Betta Under The Radar
A broken on-line papier machine
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Fearless
Quick post hovering on the edge of the new year.
Gallery director and curator Beverly Yong has written a review of my solo show Boats and Bridges together with Chong Kim Chiew's Isolation House. It's on kakiseni.com, or click on this linky here to go there:
http://www.kakiseni.com/articles/reviews/MDgwMg.html
It's a great article and makes me feel good about the coming year, which is going to be ferocious in many ways. I feel it in my bones.
Headaches and cold sweat thinking about money, deadlines and the possibility of failure. But deep inside I am fearless.
I would like to say thank you to all the friends - the best people a terminally short-of-funds artist could ever ask for. Thank you for the free meals and soft loans, support and laughter. I would do anything for you guys, anything in the world.
Happy New Year. ¶ 12:44 PM 0 comments
Gallery director and curator Beverly Yong has written a review of my solo show Boats and Bridges together with Chong Kim Chiew's Isolation House. It's on kakiseni.com, or click on this linky here to go there:
http://www.kakiseni.com/articles/reviews/MDgwMg.html
It's a great article and makes me feel good about the coming year, which is going to be ferocious in many ways. I feel it in my bones.
Headaches and cold sweat thinking about money, deadlines and the possibility of failure. But deep inside I am fearless.
I would like to say thank you to all the friends - the best people a terminally short-of-funds artist could ever ask for. Thank you for the free meals and soft loans, support and laughter. I would do anything for you guys, anything in the world.
Happy New Year. ¶ 12:44 PM 0 comments
Friday, December 30, 2005
The Observatory at 3am
Men and women are such beasts to each other.
Each claims to understand the agony of heartbreak, yet in the next moment they are seen to inflict such pain upon another person. As if they believe it is their words that make them what they are, not their actions.
Sometimes I wonder at how badly we use each other. How much thoughtlessness and callousness we indulge in! And I wonder at how we bear it.
We are flawed, but I believe we have it in us to be gentlemanly creatures, both men and women. Can it be so difficult to simply be kind, have regard and respect for another, to be courteous, to be honorable and loyal? It's not rocket science, people.
'But it's boring', said a friend. Perhaps she's right.
Each claims to understand the agony of heartbreak, yet in the next moment they are seen to inflict such pain upon another person. As if they believe it is their words that make them what they are, not their actions.
Sometimes I wonder at how badly we use each other. How much thoughtlessness and callousness we indulge in! And I wonder at how we bear it.
We are flawed, but I believe we have it in us to be gentlemanly creatures, both men and women. Can it be so difficult to simply be kind, have regard and respect for another, to be courteous, to be honorable and loyal? It's not rocket science, people.
'But it's boring', said a friend. Perhaps she's right.
Labels: sweet misery
¶ 11:25 AM 2 comments
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Welter
Vast continents
Closer to home
Floating lines
Throw me a bone
This is welter land
This is welter land
Tip of the tongue
At the roof the mouth
At the touch of your hand
We'll head to the south
This is welter land
This is welter land
Take a breath
Capitalize
Hold it at the corner of the eye
Consolidate
5 bucks over
And free to do anything
5 pieces of silver
This is welter land
This is welter land
I hear
Death around the corner
On a friend's bed
Still 5 minutes left
For a bit of laughter
Couple of moments
Right before the border
Right before we say
This is welter land
This is welter land
Where there are no shadows
Because no one stands ¶ 1:52 AM 0 comments
Closer to home
Floating lines
Throw me a bone
This is welter land
This is welter land
Tip of the tongue
At the roof the mouth
At the touch of your hand
We'll head to the south
This is welter land
This is welter land
Take a breath
Capitalize
Hold it at the corner of the eye
Consolidate
5 bucks over
And free to do anything
5 pieces of silver
This is welter land
This is welter land
I hear
Death around the corner
On a friend's bed
Still 5 minutes left
For a bit of laughter
Couple of moments
Right before the border
Right before we say
This is welter land
This is welter land
Where there are no shadows
Because no one stands ¶ 1:52 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Persiaran Zaaba, TTDI
WALKER
There is a man who walks up and down the street. In the 6 months since moving into the neighbourhood I have observed him engaged in this activity everyday. It appears he does nothing else, for I see him at all hours. Sometimes he is smoking a cigarette, sometimes he is looking at a piece of paper, but mostly his arms hang limply at his sides.
He moves with a very steady, plodding stride at a speed that is constant. He seems to have purpose. He does not act at all like an aimless vagabond, not like the one who strides up and down the LDP barefoot and wild-eyed. I don't think he is mad. Yet he does not look as if he has spoken in a long time, or has need for words. His language is all in the movement of his lower limbs, and direction of his walk. I have questions, but I am loathe to break his rhythm just to satisfy my own curiosity.
He seems quite well-kept for each day he wears a new set of clothes. And he is not gaunt, in fact I have noticed that he has grown rather fat of late. Instead of shoes he wears a shabby-looking pair of brown slippers. The slippers have not changed since the first day of my observation.
What is quite strange is that lately he appears to have aged! He was not very old to begin with. Today I was driving quite close to him and noticed that is hair was shot through with grey, where it had been throughly black not 6 months before. What if, I thought, time only moves for this man if he walks! If he were to stop walking, I have the most uncomfortable feeling that he would drop down dead, and that is why I can't bring myself to interrupt his little pilgrimage to nowhere.
----------
OPERA
There is a child who lives next to us who possesses the shrillest, most annoying voice in the world. It seems to speak only in one frequency, piercingly pitched and heartlessly constant. All day long it rips through the neighborhood, setting one's teeth on edge and one's bile on fire. It seems to be communicating something, but really it is difficult to make out any sort of speech.
Then there is a baby who lives across the road who communicates in long, shocking, shrieking bawls. I have observed that it particularly comes alive during the most peaceful part of the day, which is evening. At this time, when both child and baby cast their shrieks across the road, the noise level reaches a crescendo and becomes detached from any sort of bodily source.
I call this moment in my day 'The Madness of Suburbia'. It is opera music for the middle-class and I sit out front smoking, listening to it against a backdrop cast of Honda Civics, Indonesian maids, and the daily life of linked terrace houses.
----------
BIRDCALLS
The vege-man comes at 10am, and his horn goes doot-doot, doot-doot in fairly long intervals.
The garbage truck comes at 11am, and its engine hums and growls like Cerberus at the gates of Hades.
The paper-man generally comes around noon and plays a recording of a child's voice shouting paper-lama/old newspaper/sau tau bo chi/siew chi po zhi in an endless loop of repetition.
The gas-man comes later than the paper-man and his horn is four doot-doot-doot-doot's in quick succession.
The putu mayam man is fairly regular at around 3 or 4pm. His horn is noticeably smaller sounding, more like a poot than a doot. It sounds a single note at long intervals.
The ice-cream man comes at his own vagary, announcing himself with a constant ringing bell.
The roti-man comes in the evenings, and his horn is like the cry of a bird. Two notes - one long poot, followed by a short sharp pit. Poot-pit, poot-pit, just like that. ¶ 6:17 PM 0 comments
WALKER
There is a man who walks up and down the street. In the 6 months since moving into the neighbourhood I have observed him engaged in this activity everyday. It appears he does nothing else, for I see him at all hours. Sometimes he is smoking a cigarette, sometimes he is looking at a piece of paper, but mostly his arms hang limply at his sides.
He moves with a very steady, plodding stride at a speed that is constant. He seems to have purpose. He does not act at all like an aimless vagabond, not like the one who strides up and down the LDP barefoot and wild-eyed. I don't think he is mad. Yet he does not look as if he has spoken in a long time, or has need for words. His language is all in the movement of his lower limbs, and direction of his walk. I have questions, but I am loathe to break his rhythm just to satisfy my own curiosity.
He seems quite well-kept for each day he wears a new set of clothes. And he is not gaunt, in fact I have noticed that he has grown rather fat of late. Instead of shoes he wears a shabby-looking pair of brown slippers. The slippers have not changed since the first day of my observation.
What is quite strange is that lately he appears to have aged! He was not very old to begin with. Today I was driving quite close to him and noticed that is hair was shot through with grey, where it had been throughly black not 6 months before. What if, I thought, time only moves for this man if he walks! If he were to stop walking, I have the most uncomfortable feeling that he would drop down dead, and that is why I can't bring myself to interrupt his little pilgrimage to nowhere.
----------
OPERA
There is a child who lives next to us who possesses the shrillest, most annoying voice in the world. It seems to speak only in one frequency, piercingly pitched and heartlessly constant. All day long it rips through the neighborhood, setting one's teeth on edge and one's bile on fire. It seems to be communicating something, but really it is difficult to make out any sort of speech.
