If in Singapore, do try to catch this exhibition at ICAS. The nice attendant may tell you that it’s too philosophical for her and Da Wu may have thrown a veil over the wall text, but what it expresses, to me at least, may just be too true, simple enough and yet too complex for us to swallow. A dark fire among the shiny bright lights that the island state basks under. Situationist Bon Ga runs to 10 April, ICAS closed Mondays. (BY)

 

 

 

 

 

It was well worth the journey out to Kochi to catch this. Inspiring. The official site: http://kochimuzirisbiennale.org/. (BY)

It’s been such a manic end of year, we’ve barely had a moment to blog. So before we step into 2013, a few highlights and events from the past couple of months:

 

1-29 December Euphoria at Numthong Gallery at Aree – breathtaking landscape paintings by Niti Wattuya, some stretching to six metres.

 

8 December-14 April (2013) The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7) at GOMA and QAG Brisbane – we finally made it to APT, now 20 years old, and were glad we did. Many happy reunions with old friends at the opening, and a generally laid-back experience with interesting sights and sounds. We especially enjoyed Kids APT!

1 December VWFA closing party – we bid a sad final farewell to Valentine Willie Fine Art and the Bangsar gallery.

 

26 October-6 January Thai Transience at Singapore Art Museum – last chance to catch this wonderful exhibition of contemporary and traditional art works and objects from Thailand, curated by Apinan Poshyananda, organised as part of Thai CulturalFest.

 

2 November-5 December  Milenko Prvacki: A Survey, 1979 – 2012 at Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (ICAS) – Charles Merewether in his notes to the exhibition describes Milenko Prvacki as “one of the most important painters today” and indeed, this exhibition truly showed there to be a giant among us.

 

7-28 November at VWFA KL Painted Words and Written Paintings: For the Refined and For the Masses – a fitting last solo exhibition at VWFA’s flagship Bangsar gallery. Malaysian painter Liew Kwai Fei has gone in a surprising, interesting new direction, pulling off a show bursting with colourful exuberance, brimming with angry social criticism.

 

1-20 November at TAKSU KL No Talking Points – it was refreshing, in this time of quick fixes, to come across this quietly, carefully thought-out exhibition of challenging paintings and objects by a generation of Pinoy artists of true mettle, including Bernardo Pacquing, Cris Villanueva Jr, Elaine Navas, Hubert San Juan, Juan Alacazaren, Nilo Ilarde, Pete Jimenez, and the younger Lyle Buencamino.

(BY)

 

Curated by T.K. Sabapathy, this inaugural show at ADM gallery at Nanyang Technological University is well worth the hike if you are in Singapore. A rare opportunity to visit/revisit important works by Jim Supangkat, Tang Da Wu, Redza Piyadasa, Cheo Chai Hiang, Nindityo Adipurnomo, Brenda Fajardo, Zai Kuning, Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Bayu Utomo Radjikin, Amanda Heng, Ho Tzu Nyen, among others. TKS explores the connections and tensions between these many powerful artistic statements with characteristic sharpness. Intersecting Histories runs to 24 November 2012. The accompanying publication is due out soon.

(BY)

 

A very big congratulations to MARS (Malaysian Art Archive and Research Support), which was launched  at HOM over the weekend. Initiated by Bayu Utomo Radjikin and Nur Hanim Khairuddin, MARS is planned as a “nonprofit research support center that compiles, preserves, and archives mainly printed materials related to Malaysian visual and fine arts intended for the consumption of researchers, students, and interested parties” (HOM website). The fundraising exhibition Transit A4 at HOM brought together 77 Malaysian artists and this made for a raucous launch crowd. It’s the beginning of something beautiful!

 

Meanwhile, back at the RogueArt ranch, our more modest SEARCH Library is slowly taking shape – made up of our own collection of SEA publications and the loan of regional titles from the VK Collection, we hope to have it open by appointment by December. It’s very exciting to be part of a wider push for better research, documentation and access, and we look forward to linking up with MARS and other regional resource sites in the near future.

(BY)

 

 

 

 

We thought we’d spice things up a little here and invite Simon Soon to be our first ever guest blogger for RogueArt! Writer, curator Mr. Soon (or “Bapak Segera” as he is fondly known in Indonesia) is currently pursuing his PHD at University of Sydney and is researching the developments of Southeast Asian art during the 1950s to the 1970s. Without further a due, I hand you over to Mr. Simon Soon (AO):

 

 

An Indonesian art history defining event doesn’t happen every day, month or year. I therefore consider myself very lucky to be able to catch the first ever Raden Saleh exhibition organised in this part of the world. ‘Raden Saleh and the Beginning of Modern Painting in Indonesia’, curated by Werner Kraus was according to Pak Werner 25 years (on and off) in the making. It brings together around forty works by the 19th century Javanese painter, many of them normally stashed away in private collections, to provide us viewing public with the rare opportunity to study a diverse range of works from landscapes to drawing manuals, portraits to his famous attempt at history painting. Judging by the numbers who turned up, the Indonesian public of all age groups were responding enthusiastically to the show. The rush, however, could also be attributed to the unfortunate fact that the exhibition would only be up for two short weeks from 3 – 17 June 2012 at the Galeri Nasional Indonesia in Jakarta.

 

 

As an artist who continuously sought to reinvent himself, Raden Saleh took on many guises (at times as the European dandy, at others the Javanese prince) to his advantage as he moved within Europe’s high society. This comes through in his art. Take The Arrest of Diponegoro, Portrait of a Javanese Couple and Portrait of Raden Ayu Muning Kasari as comparison: all three works were painted in 1857 yet demonstrate significant versatility in terms of style, content and intent. They suggest that Raden Saleh’s painterly verve was very much a reflection of his shape shifting personality, one that was never wholly committed to a particular cultural identity and was always hybrid.

 

 

The weekend of 9 – 10 June also brought together academics from a range of different disciplines in a symposium ‘On Hybrid Times: Developments in Javanese Society and the Arts in the Late 19th Century’. The lectures offered a window into 19th century Java and touches on a wonderfully diverse range of subjects, such as colonial furniture, lithographs of the East Indies, iconography in 19th century Southeast Asian paintings, aesthetic debates in early Javanese printed media, as well as other art historical gems which sought to explain the complexities of Raden Saleh as an artistic figure, his artworks and his legacy. On a lighter note, there was also an attempt to capture the ethos of Raden Saleh as a debonaire in a tribute fashion show inspired by the artist, who was known in his day to design his own clothes! (SS)

 

 

For more pictures of the exhibition, please visit IndoArtNow here.

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

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.