Singapore Biennale 2013: An amazing showcase of Asian contemporary art
PUBLISHED October 21st, 2013 02:57 am | UPDATED January 20th, 2016 03:51 pm
If you’re a contemporary art lover, you will be keenly aware that the Singapore Biennale 2013 is fast approaching. Returning this year with the title If the World Changed, it boldly invites everyone to re-consider or re-imagine the world we live in with a diverse range of works from over 80 artists primarily with links to Southeast Asia, of which more than half are new commissions.
Keeping things close to home, this year’s Biennale comes with a distinctly Asian identity brought to you by a curatorial team of 27, combining their expertise and harnessing the energy of the Southeast Asian region to shape the premier contemporary art exhibition.
A veritable artistic hothouse, expect to see performance works by artists such as Sharon Chin (Malaysia) and Lee Wen (Singapore); paintings by artists including Tan Wei Kheng (Malaysia) and Leslie de Chavez (Philippines); video works by Manny Montelibano (Philippines), Nguyen Trinh Thi (Vietnam) and Khvay Samnang (Cambodia); sculptures by Tran Nam (Vietnam) as well as installation works by Shieko Reto (Malaysia), Nge Lay (Myanmar), Joo Choon Lin (Singapore), Leroy Sofyan (Singapore) and Oscar Villamiel (Philippines) and the list goes on…and on.
Looking through the incredible line up of proposed works from the artists, we were taken on a fantastic visual and conceptual journey as these artists outlined how they set to unleash their imaginations and artistic prowess all across Singapore. We were so bowled over, it was very hard to write this piece and pick our highlights, and so the snapshot you see below is just a very small one of those works which made us sit up and by attention.
1. Toko Keperluan by Anggun Priambodo (Indonesia) at SAM at 8Q
“Shopping is my escape route from reality when I am bored stiff with the mundane living. Subsequently hypnotising us to replace the contents into our inner private space. Everyone must have felt that they were being caught in a consumer trap from cradle to crypt.” Well that’s a statement we couldn’t agree more with, and so for this artist’s installation, expect to see an exhibition gallery transformed into a shopping store-  toying with the buy-and-sell and prevalent shopping culture – and in so doing creating a mini market. The artist will invite people to shop at this store and also persuade us to ponder again on the objects of our affection which are our daily needs.
2. Wormhole by Eko Prawoto (Indonesia) at National Museum of Singapore (Level 1)
If you ever wondered what it might feel or look like inside a wormhole, then Eko Prawoto’s work might go somewhat towards enlightening you – albeit in the most beautifully artistic way. Using natural, rustic materials in monumental structures the artist’s works are known to transform the familiar, often pedestrian sites they occupy into poetic spaces for contemplation, discovery, and transformation and we’re looking forward to experiencing that for ourselves first hand.
3.  Imagination In A Bottle (working title) by Nasirun (Indonesia) at Singapore Art Museum Level 1
The inspiration for this work came from Nasirun’s observation of the influence of television today and the hold that it has on its viewers. Television, for the artist, is essentially a glass box filled with light, across which myriad characters play out their roles in a never-ending drama. In a similar vein, Nasirun has created his own cast of fictional characters – wayang puppets – which he has placed inside glass bottles and beakers, lit from below, to mimic the effect of television.
4. Crystal Palace: The Great Exhibition of the Works of all Nuclear Nations by Ken + Julia (Japan/Australia) at National Museum Of Singapore, Basement
The artists Ken + Julia Yonetani conceived the installation Crystal Palace: The Great Exhibition of the Works of all Nuclear Nations in response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power disaster in Japan. Comprising 30 antique chandelier frames and one replicated frame, the chandeliers have been fitted out with uranium glass. Once powered on, the UV bulbs cause the glass beads to glow with a haunting green. Collectively, the 31 pieces signal the existence of the 31 nuclear nations of our contemporary world, and the size of each chandelier corresponds to the number of operating nuclear plants that nation possesses. Combining a thrilling visceral beauty with uncertainty and ambivalence, similar to how some now feel towards the possibility of a nuclear powered future.
5. Peace can be realized even without order Space Ver. (Working Title) by teamLab (Japan) at Singapore Art Museum Level 3
There’s nothing more we love than interactive art that cleverly responds to the viewer. In this installation – an interactive diorama animation – each cut-out figure interacts in conjunction with one another and in reaction to the viewer’s presence. Depending on the way viewers navigate around the given space, motion sensors are set off to create an organic response – a symphony of sound and movement.