Then there is a baby who lives across the road who communicates in long, shocking, shrieking bawls. I have observed that it particularly comes alive during the most peaceful part of the day, which is evening. At this time, when both child and baby cast their shrieks across the road, the noise level reaches a crescendo and becomes detached from any sort of bodily source.
I call this moment in my day 'The Madness of Suburbia'. It is opera music for the middle-class and I sit out front smoking, listening to it against a backdrop cast of Honda Civics, Indonesian maids, and the daily life of linked terrace houses.
----------
BIRDCALLS
The vege-man comes at 10am, and his horn goes doot-doot, doot-doot in fairly long intervals.
The garbage truck comes at 11am, and its engine hums and growls like Cerberus at the gates of Hades.
The paper-man generally comes around noon and plays a recording of a child's voice shouting paper-lama/old newspaper/sau tau bo chi/siew chi po zhi in an endless loop of repetition.
The gas-man comes later than the paper-man and his horn is four doot-doot-doot-doot's in quick succession.
The putu mayam man is fairly regular at around 3 or 4pm. His horn is noticeably smaller sounding, more like a poot than a doot. It sounds a single note at long intervals.
The ice-cream man comes at his own vagary, announcing himself with a constant ringing bell.
The roti-man comes in the evenings, and his horn is like the cry of a bird. Two notes - one long poot, followed by a short sharp pit. Poot-pit, poot-pit, just like that. ¶ 6:17 PM 0 comments
Monday, December 26, 2005
Le Blanc Fichus de B.
Today in the mail is another brown envelope. It came from Norway and bears the gift of a snowy white hand-knitted scarf. Now the temperature in KL doesn't go below 29 degrees, although it has been known to hail like the coming of the apocalypse. I am tempted to unravel the wool and use its length in some artwork - as a distance marker of some sort - the labor used to knit the long length is like traveling, gobbling up distance from one destination to another.
[I'm also reminded of one of Liz Presa's sculptures, based on a text by Jean-Luc Nancy called 'Fichus', or 'scarf' in French.]
But no. I shall hang it up on a dress hook and there it will wait in infinite patience, until sometime in the near future when it will be packed up, taken to another destination and used for its original purpose.
Many thanks and heartfelt appreciations to B. Don't worry, I won't do any unraveling!
[I'm also reminded of one of Liz Presa's sculptures, based on a text by Jean-Luc Nancy called 'Fichus', or 'scarf' in French.]
But no. I shall hang it up on a dress hook and there it will wait in infinite patience, until sometime in the near future when it will be packed up, taken to another destination and used for its original purpose.
Many thanks and heartfelt appreciations to B. Don't worry, I won't do any unraveling!
Labels: friends
¶ 10:37 PM 0 comments
The Red Pen [Chapter 1: The Cave of Red Rubies]
Once upon a time there was an ogre with no teeth. He wrote stories with a red, red pen.
The pen was as red as the heart of a bird or the gills of a fish.
He wrote his stories upon the gummy mass of his vast, toothless mouth, scratching deeply with the pen so that the words were inscribed there forever.
He fed on words and he was quite hideously mad.
He wrote a story of two old people who once loved each other dearly but had lost their souls in sordid affairs.
He wrote of a tree in Hyde Park that was being preyed upon by countless parasites deep within its trunk. The tree suffered greatly and bore flowers the color of dried blood. Children who played near it would have frightening dreams at night.
He wrote of the lives of paintings, lost forever in underground caves off the island of Galapagos. They are guarded by the ancient, malevolent ghosts of pirates. One of them is a deeply unflattering portrait of Emperor Napolean.
He wrote many stories. Some he ate, some he spoke.
At night he would sleep with his great maw wide open. It appeared to unwary travelers as a cave of glittering rubies. Invariably, they would be compelled to investigate, and as we know the nature of humankind, would be further compelled to chip off one of the wondrous, blood-red rubies.
This invariably woke the ogre, who would invariably eat the unwary traveler. His toothless mouth would snap shut with vicious speed and strength, and with a slow grinding motion would crush the bones of his victim, much as a python does before swallowing its prey.
The blood, naturally, he would use to fill his pen. He could not remember how he had come by the pen, only that he had had it for years beyond years. Existing with the pen was the insatiable hunger for words, and warm human flesh, and madness. ¶ 3:49 PM 0 comments
The pen was as red as the heart of a bird or the gills of a fish.
He wrote his stories upon the gummy mass of his vast, toothless mouth, scratching deeply with the pen so that the words were inscribed there forever.
He fed on words and he was quite hideously mad.
He wrote a story of two old people who once loved each other dearly but had lost their souls in sordid affairs.
He wrote of a tree in Hyde Park that was being preyed upon by countless parasites deep within its trunk. The tree suffered greatly and bore flowers the color of dried blood. Children who played near it would have frightening dreams at night.
He wrote of the lives of paintings, lost forever in underground caves off the island of Galapagos. They are guarded by the ancient, malevolent ghosts of pirates. One of them is a deeply unflattering portrait of Emperor Napolean.
He wrote many stories. Some he ate, some he spoke.
At night he would sleep with his great maw wide open. It appeared to unwary travelers as a cave of glittering rubies. Invariably, they would be compelled to investigate, and as we know the nature of humankind, would be further compelled to chip off one of the wondrous, blood-red rubies.
This invariably woke the ogre, who would invariably eat the unwary traveler. His toothless mouth would snap shut with vicious speed and strength, and with a slow grinding motion would crush the bones of his victim, much as a python does before swallowing its prey.
The blood, naturally, he would use to fill his pen. He could not remember how he had come by the pen, only that he had had it for years beyond years. Existing with the pen was the insatiable hunger for words, and warm human flesh, and madness. ¶ 3:49 PM 0 comments
Friday, December 23, 2005
X'mas Warmth and All That
Seasons greetings to everybody. Peace and goodwill be upon you. May you have successful, witty parties (or be invited to one); if not you're welcome to hang out my place where I will be celebrating Christmas Eve by burning a book. Just silly things artists do to bring a little warmth into their lives. More on that later.
My wish for Christmas : That people keep their consumption minimal and buy only what they need. That the number one present given all over the world is either a basic bicycle, or a book. That you kl-ites stay away from the malls and instead spend your holiday concentrating on getting better in bed. Thank you very much.
Merry Christmas. ¶ 9:58 PM 0 comments
My wish for Christmas : That people keep their consumption minimal and buy only what they need. That the number one present given all over the world is either a basic bicycle, or a book. That you kl-ites stay away from the malls and instead spend your holiday concentrating on getting better in bed. Thank you very much.
Merry Christmas. ¶ 9:58 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Killing Jar
This is a series I made for Valentine Willie's Art - / +1000 show, 1 - 15 Dec 2005. It was billed as a 'sale' show, so little red 'sold' stickers spread like a desirable rash over the course of opening night. I'm very happy to say that a collector bought all four in the series! This means they will stay together - Happy Families.
These jars are the same ones that you find filled with sweets in coffeeshops and mamaks. You can get them at a dusty shop in Old PJ, alongside the most extensive collection of melamine-ware thine eyes will ever have the thrill of beholding.
In terms of collecting, sometimes the equipment is more fascinating than the collections themselves. Boxes, wooden framed cabinets with hinged lids of fine venetian glass, jars, labels, pins, nets, etc. They seem so futile! All about preserving, containing, classifying and displaying - they say a lot about the collector.
I don't really like to keep things, but when isolated in glass jars, transparent ideas take shape and form. They're very public because everyone can see inside, but they are still protected (trapped?) by fragile glass. This is pretty useful for observation purposes. Events can turn morbid though - leave the lids on too long and things die a slow death...
__________________________________________
Sharon Chin, City Scurvy, Acrylic on glass, 2005
[Couple of days ago, I recieved a phone call that informed me that whilst packing this work, the glass had slipped and cracked. This was in the early morning, and the call happened to retrieve me from a rather unpleasant nightmare I had been having. Weird.]
Sharon Chin, N.o. Substance : Disc 1 Disc 2, Acrylic on glass, 2005
[Numbers are the time for each song on New Order's double disc album Substance. Inside is the list of song titles]
Sharon Chin, Dream, Acrylic on glass & acetate, 2005
[Text is the parts of a sailing ship, minus the ship. Inside the inner bottle is a boat folded from clear acetate]
Sharon Chin, Lover, Acrylic on glass & windshield fragments, 2005
[Longtitude lines and lattitude lines. Two fragments from a broken windshield in their respective time zones]
These jars are the same ones that you find filled with sweets in coffeeshops and mamaks. You can get them at a dusty shop in Old PJ, alongside the most extensive collection of melamine-ware thine eyes will ever have the thrill of beholding.
