The show presents a series of portraits of Chewbacca-meets-Elephant Man type characters on canvas and a set of miniature landscapes etched and carved onto shaped wooden blocks. Mariano’s touch on wood is exquisite, combining intricately detailed rendering of fantastical seascapes and junkyard scenes with carved textures on the wood’s surface. This series of work shows off the artist’s fine draftsmanship and keen understanding and appreciation for wood gained from his Japanese training in printmaking during his year in Kyoto in 2004.

Opening night at SLab. The happy couple, Yasmin Sison (left) and Mariano Ching (right) with Isa Lorenzo (centre),  co-owner of silverlens gallery.

For more information and images of Poklong, Gary and Mariano’s work, please visit silverlens gallery’s website here and SLab’s website here (AO)

The Sime Darby Epic Painting is now complete!

Over the past 18 months, Ahmad Fuad Osman, Anurendra Jegadeva, and Chuah Chong Yong have been working on an 8 by 50 foot opus about the history and development of the Sime Darby Group. The painting is currently on exhibit at Wisma Sime Darby on Jalan Raja Laut as part of the Group’s Centennial Exhibition until 28 February, and can be visited during weekday working hours.

This Saturday 19 February, Sime Darby are opening the exhibition to the public from 10am to 4pm for a special weekend viewing. Please do take the opportunity to visit this landmark historical painting.

We attended the recent award announcement for the Young Contemporaries 2010 at the National Art Gallery and would like to congratulate the winners again! BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Haslin Ismail, Tan Nan See, Diana Ibrahim & Helmi Azam!

Tan Nan See, Rupa Malaysia : Jewellery

Haslin Ismail, The Way It All Works

We’ve just returned from a whirlwind trip in Singapore to join the frenzy of Art Stage 2011.

The Singaporeans and their consultants certainly pulled out all the stops, and pretty much pulled off a very ambitious plan in 8 months. What the fair lacked in punch, it made up for in range – there was a lot to take in and there was a nice safe balance of works from East/West/big-time/emerging. We thought a lot more could have been done about the project booths and the vernissage could have been more wow but as Asian art fairs go, it was pretty alright.

We were more impressed by the island-wide effort to make an art weekend of it. Visitors we met in the elevator said they were having “a great party”.

For drama, there was the entry to Collectors’ Stage at ArtSpace@HeluTrans. The show was an important effort, but as patriotic Southeast Asians we really thought a lot of super pieces (and collections) had been missed.

‘Desperately Seeking Paradise’ by Rashid Rana
in the ‘Collector’s Stage’ at ArtSpace@HeluTrans

‘Sofa’ & ‘Pose No. 1, 2 & 3′ by Handiwirman Saputra
in the ‘Collector’s Stage’ at Singapore Art Museum

Roberto Chabet : To be continued
at Institute of Contemporary Art (at LaSalle College of the Arts)

Manuel Ocampo : The Painter’s Equipment
at VWFA @ ArtSpace@HeluTrans

The Pinoys were also out in full force – one-man shows by Roberto Chabet, Ben Cabrera and Manuel Ocampo punctuated the weekend. “Roberto Chabet: To be continued…” at the ICA kicked off a year of exhibitions and projects to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of this seminal conceptual artist’s first show – if you’re going down to Singapore this is the one exhibition you must go and see. Bad boy Ocampo’s “The Painter’s Equipment” at VWFA Singapore was also a refreshing surprise. We didn’t manage much else, popped into Tokyo Cool at 8Q, missed all the talks and the Open House Marine Parade art tour which just looked too frighteningly popular.