6. The Sick Classroom by Nge Lay (Myanmar) at Singapore Art Museum Level 2
This replica of a real-life classroom in Myanmar’s Thuye’dan Village is a culmination of Nge Lay’s investigative studies into Myanmar’s education system. In collaboration with a local craftsman, Nge Lay has sculpted in wood 26 students from the village school’s Grade 1 class. For the artist, Grade 1 is a monumental point in one’s life as it represents an individual’s first foray into formal education, and with this entry point, a fundamental right to life-long learning and the option of social mobility. Tracing back to General Ne Win’s military coup in 1962 and the subsequent 1988 violent university student-led demonstration, Myanmar’s education system has evolved overtime to be an important means by which the government regulates thought, leadership and behavior. The Sick Classroom therefore casts a wider lens on the state of surveillance in Myanmar and expresses the artist’s anxieties and concerns towards the uncertainty of one’s future.
7. The Halsema Project (working title) by AX(iS) Art Project (Philippines) at Singapore Art Museum Level 1
The Halsema Highway Project (working title) is fuelled by the concept of ‘Art Access for All’. Involving some 100 participants, it is driven through 14 art activities in collaboration with local communities along the 90 mile-long Halsema highway in the Cordilleras mountains. With artists, artisans, writers and cultural activists as the chroniclers of change, it culminates in the ‘Uncyclopedia’, an A-Z survival guide tackling topics such as the salt trade, colonialism, indigenous tattoos, dog-eating culture, and the perplexing popularity of country and western music in the mountains!
8.  Payatas by Oscar Villamiel (Philippines) at Singapore Art Museum Level 1
A slightly eerie sounding installation consisting of thousands of dolls excavated from the Manila landfill of the same name, Payatas. These discarded dolls – once playthings unto which girls cast their hopes and fantasies upon – have ended up in the city’s mountainous garbage dump. Payatas is also home to an estimated 200,000 people, many of whom – including children – scavenge for anything that can be ‘recycled’, repaired and sold. In this landscape of rejects and refuse, ‘nothing’ can be salvaged into ‘something’, and one man’s trash is another’s treasure.
9. Telok Blangah by Ahmad Abu Bakar (Singapore) at Singapore Art Museum Level 1
Telok Blangah features a traditional wooden Malay dinghy, filled with 1000 glass bottles inscribed with messages collected from male inmates of the Singapore Prisons. These messages describe the hope and aspirations of the inmates while in incarceration and upon their release. The messages, whilst amplifying the aspirations of the inmates, provides an avenue for the public to directly communicate by responding to each of these messages.
10. Rainbow Circle (Working Title) by Suzann Victor (Singapore) at National Museum Of Singapore, Level 1
Rainbow Circle is a work of unexpected contradictions and surprises: an outdoor natural spectacle has been ‘induced’ to reside within the stately colonial building of the National Museum of Singapore. It brings together advanced technology and the ancient science of optics while using the elements of nature as its very medium. Symbolically, the rainbow is widely associated with good luck, fortune and happiness, but its ephemeral nature also points to the darker side of pursuing hopes and dreams, remaining as elusive and unpredictable as the weather, for what the viewer gets to see and experience is ultimately dependent on the presence of sunlight.
11. I Have Seen A Sweeter Sky by Nopchai Ungkavatanapong (Thailand) at The Peranakan Museum
I Have Seen A Sweeter Sky is a site specific commission at the Peranakan Museum, comprising of found furniture which the artist disassembles, and reassemble into a new composition with stunning effect as a neon sculpture. The work is in part, inspired by the building’s histories as once the site of the Tao Nan School and the Asian Civilisations Museum.
We can not tell you just how excited we are to check out these, and other works and installations first hand. With so many incredible projects to explore, be sure to mark your diaries as Singapore’s premiere contemporary art exhibition takes over the city – quite literally.
Singapore Biennale 2013: If The World Changed is running from 26 October – 16 February throughout the Bras Basah.Bugis Precinct at the following locations:  Fort Canning Park, National Library Building, National Museum of Singapore, The Peranakan Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Waterloo Centre.
Admission is $10 and allows one-time entry to participating museum venues (including permanent galleries) including one complimentary short guide with free admission to certain locations. Look out for the smart phone app launching soon allowing you to customize your own SB2013 trial, available for free download on iTunes and the Google Play store. For more information about what’s happening when… see here.