In terms of collecting, sometimes the equipment is more fascinating than the collections themselves. Boxes, wooden framed cabinets with hinged lids of fine venetian glass, jars, labels, pins, nets, etc. They seem so futile! All about preserving, containing, classifying and displaying - they say a lot about the collector.
I don't really like to keep things, but when isolated in glass jars, transparent ideas take shape and form. They're very public because everyone can see inside, but they are still protected (trapped?) by fragile glass. This is pretty useful for observation purposes. Events can turn morbid though - leave the lids on too long and things die a slow death...
__________________________________________
Sharon Chin, City Scurvy, Acrylic on glass, 2005
[Couple of days ago, I recieved a phone call that informed me that whilst packing this work, the glass had slipped and cracked. This was in the early morning, and the call happened to retrieve me from a rather unpleasant nightmare I had been having. Weird.]
Sharon Chin, N.o. Substance : Disc 1 Disc 2, Acrylic on glass, 2005
[Numbers are the time for each song on New Order's double disc album Substance. Inside is the list of song titles]
Sharon Chin, Dream, Acrylic on glass & acetate, 2005
[Text is the parts of a sailing ship, minus the ship. Inside the inner bottle is a boat folded from clear acetate]
Sharon Chin, Lover, Acrylic on glass & windshield fragments, 2005
[Longtitude lines and lattitude lines. Two fragments from a broken windshield in their respective time zones]
Labels: art
¶ 1:03 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Happenchance
A long dot
A short circle
On the floor
then in the sky
This is how you happen
Happen to chance
upon it
Every time
Every single time
I circle
Nothing ever happens
And this is how you happen
Happen to chance
upon me
Every corner
And every sea
I've gone just to leave
A circle
Hoping that you'll happen
Happen to chance
upon
You take a long time
You take such a long time
A short circle
On the floor
then in the sky
This is how you happen
Happen to chance
upon it
Every time
Every single time
I circle
Nothing ever happens
And this is how you happen
Happen to chance
upon me
Every corner
And every sea
I've gone just to leave
A circle
Hoping that you'll happen
Happen to chance
upon
You take a long time
You take such a long time
Labels: B.A.P.
¶ 1:18 PM 0 comments
Monday, December 19, 2005
Grosse Pointe Blank
Renting this movie is like making these barrage of posts. It means therapy, ladies and gentlemen. Consider this quote:
"Where are all the good men dead, in the heart? Or in the head?"
Yes, thank you, you have said exactly what needs to be said at the exact moment it needed to be said. I probably need to stop having conversations with movies like they are people. But then again if people said stuff like this I'd talk to them like they were people too. ¶ 10:55 PM 1 comments
"Where are all the good men dead, in the heart? Or in the head?"
Yes, thank you, you have said exactly what needs to be said at the exact moment it needed to be said. I probably need to stop having conversations with movies like they are people. But then again if people said stuff like this I'd talk to them like they were people too. ¶ 10:55 PM 1 comments
Writing as smooth as...
It is amazing. I was asked to write a short essay for Y.B.L., a young local painter who is currently artist-in-residence at R. D. I have been putting it off for days, preferring to write an endless number of blog postings on a remarkable hodgepodge of subjects. Today I sit down at my computer to begin work on this essay, titled On Moving Out, and Moving In, and I spit it out in an endless breathless run of two hours. There, it's done. And it's only 10pm. And in between there had also been a reasonably long phone-call interval.
I owe this efficacy to this blog and its faithful (if silent) readers. Also probably to the new book I have recently acquired: Paul Auster's Collected Prose. It is an anthology that includes his critical writings on such diverse personalities as Art Spiegalman (author of Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel Maus), french poet Jacques Dupin and American poet Linda Jackson. His style is trenchant, potent, humorous, dark. He writes words like an artist makes art, that is, one half instinct and talent, the other half sheer breathtaking craft. He compels you, page after page, to swallow the words. I am completely awed. This is a perfect example in which good reading engenders good writing.
The last time I wrote this easily was the first time I had a joint. This is much better. If you ask nicely, I may post the results of that first encounter with herbal supplements.
I will post the essay after it is published.
I owe this efficacy to this blog and its faithful (if silent) readers. Also probably to the new book I have recently acquired: Paul Auster's Collected Prose. It is an anthology that includes his critical writings on such diverse personalities as Art Spiegalman (author of Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel Maus), french poet Jacques Dupin and American poet Linda Jackson. His style is trenchant, potent, humorous, dark. He writes words like an artist makes art, that is, one half instinct and talent, the other half sheer breathtaking craft. He compels you, page after page, to swallow the words. I am completely awed. This is a perfect example in which good reading engenders good writing.
The last time I wrote this easily was the first time I had a joint. This is much better. If you ask nicely, I may post the results of that first encounter with herbal supplements.
I will post the essay after it is published.
Labels: art writing
¶ 10:42 PM 0 comments
The Brown Envelope from P.
Today I received mail from an old friend in London. It came in a brown envelope, and was filled with a series of postcards, as well as pamphlets for two shows at Turbine Hall at the Tate - Rachel Whiteread's Embankment and Bruce Nauman's Raw Materials
Included was a beautiful card in a gilded envelope. I like the card very much, but I like the envelope especially - it sits beside me now. It is gold all over, a rich russet gold. And there is a poem on the back of the card, an extract from Serenade by Oscar Wilde:
The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark Aegean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! The purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!
Amongst these delights was also a very good photo of Embankment. Now this installation by Rachel Whiteread consists of thousands of reconstructed common cardboard boxes in translucent polyethylene. In her photograph, my friend managed to capture the whiteness of the boxes, and for some strange reason, every viewer wandering in the installation at that moment is dressed in black. A reflection upon London fashion in winter? Perhaps. Whatever it is, these figures in black complete her work, and I believe Embankment should never be photographed without at least a few people in dark clothes milling about.
Quite a few people have thought that I like Rachel Whiteread's work, and I suppose I can see why. But the truth is I am undecided. On the one hand, I love a good cast, and that is what her work is all about - taking perfect casts of monumental things. She made one of the interior of a library that I am particularly attached to. However, it seems austere to me, severe, too serious even. And something fundamental in me resists against the monumental, the all-in-one grand statement. I like works that hint at poetic games and puzzles. A kind of system invention that has idiosyncratic rules! I also like works that take other works as starting points, hence I am a great admirer of Elizabeth Presa who uses a good deal of Derrida's text in her sculpture. Then there is Paul Auster, whose novels and prose are like a noir game or murder mystery without a solution.
I would consider Marcel Duchamp a mentor, a kindred spirit and all-round mischief maker. One day in the future when I am ready, I will make a series that is to be like a conversation with him. In my own work, I believe the idea of the game or toy will continue, but I hope they grow more mature, that the puzzles become both simpler and more sophisticated. Once the year is out and I begin working in earnest on the Australian Embassy show (opening April 2006), I look forward to constructing a series of text-filled kaleidoscopes.
My dear P., thank you for sending me all this stuff. As you can see it led to all kinds of thoughtful meanderings.
Included was a beautiful card in a gilded envelope. I like the card very much, but I like the envelope especially - it sits beside me now. It is gold all over, a rich russet gold. And there is a poem on the back of the card, an extract from Serenade by Oscar Wilde:
The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark Aegean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! The purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!
Amongst these delights was also a very good photo of Embankment. Now this installation by Rachel Whiteread consists of thousands of reconstructed common cardboard boxes in translucent polyethylene. In her photograph, my friend managed to capture the whiteness of the boxes, and for some strange reason, every viewer wandering in the installation at that moment is dressed in black. A reflection upon London fashion in winter? Perhaps. Whatever it is, these figures in black complete her work, and I believe Embankment should never be photographed without at least a few people in dark clothes milling about.
Quite a few people have thought that I like Rachel Whiteread's work, and I suppose I can see why. But the truth is I am undecided. On the one hand, I love a good cast, and that is what her work is all about - taking perfect casts of monumental things. She made one of the interior of a library that I am particularly attached to. However, it seems austere to me, severe, too serious even. And something fundamental in me resists against the monumental, the all-in-one grand statement. I like works that hint at poetic games and puzzles. A kind of system invention that has idiosyncratic rules! I also like works that take other works as starting points, hence I am a great admirer of Elizabeth Presa who uses a good deal of Derrida's text in her sculpture. Then there is Paul Auster, whose novels and prose are like a noir game or murder mystery without a solution.