Of Art Stage itself, our votes went to (in no particular order):

Best-looking booths:

12 (Malaysia)
Platform 3 (Indonesia)
Chan Hampe Gallery (Singapore)
Mori Yu Gallery (Japan)
Gallery Tagboat (Japan)

Project Booth by 12 (Malaysia)

Platform 3 (Indonesia)

Where we would shop:

Arario Gallery
ARK Galerie
Art-U Room and Numthong Gallery
Collectors Contemporary
ftc. Berlin
Nadi Gallery
Mam Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art
Shrine Empire Gallery

ARK Galerie (Indonesia)

Art-U Room (Japan) and Numthong Gallery (Thailand)

If money was no object, we would buy:

Wim Delvoye, D11 Scale Mode at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
Natee Utarit, The Birth of Tragedy at Richard Koh Fine Art
Marc Quinn’s Angkor Windfarm at Bartha & Senarclens Partners

Wim Delvoye, D11 Scale Mode

If we had any money at all we would buy:

Handiwirman’s sculpture at Gajah Gallery
Thukral & Tagra prints at STPI
Lego sculptures by John Cake & Darren Neave (The Little Artists)
Anish Kapoor’s untitled gourd sculptures at Art U-Room and Numthong Gallery
Tintin Wulia’s video installation, Neous ne notons pas les fleurs -Jakarta at ARK Galerie
Chen Yujun, Asian Circumscription –5.2 Square Meters No. 20100415 at Boers-Li Gallery
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Van Gogh’s The Midday Sleep 1889-90 at the Thai Villagers, at 100 Tonson Gallery

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Van Gogh’s The Midday Sleep 1889-90 at the Thai Villagers

A collage by Thukral + Tagra

Image: Propositional Berg by Lena Cobangbang for Rogueish Festive Cards

Very shortly, we will be ushering in a new year. Where did all our time go in 2010?  Between collections consultancy and logistical management work, and our publication and commission projects, it’s been an inspiring year with new challenges and rewards. Here are some of the highlights of our 2010:

Publications

WORKING

Kicking off with the exhibition WORK at 19 Jalan Berangan in January, this artists-initiated project culminated in the launch of our first RogueArt publication in October, in conjunction with the exhibition 10 Malaysian Artists:  Portraits From The Work Project by the book’s lead photographer Tara Sosrowardoyo at Zinc Art Space in KL. WORKING explores studio practice and artistic process through the experiences of Malaysian artists Ahmad Fuad Osman, Ahmad Shukri Mohamed, Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Chong Siew Ying, Hamir Soib, Jalaini Abu Hassan, Kow Leong Kiang, Raja Shahriman Raja Aziddin, Ramlan Abdullah and Yee I-Lann.

Yee I-Lann: Boogeyman: Fluid World

In collaboration with Valentine Willie Fine Art, we worked with Yee I-Lann on her landmark exhibition Boogeyman at the Black Box at MAP KL in September and her monograph Fluid World, which was launched at VWFA in November.

2010 also saw the launch of two publications we were involved in as text editors last year – Agus Suwage’s extraordinary monograph Still Crazy After all These Years in Jakarta in May and 30 Art Friends in Singapore in March. We helped the Malaysian Art Friends with an exhibition to coincide with the book’s Kuala Lumpur launch at the National Art Gallery in June.

All the above publications and more books on Southeast Asian art are now available at www.rogueish.asia, and at selected bookshops in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

Publications in progress

We are proud to announce that we have raised support for the full budget of RM360,000 for Narratives in Malaysian Art, an ambitious four-volume publication comprising republished texts, commissioned essays, and interviews on the development of visual art in Malaysia to be published by RogueArt through 2011 and 2012. We’d like to thank our sponsors Bangsar Village, Balai Seni Lukis Negara, Kenneth Tan, Gudang Damansara, Rosemary and Steve Wong, Malakoff Corporation Berhad, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Avenue Invest Berhad, Helu-Trans (Singapore) Pte Ltd, and Khazanah Nasional Berhad for their corporate support, and the Krishen Jit-ASTRO Fund for their support, as well as the many Friends and benefactors of the project. The editorial team led by Nur Hanim Khairuddin and Beverly Yong, with Hasnul J Saidon and Eva McGovern are very excited as Volumes I and II begin to shape up. Do visit the NMA website for updates.

RogueArt are also thrilled to be working on an artist’s book for Eko Nugroho, to be published in Indonesia in the second half of 2011. This monograph will a present a number of landmark projects and works produced by this prolific artist over the past decade.

