Bridging genres and themes, multidisciplinary artist Zai Kuning’s sociopolitically-engaged works and performances are often centred around Southeast Asian rituals and tradition. Considered a pioneer of avant-garde practice in Singapore, his practice ranges across theatre, music, film, poetry, painting, dance, performance and installation art. In recent years, Kuning’s trademark has become rattan boats held together with only string and wax, inspired by forgotten Malay histories—particularly that of Dapunta Hyang Jayenasa, the first Malay king and considered by historians to be a ruthless conqueror. Kuning’s interest in performance began while studying under a poet and village priest in Toyabungkah, Bali, observing the rhythm of rituals in everyday life. Back in Singapore, he obtained degrees in ceramics and fine arts from LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Kuning is known for sealing art objects with various materials (oftentimes wax), withholding the presence of the object from a capitalistic society sustained by spectacle. His gesture is a threefold resistance of the violence of classification, commodification of work and the history of art-as-image. Indeed, for years Kuning refused to show in commercial galleries.
Read MoreIn 1992, during a residency at The Substation in Singapore (an institution he would remain closely involved with for years), Kuning founded Metabolic Theatre Laboratory, a research-oriented dance theatre company. Formed with an objective to search for a physical language and movement rooted in Southeast Asian tradition, the Laboratory was disbanded in 2001. This marked a turning point in Kuning’s career when he began to focus on drawing, solo performance, sculpture and music. As a composer and musician, he performs a blend of electronic music that incorporates electric guitar, vocals and computers, collaborating with musicians and dancers from Singapore, Japan and China, including a tour of Japan with bassist and composer Tetsu Saitoh. Often considered subversive or daring, his performances, (he once used dead chickens as props) his works have been censored from certain exhibitions for being ‘too controversial’.
For the past two decades, Kuning has devoted his work to an effort to uncover the pre-Islamic arts and culture of the Malay people. His research has taken him to the Riau Archipelago, where he tracked down the Orang Laut or ‘sea gypsies’, a centuries-old and notoriously reclusive nomadic community who travel from island to island, following the cyclical supply of fish and food. Identifying with their independent and nautical lifestyle, Kuning’s practice has since reflected the recent hardships that the Orang Laut face, including the hindering of food supply due to resort developments, clean water shortages and harsh weather conditions. Through his travels and interactions with the Orang Laut, Kuning also became acquainted with performers of mak yong, an ancient Malay operatic tradition which faces extinction as the last remaining masters die off. His works and performances, while resisting outright representation, have since widely referenced the richness of the once-banned performative style.
From 1992–94, Kuning held the post of president of the Artists’ Village, a contemporary art group that promotes experimental and avant-garde art in Singapore. In 2003, he initiated Onistudio, a small space focused on performance, talks, exhibitions and dialogues, sound art, musical experimentation and punk culture, supported by a Chinese karaoke bar. Having exhibited widely in Singapore, in 2017, Kuning represented the city-state at the 57th Venice Biennale with his presentation Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge (13 May–26 November 2017): a suspended 17-metre-long rattan boat, accompanied by photographs of mak yong performers and wax-sealed books, a reference to the transference of culture implicit in voyages and trade.
Elliat Albrecht | Ocula | 2017