I would consider Marcel Duchamp a mentor, a kindred spirit and all-round mischief maker. One day in the future when I am ready, I will make a series that is to be like a conversation with him. In my own work, I believe the idea of the game or toy will continue, but I hope they grow more mature, that the puzzles become both simpler and more sophisticated. Once the year is out and I begin working in earnest on the Australian Embassy show (opening April 2006), I look forward to constructing a series of text-filled kaleidoscopes.
My dear P., thank you for sending me all this stuff. As you can see it led to all kinds of thoughtful meanderings.
Labels: friends
¶ 3:38 PM 0 comments
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Symptoms
Funny mood for a Sunday. The sun is in and out of clouds like a fickle lover. Intermittent non-committal rain. A slight heaviness in the heart, I find. Distracted. Vague apprehensions. A lurking pessimism. The spontaneous putting on of the tightest, sexiest dress in my wardrobe. 'I have to get out of here' repeated like some silent unwanted cadence at the back of the head, followed by self-admonitions : 'be patient', 'think of the less fortunate', etc.
I know what it is. Wanderlust. ¶ 8:58 PM 0 comments
I know what it is. Wanderlust. ¶ 8:58 PM 0 comments
The Lonely Feast
Last night at dinner I regaled friends with something I had witnessed. I threatened to make a post about it here, and so am duly fulfilling my promise.
We have two toilets upstairs. For reasons not fully known to me, we choose to use the one that is little bigger than a cubicle you would find in a typical public washroom. That's shower and WC combined. It is also dark and lit by a single bare light bulb. Whereas the other one is large and airy - we have never loved it and use it only sparingly. So I walk in there one day, and this is what I see:
It is really a rather large cockroach, deep rust brown in color, so large indeed that the sharp filaments on its segmented legs appear fully articulated in texture. It is chomping away at a bar of soap left on the sink like it is the feast of kings. From where I stand (which some distance, let me tell you. I have a deep phobia of roaches), I can see it working its jaws enthusiastically, shoveling mouthfuls of soap into its belly. It is almost a plateau surrealistic scene. The white tiles of the bathroom are pristine, light fills the space, and this creature making merry upon my bar of medicated soap. There was that distinct metallic smell of cockroaches in the air - sharp and slightly sweet. I was fascinated. I cannot say why. ¶ 8:55 PM 0 comments
We have two toilets upstairs. For reasons not fully known to me, we choose to use the one that is little bigger than a cubicle you would find in a typical public washroom. That's shower and WC combined. It is also dark and lit by a single bare light bulb. Whereas the other one is large and airy - we have never loved it and use it only sparingly. So I walk in there one day, and this is what I see:
It is really a rather large cockroach, deep rust brown in color, so large indeed that the sharp filaments on its segmented legs appear fully articulated in texture. It is chomping away at a bar of soap left on the sink like it is the feast of kings. From where I stand (which some distance, let me tell you. I have a deep phobia of roaches), I can see it working its jaws enthusiastically, shoveling mouthfuls of soap into its belly. It is almost a plateau surrealistic scene. The white tiles of the bathroom are pristine, light fills the space, and this creature making merry upon my bar of medicated soap. There was that distinct metallic smell of cockroaches in the air - sharp and slightly sweet. I was fascinated. I cannot say why. ¶ 8:55 PM 0 comments
Half a Hundred Cats
A cat should be dignified. A cat should be aloof most of the time and personable some of the time. Importantly, these moods should be completely unpredictable. You should need them more than they need you. They should sit on a window sill, paws tucked under chest, looking mysterious and dreaming of sardines. This is the proper cat.
Unlike my neighbor's cats, a cat should not insist on rubbing itself against you after you have tossed it bodily over the fence. A cat (or cats, or many many many cats - about 25 and counting) should not overrun your house and pee and shit amongst bags of clay in your studio. A cat should not give your dogs perpetual fleas. Above all, a cat should not be trashy. A cat should not irritate a human by dint of its mere existence. A cat should not look stupid. A cat should not exist in a small link-house with 25 other cats.
If they do, they should all be shot. Along with the neighbors.
________________________
In a little aside, there is a wonderfully horrible and eerie sequence concerning cats in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. It is a very English tale about English magic and English magicians during the war with Napolean, some 800 pages or so of a beautifully observed book.
Anyway, on the premise that the insane have a direct connection to the arcane, Jonathan Strange visits a very mad old woman who lives alone in an attic. Alone that is, except for half a hundred cats. After living so long in such thorough madness with no human contact, she has become a cat herself in all but physical shape. She is about to eat a dead mouse, but Strange takes it from her. In return he gives her her heart's desire and turns her into the cat she has already become in her mind. Later he boils down the bones and sinews of the mouse into a tincture, and upon drinking a few measures is afflicted with an insanity that allows him to perform the magic of summoning a fairy-spirit.
My point is that a house (particularly an attic) with too many cats in it does indeed take on a tinge of craziness. It is their fur and their incessant mating cries and the stale lingering smell of their piss and their strange knowing stares, multiplied so many times as to seep into your life like an unassuming stain.
I once read somewhere about a woman who found it the utmost turn-on to have her cats in the same room while she was having sex. 'They have such bored expressions. What must they be thinking,' she mused. 'It's even better than mirrors', she went on to observe. ¶ 8:50 PM 0 comments
Unlike my neighbor's cats, a cat should not insist on rubbing itself against you after you have tossed it bodily over the fence. A cat (or cats, or many many many cats - about 25 and counting) should not overrun your house and pee and shit amongst bags of clay in your studio. A cat should not give your dogs perpetual fleas. Above all, a cat should not be trashy. A cat should not irritate a human by dint of its mere existence. A cat should not look stupid. A cat should not exist in a small link-house with 25 other cats.
If they do, they should all be shot. Along with the neighbors.
________________________
In a little aside, there is a wonderfully horrible and eerie sequence concerning cats in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. It is a very English tale about English magic and English magicians during the war with Napolean, some 800 pages or so of a beautifully observed book.
Anyway, on the premise that the insane have a direct connection to the arcane, Jonathan Strange visits a very mad old woman who lives alone in an attic. Alone that is, except for half a hundred cats. After living so long in such thorough madness with no human contact, she has become a cat herself in all but physical shape. She is about to eat a dead mouse, but Strange takes it from her. In return he gives her her heart's desire and turns her into the cat she has already become in her mind. Later he boils down the bones and sinews of the mouse into a tincture, and upon drinking a few measures is afflicted with an insanity that allows him to perform the magic of summoning a fairy-spirit.
My point is that a house (particularly an attic) with too many cats in it does indeed take on a tinge of craziness. It is their fur and their incessant mating cries and the stale lingering smell of their piss and their strange knowing stares, multiplied so many times as to seep into your life like an unassuming stain.
I once read somewhere about a woman who found it the utmost turn-on to have her cats in the same room while she was having sex. 'They have such bored expressions. What must they be thinking,' she mused. 'It's even better than mirrors', she went on to observe. ¶ 8:50 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Ships, hey! Can you dig it?
I got an early birthday present - The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy by Nicholas Blake & Richard Lawrence. There was much rolling of eyes and much making of resigned sighs, but such is a friend who will buy you the book even though it only means that she will hear endlessly about futtocks and how many stripes are on a captain's epaulette and naval tactics used in the Battle of Trafalgar, etc. etc. ETC.
So, dear ol' poop, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is a beautiful book and I am a happy, happy chappy.
I was perhaps going to rant on a little about ships, but I'm trying to win readers here, not bore them to death. I have to remind myself that the respective tonnage for each rated ship-of-the-line is of no consequence whatsoever so the average person. At least I do not go on at length in public. Not yet. Oh no, that pleasure is singularly reserved for people unfortunate enough to be my friends.
What I will do, however, is share a couple of naval recipies. Kindly bear in mind that this was in the early 1800s, when 'refrigeration' consisted of hanging meat out on a hook on the cathead, where the open air would slow down the rotting. If anyone actually attempts these, please report back with results and measures of dis/satisfaction. Here we go!
SPOTTED DOG (This is a pudding) - serves 12
450g flour, 50g sugar, 1/2 level tsp salt, 1 and 1/2 level tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 level tsp ground nutmeg, 250g currants (or raisins), 225g suet* (finely grated), 2 eggs (lightly beaten)
Mix the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in the currants so that the flour coats them and keeps them from clumping togehter. Mix in the suet. Add the milk and eggs, and work the mixture thoroughly with your hands. Scrape the batter into a greased pudding basin, tie a well-floured cloth over it, and place in a pot of boiling water. Cover and steam for 2 hours then unmould and serve with home-made custard.