Sime Darby Epic Painting

In 2009, we assisted Sime Darby Berhad in commissioning three artists to work on an epic painting to celebrate its centennial this year. Ahmad Fuad Osman, Anurendra Jegadeva and Chuah Chong Yong are currently completing this 50 ft opus, which offers a dynamic visual interpretation of this company’s history and vision, at Wisma Sime Darby in KL as part of the company’s centennial exhibition.

‘So You Want To Be an Artist’

In June we organized a workshop in collaboration with House of Matahati (HOM) geared towards young artists starting out on a professional career. Artists and industry players offered practical advice and guidance on matters from how to pack an artwork to the ethics of gallery contracts.

Online material

We’ve recently uploaded the notes from Where Art Happens, our 2009 talks series on issues of art infrastructure focusing on the Malaysian scene but also looking to achievements and challenges in the region as a whole, as well as articles we’ve published as RogueArt, for the sadly now defunct Off the Edge magazine (including our “Where Art Happens” map of local art infrastructure), and “Cocktails Will Be Served”, our contribution to IVAA’s publication in progress on the art market boom and bust, Economy Class.

We’d like to wish all our friends and associates a wonderful start to 2011. We hope to see you in the New Year!

Join us on Nov 30th at Yee I-Lann’s Fluid World book launch at Valentine Willie Fine Art. This is a RogueArt publication project and we are so proud to be a part of this! Early birds will get a complimentary copy of  New Malaysian Essays 2 with each purchase of I-lann’s book. Don’t miss out! See you soon!

The launch of WORKING and Tara Sosrowardoyo’s exhibition was a success!  A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who made it to Zinc Art Space last Saturday evening! Tara’s works look fantastic in the space, we love it so much we thought we’d share images of the exhibition with you.

Click here for more pictures of the opening event. And here to read a short article about the project in New Straits Times Life & Style section on Sunday, 10.10.10

Join on us on the 2nd of October to celebrate the launch of the publication WORKING, an artists initiated project in association with RogueArt. Spearheaded by Ahmad Zakii Anwar and Jalaini Abu Hassan, WORKING is the principal outcome of the WORK project which began in 2009. Some of you may recall attending the WORK exhibition held earlier in January 2010 at No. 19 Jalan Berangan? (For those who would like to find out more about the exhibition, click here if you are curious)

WORKING focuses on the creative processes of 10 leading Malaysian artists and their relationship with their respective working environments through a series of interviews and photographic documentation. The publication is a modest attempt to uncover each artist’s methodology, to try to make sense of what is often considered a wordless and emotional creative process.

An exhibition entitled 10 Malaysian Artists: Portraits from the WORK Project by Tara Sosrowardoyo will also be presented in conjunction with the book launch. Tara was invited to be the “eyes” of the project, to capture each artist’s portraits which will form the key entries of WORKING. Over a period of two months in 2009, this regionally acclaimed photographer travelled around the Klang Valley, up north to Kuala Kangsar, down south to Melaka and Johor Bahru, spending time with the artists and familiarising himself with their environments.

The exhibition is the result of this two-month shoot. A number of images from this exhibition can be found in WORKING while others are the photographer’s own selection of unpublished images from his sessions with the artists.

The artists for the WORK project are: Ahmad Fuad Osman, Ahmad Shukri Mohamed, Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Chong Siew Ying, Hamir Soib, Jalaini Abu Hassan, Kow Leong Kiang, Raja Shahriman Raja Aziddin, Ramlan Abdullah and Yee I-Lann.

WORKING launch + 10 Malaysian Artists: Portraits from the WORK Project by Tara Sosrowardoyo

will be held at Zinc Art Space
Lot 61, Jalan Maarof, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur

on 2nd October at 8pm

The exhibition will run from 2 to 12 October 2010
RSVP contact@rogueart.asia +60 16 266 7413 www.rogueart.asia

With thanks to ZINC

Opening hours Monday – Saturday 12pm – 7pm Sundays & Public Holidays open by appointment info@zinc.com.my +6 03 22825388 www.zinc.com.my