Feature

7 Gallery Shows to See During Singapore Art Week 2024

By Elaine YJ Zheng | Singapore, 10 January 2024

Casey Tan, Muttnik (2023). Acrylic on canvas. 120 x 120 cm. Courtesy Cuturi Gallery.

The largest celebration of visual arts in Singapore returns this month with a monumental selection of exhibitions to see across Singapore Art Week (19–28 January 2024).

In addition to our recommended institutional offerings, we share seven exhibitions worth a visit at Singapore's galleries, including conceptual artist Heman Chong's solo presentation at STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, and Htein Lin's paintings on longyi (traditional Myanmar garb) at Richard Koh Fine Art.

Priyageetha Dia, Turbine Tropics (2023). Two-channel video (colour, sound). 11 min. Edition of 3 + 2 AP. Courtesy the artist and Yeo Workshop.

Priyageetha Dia & Maryanto: Archiving Landscape
Yenn and Alan Lo Foundation (presented by Yeo Workshop), 63 Kim Yam Road
17–28 January 2024

Expect: two moving-image works exploring Southeast Asia's geopolitical and postcolonial landscape.

Located in a shophouse on Kim Yam Road, Archiving Landscape presents two moving-image works by artists Priyageetha Dia and Maryanto that address socio-political concerns in Southeast Asia through the shifting landscapes of its natural environments.

Dismayed by the ongoing pillaging of land and natural resources in his native Indonesia, Maryanto presents a documentary that centres on the active volcano Mount Merapi. Also exhibited are the artist's earlier monochromatic paintings and drawings that allude to a more sustainable future.

Priyageetha Dia's two-channel video TURBINE TROPICS (2023) draws compelling links between the extractivism of colonial plantations and our present-day digital era. For the artist, the appropriation of data perpetuates, in a new guise, the historical disenfranchisement of Southeast Asia's plantations.

Heman Chong, A History of Amnesia / Alfian Sa'at (2014). Acrylic on canvas. 61 x 46 x 3.8 cm. © Heman Chong. Courtesy the artist and STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery.

Heman Chong: Meditations on Shadow Libraries
STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, 41 Robertson Quay
17 January–10 March 2024

Expect: conceptual artworks reflecting on the ideological nature of libraries, publishing, and the circulation of information.

Recalling recent debates on data privacy and online censorship, Singapore-based conceptual artist Heman Chong presents a solo exhibition of nine bodies of work that reflect on how information is recorded, shared, and controlled.

Curated by e-flux founding editor Brian Kuan Wood, Chong's exhibition takes as its primary concern the physical sites and conceptual ideologies of the public library. Conceived as a labyrinth of ideas, the exhibition explores the library's different forms, audiences, and functions in order to probe deeper questions about the accessibility of data and information.

J. Jackson, A Group of Rangoon Coolies (c. 1868). Courtesy Gajah Gallery.

Customised Postures, (De)colonising Gestures
Gajah Gallery, 39 Keppel Road
19 January–18 February 2024

Expect: to find connections between colonial photography and contemporary art in Southeast Asia.

Curated by Dr Alexander Supartono, Customised Postures, (De)colonising Gestures is a group exhibition of modern and contemporary photographic practices that investigates how the camera informed the body language and representational politics of Southeast Asian colonial subjects.

Exhibited alongside photographs from Southeast Asia's colonial era are multimedia artworks by contemporary artists including Abednego Trianto, Ashley Bickerton, and Robert Zhao, who, the exhibition suggests, develop historical iconography and portraiture as decolonising gestures.

Julia Trybala, The Dance of Life, after Edvard Munch (2023). Oil on canvas. 137.5 x 290.5 cm (triptych). Courtesy Yavuz Gallery.

Julia Trybala: Metabolism
Yavuz Gallery, 9 Lock Road, 2–23
13 January–18 February 2024

Expect: paintings about bodies, interpersonal relationships, and femininity.

Julia Trybala uses painting to convey the physicality and emotional complexity of human existence. Her figures are typically female and depicted close-up, their body parts cropped and contorted, almost near enough for viewers to touch.

Unsurprisingly, the paintings in Metabolism, Trybala's first exhibition in Asia, continue to draw from the artist's personal experiences such as her conversations with family and friends. Trybala also references art history in her paintings—The Dance of Life, after Edvard Munch (2023), for instance, reinterprets Munch's classic painting of a screaming figure.

Left to right: Casey Tan, Hours, Days & Years Slides Softly Away; Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy; Tequila Sunrise Sleepy Eyes (all 2023). Acrylic on canvas. 80 x 60 cm; 80 x 100 cm; 80 x 60 cm. Courtesy Cuturi Gallery.

Casey Tan: Night Call
Cuturi Gallery, 61 Aliwal Street
6 January–3 February 2024

Expect: dramatic paintings about the challenges of contemporary existence.

Casey Tan is a keen observer of everyday life within Singapore, depicting intergenerational interactions that capture the nuances of personal and familial relationships. Using a cool palette, Tan makes everyday scenes appear futuristic and dystopian.

One triptych shows three boys idling in a forest. One gazes into the distance, smoking a cigarette, while another stares in anguish at a fallen stack of geometric blocks. The third rests his head on a table, holding an empty wine glass. Asian koel birds crowd the foreground, suggesting something foreboding is awaiting the dejected youths.

Htein Lin, Over the wall (2023). Acrylic on canvas. 122 x 91 cm. Image Courtesy the artist and RKFA.

Htein Lin: Reincarceration
Richard Koh Fine Art, Block 47 Malan Road
13–27 January 2024

Expect: a veteran artist's reminder of the ongoing struggle for liberty and human rights in Myanmar.

In the 1990s, Htein Lin was sentenced to six years in prison for joining the 1988 uprisings against Myanmar's military government. While imprisoned, Lin produced paintings, drawings, and performances in profound quantities. Working around restrictions while in jail, Lin painted on prison uniforms using his fingers, lighters, syringes, and razor blades.

Lin was released from prison in 2004 only to be sentenced again in 2022, along with his wife and a former British diplomat, Vicky Bowman. Reincarceration focuses on paintings Lin made between both periods of his incarceration, highlighting the artist's enduring spirit and dedication to fighting for liberty and human rights in his home country.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, On Blue (2022). Single-channel video. 16 minutes 16 seconds. Courtesy Shanghart.

Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics
ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Rd, 2–22
17–30 January 2024

Expect: a multifaceted conversation between the voices of African and Asian diasporas.

ShanghART is one of the six venues of Translations, a major group exhibition curated by Zoé Whitley, Director of Chisenhale Gallery, delving into the interconnected narratives of Afro-Asian diaspora cultures.

The exhibition builds on writings of scholars such as Joan Kee and her recently published work The Geometries of Afro Asia (2023), which explores the understudied relationship between Black and Asian artists. In it, Kee asks a central question: 'What might an art history that is more receptive to the roughly three-quarters of the world's population who call Africa or Asia home, or who identify as Asian and/or Black, look like?'

The works on view include a large-scale installation by Tang Da Wu, Robert Zhao's durational photographs, and One Blue (2022), a single-channel video by Apichatpong Weerasethakul that revisits his earlier film Blue (2018) to contemplate those subtle moments between dreams and reality. —[O]