CLARET CUP - serves 6
1 lemon, 1 level tbsp sugar, 1 bottle claret (though any other light french wine will do, I suppose), 50ml brandy, 280ml soda water, ice, 1 orange (sliced), a handful of borage**.
Rub the sugar well over the lemon until it is coloured, then place it in your jug and squeeze the lemon juice over it and mix well. Add the claret, brandy, and soda water. Add the ice, orange slices and sprigs of borage and serve.
*Q: What the hell is suet?
A : Suet is raw beef (or mutton) fat, especially the fat found around the loins and kidneys. It may is used to make everything from candles to Christmas pudding. Suet is solid at room temperature, but starts to melt at around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature is warmer, beef fat can melt or turn rancid, and it's safer to use cakes of hard rendered suet. You can buy commercial suet cakes, or you can make your own using rendered suet.
**Q: What the hell is borage?
A: A blue-flowered plant with hairy leaves that taste somewhat like cucumber; used primarily in salads. "Borage," Boorde says, "doth comforte the herte, and doth ingender good bloode, and causeth a man to be mery.
__________________________________
Enough? You want more?
"Nooooooo", they cried out en masse. ¶ 9:42 PM 3 comments
So, dear ol' poop, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is a beautiful book and I am a happy, happy chappy.
I was perhaps going to rant on a little about ships, but I'm trying to win readers here, not bore them to death. I have to remind myself that the respective tonnage for each rated ship-of-the-line is of no consequence whatsoever so the average person. At least I do not go on at length in public. Not yet. Oh no, that pleasure is singularly reserved for people unfortunate enough to be my friends.
What I will do, however, is share a couple of naval recipies. Kindly bear in mind that this was in the early 1800s, when 'refrigeration' consisted of hanging meat out on a hook on the cathead, where the open air would slow down the rotting. If anyone actually attempts these, please report back with results and measures of dis/satisfaction. Here we go!
SPOTTED DOG (This is a pudding) - serves 12
450g flour, 50g sugar, 1/2 level tsp salt, 1 and 1/2 level tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 level tsp ground nutmeg, 250g currants (or raisins), 225g suet* (finely grated), 2 eggs (lightly beaten)
Mix the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in the currants so that the flour coats them and keeps them from clumping togehter. Mix in the suet. Add the milk and eggs, and work the mixture thoroughly with your hands. Scrape the batter into a greased pudding basin, tie a well-floured cloth over it, and place in a pot of boiling water. Cover and steam for 2 hours then unmould and serve with home-made custard.
CLARET CUP - serves 6
1 lemon, 1 level tbsp sugar, 1 bottle claret (though any other light french wine will do, I suppose), 50ml brandy, 280ml soda water, ice, 1 orange (sliced), a handful of borage**.
Rub the sugar well over the lemon until it is coloured, then place it in your jug and squeeze the lemon juice over it and mix well. Add the claret, brandy, and soda water. Add the ice, orange slices and sprigs of borage and serve.
*Q: What the hell is suet?
A : Suet is raw beef (or mutton) fat, especially the fat found around the loins and kidneys. It may is used to make everything from candles to Christmas pudding. Suet is solid at room temperature, but starts to melt at around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature is warmer, beef fat can melt or turn rancid, and it's safer to use cakes of hard rendered suet. You can buy commercial suet cakes, or you can make your own using rendered suet.
**Q: What the hell is borage?
A: A blue-flowered plant with hairy leaves that taste somewhat like cucumber; used primarily in salads. "Borage," Boorde says, "doth comforte the herte, and doth ingender good bloode, and causeth a man to be mery.
__________________________________
Enough? You want more?
"Nooooooo", they cried out en masse. ¶ 9:42 PM 3 comments
Monday, December 12, 2005
Artist List 03
Alright, I am well-entrenched in the end-of-year blues. So entrenched indeed that I must add more artists to The List as fast as I can.
This one is particularly comforting, because of all the ships. Alfred Wallis (1855–1942), born in Devenport, England. Went to sea at age 9, until 35. When his wife died in 1922, he started to paint to 'keep himself company'. Due to poverty he worked on whatever was at hand, such as pieces of driftwood and cardboard. On these he painted with ship's paint memories of his time at sea and scenes of his immediate surroundings.
He is often labelled a 'naive' artist, due to the fact that he was never formally trained. This allowed him to paint in a fresh and vivid manner, unique to any school of thought or art movement. His works were acclaimed by artistic circles, but only captured the imagination of the public after his death in 1942. He died in poverty in Penzance, and his works now hang in the Tate Gallery, London.
Seems like a sad story, but looking at his works, one is not inclined to think so, at all.
Alfred Wallis on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wallis
Alfred Wallis, Headland with Two Three-masters
Alfred Wallis, Penzance Harbour, Newlyn Harbour, Mousall Island, The Mount, Porthleven and Mullion near Lizard. The one Entrin the Harbour is a Revenu cutter from Penzance
Alfred Wallis, A Steamship and a Schooner Passing the Coast
This one is particularly comforting, because of all the ships. Alfred Wallis (1855–1942), born in Devenport, England. Went to sea at age 9, until 35. When his wife died in 1922, he started to paint to 'keep himself company'. Due to poverty he worked on whatever was at hand, such as pieces of driftwood and cardboard. On these he painted with ship's paint memories of his time at sea and scenes of his immediate surroundings.
He is often labelled a 'naive' artist, due to the fact that he was never formally trained. This allowed him to paint in a fresh and vivid manner, unique to any school of thought or art movement. His works were acclaimed by artistic circles, but only captured the imagination of the public after his death in 1942. He died in poverty in Penzance, and his works now hang in the Tate Gallery, London.
Seems like a sad story, but looking at his works, one is not inclined to think so, at all.
Alfred Wallis on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wallis
Alfred Wallis, Headland with Two Three-masters
Alfred Wallis, Penzance Harbour, Newlyn Harbour, Mousall Island, The Mount, Porthleven and Mullion near Lizard. The one Entrin the Harbour is a Revenu cutter from Penzance
Alfred Wallis, A Steamship and a Schooner Passing the Coast
Labels: art
¶ 11:42 PM 0 comments
Hand to Mouth
When one's bank account dwindles, it becomes a spectacle very like a marathon. It is all about speed, and endurance. The speed with which each unit of 5 bucks is drawn and quartered, rationed, held on to as long as possible and then finally, with some desperate sort of relief, spent.
As events approach an imagined finish line, i.e $0.00, there are stages. There is a bitter, bitter type of anger which manifests itself in general resentment towards the government, one's parents, friends who are richer, the deplorable condition of the local art scene, the goddamn motherfucking cocksucking college who won't give me my cheque, and so on. I would proscribe this as a sickness of mind that eats away at your self-confidence until you don't know who you are, only that you can only think of one thing: money.
And then one encounters a period of extreme fatigue. This a paralysis that kills all desire. There is no longer a sense of urgency. No hunger. At this point, life is percieved as a strange and abstract marathon race. But having no currency, one does not qualify, dropping instead gently to the bottom like sediment, while the race floats hazy and indistinct above. My experiences of this condition are mere flirtations. Malaysia is a class society. There are a great many types of races existing like parallel worlds, never touching each other.
But we always hope. Just like a runner, one always overcomes the fatigue. In a snap, you are back, with the wind ringing in your ears. You're running. Not for the race, but because nothing can hold you back. Running because running is awesome, and movement was just what you were made for. And you can break free, running in straight lines perpendicular to all the horizontal racing tracks of society.
And then you don't even care about the cheque. And that's when it comes.
As events approach an imagined finish line, i.e $0.00, there are stages. There is a bitter, bitter type of anger which manifests itself in general resentment towards the government, one's parents, friends who are richer, the deplorable condition of the local art scene, the goddamn motherfucking cocksucking college who won't give me my cheque, and so on. I would proscribe this as a sickness of mind that eats away at your self-confidence until you don't know who you are, only that you can only think of one thing: money.
And then one encounters a period of extreme fatigue. This a paralysis that kills all desire. There is no longer a sense of urgency. No hunger. At this point, life is percieved as a strange and abstract marathon race. But having no currency, one does not qualify, dropping instead gently to the bottom like sediment, while the race floats hazy and indistinct above. My experiences of this condition are mere flirtations. Malaysia is a class society. There are a great many types of races existing like parallel worlds, never touching each other.
But we always hope. Just like a runner, one always overcomes the fatigue. In a snap, you are back, with the wind ringing in your ears. You're running. Not for the race, but because nothing can hold you back. Running because running is awesome, and movement was just what you were made for. And you can break free, running in straight lines perpendicular to all the horizontal racing tracks of society.
And then you don't even care about the cheque. And that's when it comes.
Labels: money
¶ 10:42 PM 0 comments
Artist List 02
Gary Simmons, African American (b.1964). Huge chalk paintings on slate, about 2 or 3 times the height of an average person. The images are smudged and rubbed out, but traces are left like bits of memory that can never be erased. I love the action in these works, a sense of caught movement, and they seem to hover right at the edge of being finished. Just the way I like it.
He also has a digital interactive work made for DIA Center for the Arts. It is really quite good. You can look and play with it at:
http://www.diacenter.org/simmons/
Conversation with the artist:
http://www.moma.org/onlineprojects/conversations/gs_f.html
Gary Simmons, Wish You Were Here, 2001, Chalk & paint, 3.7 x 10.7m
He also has a digital interactive work made for DIA Center for the Arts. It is really quite good. You can look and play with it at:
http://www.diacenter.org/simmons/
Conversation with the artist:
http://www.moma.org/onlineprojects/conversations/gs_f.html
Gary Simmons, Wish You Were Here, 2001, Chalk & paint, 3.7 x 10.7m
Labels: art
¶ 3:15 AM 0 comments
Friday, December 09, 2005
Artist List 01
Couple of nights ago I watched High Fidelity. Here's a quote:
It's not so much what people ARE like, it's what they like that's important.
Books, movies, tv -- these things matter! Call me shallow!
Couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of agreeing that yes, I like Tracey Emin. But I was tricked into it! 'You like Tracey Emin, right?' was the question. 'Yes' was my beer-n-weed induced answer. It was Moffat that I was thinking of! Moffat! It's Tracey Moffat!
This is Tracy Emin
http://www.whitecube.com/html/artists/tre/tre_frset.html
In the spirit of Christmas I am making a list. Something about the end-of-year blues that only be eliviated by the complete comfort of compulsive list-making. You can check it twice. Tracey Emin is not on the list. The first one on the list this guy:
Kcho, or Alex Leyva Macado. A Cuban artist living and working in Havana (b.1970). Personal friend of Fidel Castro. Uses books, glass bottles, wooden boats. Builds piers in galleries. Makes drawings. Looks like Fidel Castro, or a member of Al-Queda.
Article:
http://www.artnewsonline.com/pastarticle.cfm?art_id=725
Kcho, In Order To forget, 2000
It's not so much what people ARE like, it's what they like that's important.
Books, movies, tv -- these things matter! Call me shallow!
Couple of weeks ago, I made the mistake of agreeing that yes, I like Tracey Emin. But I was tricked into it! 'You like Tracey Emin, right?' was the question. 'Yes' was my beer-n-weed induced answer. It was Moffat that I was thinking of! Moffat! It's Tracey Moffat!
This is Tracy Emin
http://www.whitecube.com/html/artists/tre/tre_frset.html
In the spirit of Christmas I am making a list. Something about the end-of-year blues that only be eliviated by the complete comfort of compulsive list-making. You can check it twice. Tracey Emin is not on the list. The first one on the list this guy:
Kcho, or Alex Leyva Macado. A Cuban artist living and working in Havana (b.1970). Personal friend of Fidel Castro. Uses books, glass bottles, wooden boats. Builds piers in galleries. Makes drawings. Looks like Fidel Castro, or a member of Al-Queda.
Article:
http://www.artnewsonline.com/pastarticle.cfm?art_id=725
Kcho, In Order To forget, 2000
Labels: art
¶ 12:06 PM 0 comments
Monday, December 05, 2005
VMAG Interview
I was interviewed for an article in a local lifestyle magazine called VMAG. The article is out in this month's (DEC 2005) issue, but is translated into Mandarin. Thought I'd post up the full, unedited English version for my beloved round-eyes and other English-worded peoples. It is rather long. The interview was conducted over email by Chai Chang Hwang, a local artist and critic. I found his questions to be very intelligent and a long way away from the usual facile crap that is asked. So here it is, happy reading.
1. AS A FINE ART GRADUATE MAJORING IN SCULPTURE, YOUR CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS DOES NOT FRAME ON ‘MAKING 3-DIMENSIONAL OBJECTS’. FURTHER MORE, IT IS EXPANDING TO AN EXPLORATION ON SPACE AND INSTALLATION. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?
The most common question people ask me when they find out I’m an artist is : ‘what is your medium?’. I always answer by saying ‘I majored in sculpture’. I hesitate to say ‘I am a sculptor’ because people tend to assume that I spend my days with a hammer and chisel, like Michelangelo.
On the other hand, I don’t want to be known as an ‘installation artist’ either. I think the best way to describe what I do is that, unlike a painter, I work and think in 3-dimensions. There is no difference for me between what is sculpture and what is installation. They share the same type of language.
I feel that a lot of installations made these days are not really installations. They are only objects hung in space. Installation is not about filling up space, it is about using space, interacting with it, exploring it. There is a relationship with the ceiling, floor and walls, as well as the objects placed there. And don’t forget the audience! A good installation will allow these elements to speak to each other. That is what makes a work come alive. Otherwise it becomes nothing more than objects hung on walls or placed on the floor.
When making an installation, I think that ‘site’ is very important, i.e. where the work is placed. Even if you have only a room with four walls, there will always be a way to make the four walls talk to each other. I try to never take my walls and floors for granted! Even cracks in the concrete might suggest a different way to install/create work. When I am stuck (artist’s block), I like to bring my work to a completely different site—maybe the garden, the beach or even in the toilet, just to see how it changes in a different environment.
2. WHAT DO YOU THINK ON THE PROCESS OF TRANFORMATION OF AN ARTIST’S IDEAS INTO A FORM OF AN ART WORK, OR EVEN THE MEDIUM? HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? IN OTHER WORDS, WHAT ARE THE FACTORS YOU PROBABLY WILL CONSIDER BETWEEN THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE CONTENT AND FORM?
The most valuable lesson I learnt in art school can be summarized in one word, which is ‘play’. I think that a lot of artists these days feel the pressure to be ‘conceptual’, which often means that you start with an idea and you want to make work to communicate that idea. This often results in something that I call ‘building-the-wall-syndrome’.
What I mean by that is, let’s say you have a perfect concept/idea. It is so perfect and logical that is like a complete wall. So you make the wall. Afterwards this wall is exactly like your idea. It is perfect but it is also quite boring because you have not allowed the process of making the wall to affect you.
The process of making something is incredibly important in my work. I like starting out with something and not knowing how it is going to turn out. It is the risk that makes an artwork alive, because you challenge yourself to go beyond your initial idea. As an artist, I know it is very difficult for us to throw away our ideas, even though they aren’t working!
3. TO RESPOND TO QUESTION ABOVE, PLEASE TAKE ONE (OR MORE) OF YOUR WORKS AS AN EXAMPLE.
For my graduation work, I started with a plastic monkey that I found in a junk shop. I liked it very much but didn’t know why. I decided to make a mould of it, so that I could make many of them. I found that I had to chop up the monkey into different parts to make the mould possible. So I had a mould of each body part, which I cast separately out of clay, and later put each part back together to form the monkey again. This process of taking something apart and putting it back together became a central idea in the work.
If I had waited to come up with a perfect concept about the plastic monkey I would never have got anywhere! So if you keep your mind open to the possibilities, the process of making your work will always suggest new and fresh ideas. If you hold on rigidly to your ideas, there is the danger of it ending up making sense only to yourself and no one else. That is the worse kind of art!
So as an artist, I try to be playful, but in a serious way.
4. VIEWING YOUR PREVIOUS ART PRACTICES, ONE WOULD EASILY NOTICE THAT YOUR CREATIONS ARE SUCH A MULTIPLICITY OF IDEAS AND INTENTIONS. HOWEVER, WHAT ISSUE (OR AREA, OR AESTHETIC PROBLEM) HAS BECOME YOUR MAIN CONCERN?
I would say that there has been a very common theme running through most of my works and that is a question of ‘place’ or ‘location’. I was born in Kuala Lumpur but studied and lived for a few years in Australia. Being in a new environment forces you to re-examine yourself and your values. There is a quote from a poem by a Filipino film-maker, Nick Deocampo, that I like very much. It is : ‘in your absence, I learn to look at you more closely’.
I am interested in how people are shaped by the place that they are in. When people say ‘my country’, are they claiming that they own the country or that the country owns them? I believe that it’s a little bit of both. So what happens when you leave a place behind you? Do you bring a part of it with you? When I was overseas, sometimes my mind would fall into wondering ‘what if I never see my home again?’. Just the thought would make my heart ache. And yet there are thousands, millions of people all over the world who, because of political, social or economic reasons are forced to leave their homelands. Somehow they find a way to survive in a new land, new environment. How do you hold on your humanity in a refugee camp, for example? I think that what makes us human is our memories, language, history. This is what we carry with us no matter where we are forced to be, and this is my interest and my passion.
I try to think of my art as a large ‘site’, a territory into which people can enter and explore. I am not interested in making art about MY identity, MY country or MY politics, but more towards how exploring my own identity and environment can lead to a deeper understanding of how we work as human beings.
5. FROM THE STATEMENT AS ABOVE, ONE WILL NOTICE YOUR INTENTION TOWARDS ART MAKING. I.E. ‘PLAYFUL, BUT IN A SERIOUS WAY OF EXPLORATION’. AND YET, YOU SEEM STRONGLY STRESSED ON THE ‘LIVELINESS’ OF ARTWORK. WHAT DOES IT INDICATE, IN THE CONTEXT OF AESTHETICS?
Sorry, I don’t really understand this question
6. WHEN YOU MENTION THAT ‘THERE HAS BEEN A VERY COMMON THEME, THAT IS A QUESTION OF PLACE, OR LOCATION’, I THOUGHT THAT IS REGARDING HOW THE PHYSICAL SPACE (OR SOCIAL REALITY) SHAPPED YOUR IDENTITY - AS ‘MALAYSIAN’, COLLECTIVELY. QUITE THE CONTRARY, YOU FOLLOWED BY POINTING OUT ‘ENVIROMENT CAN LEAD TO A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW WE WORK AS HUMAN BEINGS’.
IS IT YOUR STRATEGY TO MAKE YOURSELF ‘DE-POLITICIZED’?
I do not think it is possible these days to be ‘de-politicized’, and certainly do not use it as a strategy in my artwork. I do not wish to be an artist who makes work about ‘issues’, because there is always the danger of becoming like a lecturer or a teacher to your audience. And what right has an artist to lecture his/her audience? I am not really interested in the making art about the politics of nations, because I am not a politician. But I am interested in the politics of the human condition, the politics of the individual’s role and responsibility as a member of society. The politics of language, the politics of the body, history, memory.
Politics is about power. A lot of people these days (including myself) feel so helpless when they hear about what’s going on in the world and the country (war, environmental destruction, etc). They think that this is politics: G8 summit, APEC, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Kyoto Protocol, etc. But they don’t realize that just by being alive, you have political power. Why? How? Because you have language. Because you have your body. The body is an incredible thing that we take for granted. It has the ability to touch, smell, feel, see, hear and taste. And then the brain has the ability to process these senses into thoughts and emotions. And then you have language (that most wonderful of things) to communicate all these thoughts and emotions! In my work I try to remind people of the potential of their own bodies and minds. I do not want to tell them what to think. Take Hoy Cheong’s work for example. I think his most successful works are those that ask the audience to complete it (e.g. text tiles, tapestry of justice, etc). In tapestry of justice, the gesture of adding your thumbprint is a symbolic one. This tapestry won’t actually change the ISA policy, but it reminds the audience that we all have a role to play. Sometimes I think that the role of art is not to change the world, but to remind us that we have the potential to do it.
7. CURRENTLY, YOU HAVE ‘RECREATED’ YOUR INSTALLATION PIECE ‘RISE, RISE, RISE’ AT VALENTINE WILLIE FINE ART. THOSE UNFIRED CLAY TEXT SUCH AS ‘MY BODY’, ‘MY CULTURE’, ‘MY COUNTRY’ ETC ON FLOOR STUCK WITH JOSS STICKS, NOT MERELY CONTAINED THE IMAGINATION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY, BUT, IMPLCATED A CONCERN TO SEEK FOR A ‘UNIVERSALISM’ KIND OF VALUE. CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG!
Yes, I think that one of the tensions in ‘rise, rise, rise’ is between that of personal and ‘universal’ identities. Is it possible that what is mine can also be yours? I am not searching for ‘universalism’, i.e. a way to unite all of us as human beings. Rather I wished to highlight the perpetual tension between personal desires and community desires. When a person says ‘my country’, they are claiming an ownership of the country. But in return the country also claims an ownership of you. That is a tension that will always go back and forth. If I can understand why I must call my country ‘my country’, then maybe I can understand why other people must call their country ‘their country’. I am not trying to find solutions, but new ways of understanding desire.
8. AS I KNOW, THE WORK WAS FIRST SHOWN AT MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. WHAT HAD MADE ME CURIOUS WAS THE REACTION OF RECIPIENT FROM ABROAD TO LOCAL. (I.E. WHAT YOU SAID, ‘AND DON’T FORGET THE AUDIENCE!’) DID THEY SHARE ANY RESPONSES IN COMMON, OR SPECIFICALLY?
A lot of people in Australia do not really know the significance of joss sticks. Hence they were quick to see the work as ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’. They thought it was very beautiful, calming, etc. But here, I think more people saw the piece as being about loss and desire. When you light joss sticks at home or in a temple, it is as an offering, to pray for personal peace and hope, and also to pray for the dead. To me this work has always been about desire, because the joss sticks are never to be lit. The smoke will never rise, bringing your hopes to the sky. Instead they stay on the ground. But we will always hope! And there is always the potential for fulfillment, which is indicated in the smell of the joss sticks that fills the gallery. And it is this potential that keeps us going, to pass each day. One major difference in presentation was that in Australia, when listing my materials, I had to say ‘clay and prayer incense’. But here I used instead ‘clay and joss sticks’.
9. CAN YOU DISCUSS A LITTLE BIT FURTHER ABOUT ‘DESIRES’?
I grew up in Buddhist family, so I went through all the rituals - like putting joss sticks, offering food, going to the temple, etc. I never really knew what it meant to be a Buddhist. But when I went overseas, there were no temples and no altars, so I began to learn more about Buddhism in a very personal way, without direct influence from family or (to a lesser extent) society.
The Buddha teaches us that our worldly desires or attachments are the reason for the suffering that we endure as human beings. I realize this, yet I constantly feel like I cannot let go of my desires. I always have attachments, like to my friends, my lovers, my family, my dogs, my pet fish, my favorite nasi lemak stall, my favorite brand of shoes, my favorite artists and my own art career.
But I would like to stress that my work IS NOT ABOUT BUDDHISM. I seek to understand how desires make the world go round – how it creates love and war, how it compels us to make the most humane sacrifices or the most disgusting acts of hate. My work IS NOT ABOUT SHOWING HOW TO LET GO OF DESIRES. I am very far from that stage and I do not know if I will ever reach that stage in my lifetime. My work is more about trying to understand.
I feel that although we might not speak the same language, or come from the same background, our desires can be quite universal and can be a way of understanding each other. For example, everyone wants to live, to survive. Everyone has a different idea of HOW to live or to survive, but the desire is pretty much the same.
When someone makes an act of violence against you, for example putting a bomb in your house, you feel as though they are not a human being, just as they do not see you as a human being. But we must still try to understand them as human beings, as human beings with desires. If not we will become worse than animals, worse than ghosts.
10. I THINK WE CAN’T KEEP THIS CONVERSATION ON GOING, BY EXCLUDED YOUR RECENT FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION ‘BOATS & BRIDGES’. IN THIS CASE, YOU SEEM TO BE PROVIDING AND EXTENDING A LOT OF ‘PERSONAL DESIRES’ (SUCH AS MEMORIES, COMMENTS, HOPES, MEANINGS ETC), BY THE USE OF METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE. DO YOU THINK THE WORKS RECEIVED A WELL RESPONSE? (IN PARTICULAR, AMONG THE LOCAL AUDIENCES)
In general, I have to say that I am quite happy with the response I got for my first solo exhibition.
Many of my friends who have not seen my work before came to the opening, as well as my mum and dad. I heard this response many times : ‘Sharon, I don’t know what it all means, but I think it’s very cool!’ I guess I don’t really know how I feel about that, since I hope that my work provokes thought in people.
It is quite important to me that people don’t have to know me, in order to understand my work. Maybe it’s not so much that I want them to understand what I am trying to say, but I just want them to get something, anything at all, from my art. Whether it is a feeling of wonder, calmness, imagination or even confusion, as long as the audience has brought something home with them after seeing my show, then I’m happy.
I think a lot of people saw this show as about ‘coming home’ or ‘balik kampung’ after studying overseas. Yes, that was a part of it, but it was not really about my personal transformation. It was more about how we experience a place with our body and our mind, so when you are in-between places then you become more aware of your body and your mind.
11. WHAT ARE YOUR ‘DESIRES’ AND ‘DREAMS’ THAT YOU ARE PROBABLY PINNING ON MALAYSIA’S CONTEMPORARY ART COMMUNITY? (EDUCATION, CRITICISM, INSTITUTION ETC.)
I would like to see more people (artists, galleries, institutions) doing constructive things for themselves, the art community and in the end, society. I think that there has been a very long period of analysis and criticism about what is lacking in our art scene. I think that it is now time for us to start to move away from that, time for action.
By ‘action’, people might think that I mean something very radical, like throwing eggs in front of parliament building, or something like that. But that is not what I mean. I think artists can act by taking their art seriously, making good art that is professional and thoughtful. It doesn’t have to be political! I don’t believe you have to be an ‘artivist’ in order to be relevant. I think gallerists can act by searching out and building up young artists, instead of focusing too heavily on putting up high-profile shows of established artists. I think art writers and art critics can act by making constructive criticism, by realizing that their role goes beyond just calling something very good or very bad.
Identifying what needs to be done is very important. But doing what needs to be done is also very important. This is what I hope to do in my role as an artist.
1. AS A FINE ART GRADUATE MAJORING IN SCULPTURE, YOUR CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS DOES NOT FRAME ON ‘MAKING 3-DIMENSIONAL OBJECTS’. FURTHER MORE, IT IS EXPANDING TO AN EXPLORATION ON SPACE AND INSTALLATION. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?
The most common question people ask me when they find out I’m an artist is : ‘what is your medium?’. I always answer by saying ‘I majored in sculpture’. I hesitate to say ‘I am a sculptor’ because people tend to assume that I spend my days with a hammer and chisel, like Michelangelo.
On the other hand, I don’t want to be known as an ‘installation artist’ either. I think the best way to describe what I do is that, unlike a painter, I work and think in 3-dimensions. There is no difference for me between what is sculpture and what is installation. They share the same type of language.
I feel that a lot of installations made these days are not really installations. They are only objects hung in space. Installation is not about filling up space, it is about using space, interacting with it, exploring it. There is a relationship with the ceiling, floor and walls, as well as the objects placed there. And don’t forget the audience! A good installation will allow these elements to speak to each other. That is what makes a work come alive. Otherwise it becomes nothing more than objects hung on walls or placed on the floor.
When making an installation, I think that ‘site’ is very important, i.e. where the work is placed. Even if you have only a room with four walls, there will always be a way to make the four walls talk to each other. I try to never take my walls and floors for granted! Even cracks in the concrete might suggest a different way to install/create work. When I am stuck (artist’s block), I like to bring my work to a completely different site—maybe the garden, the beach or even in the toilet, just to see how it changes in a different environment.
2. WHAT DO YOU THINK ON THE PROCESS OF TRANFORMATION OF AN ARTIST’S IDEAS INTO A FORM OF AN ART WORK, OR EVEN THE MEDIUM? HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? IN OTHER WORDS, WHAT ARE THE FACTORS YOU PROBABLY WILL CONSIDER BETWEEN THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE CONTENT AND FORM?
The most valuable lesson I learnt in art school can be summarized in one word, which is ‘play’. I think that a lot of artists these days feel the pressure to be ‘conceptual’, which often means that you start with an idea and you want to make work to communicate that idea. This often results in something that I call ‘building-the-wall-syndrome’.
What I mean by that is, let’s say you have a perfect concept/idea. It is so perfect and logical that is like a complete wall. So you make the wall. Afterwards this wall is exactly like your idea. It is perfect but it is also quite boring because you have not allowed the process of making the wall to affect you.
The process of making something is incredibly important in my work. I like starting out with something and not knowing how it is going to turn out. It is the risk that makes an artwork alive, because you challenge yourself to go beyond your initial idea. As an artist, I know it is very difficult for us to throw away our ideas, even though they aren’t working!
3. TO RESPOND TO QUESTION ABOVE, PLEASE TAKE ONE (OR MORE) OF YOUR WORKS AS AN EXAMPLE.
For my graduation work, I started with a plastic monkey that I found in a junk shop. I liked it very much but didn’t know why. I decided to make a mould of it, so that I could make many of them. I found that I had to chop up the monkey into different parts to make the mould possible. So I had a mould of each body part, which I cast separately out of clay, and later put each part back together to form the monkey again. This process of taking something apart and putting it back together became a central idea in the work.
If I had waited to come up with a perfect concept about the plastic monkey I would never have got anywhere! So if you keep your mind open to the possibilities, the process of making your work will always suggest new and fresh ideas. If you hold on rigidly to your ideas, there is the danger of it ending up making sense only to yourself and no one else. That is the worse kind of art!
So as an artist, I try to be playful, but in a serious way.
4. VIEWING YOUR PREVIOUS ART PRACTICES, ONE WOULD EASILY NOTICE THAT YOUR CREATIONS ARE SUCH A MULTIPLICITY OF IDEAS AND INTENTIONS. HOWEVER, WHAT ISSUE (OR AREA, OR AESTHETIC PROBLEM) HAS BECOME YOUR MAIN CONCERN?
I would say that there has been a very common theme running through most of my works and that is a question of ‘place’ or ‘location’. I was born in Kuala Lumpur but studied and lived for a few years in Australia. Being in a new environment forces you to re-examine yourself and your values. There is a quote from a poem by a Filipino film-maker, Nick Deocampo, that I like very much. It is : ‘in your absence, I learn to look at you more closely’.
I am interested in how people are shaped by the place that they are in. When people say ‘my country’, are they claiming that they own the country or that the country owns them? I believe that it’s a little bit of both. So what happens when you leave a place behind you? Do you bring a part of it with you? When I was overseas, sometimes my mind would fall into wondering ‘what if I never see my home again?’. Just the thought would make my heart ache. And yet there are thousands, millions of people all over the world who, because of political, social or economic reasons are forced to leave their homelands. Somehow they find a way to survive in a new land, new environment. How do you hold on your humanity in a refugee camp, for example? I think that what makes us human is our memories, language, history. This is what we carry with us no matter where we are forced to be, and this is my interest and my passion.
I try to think of my art as a large ‘site’, a territory into which people can enter and explore. I am not interested in making art about MY identity, MY country or MY politics, but more towards how exploring my own identity and environment can lead to a deeper understanding of how we work as human beings.
5. FROM THE STATEMENT AS ABOVE, ONE WILL NOTICE YOUR INTENTION TOWARDS ART MAKING. I.E. ‘PLAYFUL, BUT IN A SERIOUS WAY OF EXPLORATION’. AND YET, YOU SEEM STRONGLY STRESSED ON THE ‘LIVELINESS’ OF ARTWORK. WHAT DOES IT INDICATE, IN THE CONTEXT OF AESTHETICS?
Sorry, I don’t really understand this question
6. WHEN YOU MENTION THAT ‘THERE HAS BEEN A VERY COMMON THEME, THAT IS A QUESTION OF PLACE, OR LOCATION’, I THOUGHT THAT IS REGARDING HOW THE PHYSICAL SPACE (OR SOCIAL REALITY) SHAPPED YOUR IDENTITY - AS ‘MALAYSIAN’, COLLECTIVELY. QUITE THE CONTRARY, YOU FOLLOWED BY POINTING OUT ‘ENVIROMENT CAN LEAD TO A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW WE WORK AS HUMAN BEINGS’.
IS IT YOUR STRATEGY TO MAKE YOURSELF ‘DE-POLITICIZED’?
I do not think it is possible these days to be ‘de-politicized’, and certainly do not use it as a strategy in my artwork. I do not wish to be an artist who makes work about ‘issues’, because there is always the danger of becoming like a lecturer or a teacher to your audience. And what right has an artist to lecture his/her audience? I am not really interested in the making art about the politics of nations, because I am not a politician. But I am interested in the politics of the human condition, the politics of the individual’s role and responsibility as a member of society. The politics of language, the politics of the body, history, memory.
Politics is about power. A lot of people these days (including myself) feel so helpless when they hear about what’s going on in the world and the country (war, environmental destruction, etc). They think that this is politics: G8 summit, APEC, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Kyoto Protocol, etc. But they don’t realize that just by being alive, you have political power. Why? How? Because you have language. Because you have your body. The body is an incredible thing that we take for granted. It has the ability to touch, smell, feel, see, hear and taste. And then the brain has the ability to process these senses into thoughts and emotions. And then you have language (that most wonderful of things) to communicate all these thoughts and emotions! In my work I try to remind people of the potential of their own bodies and minds. I do not want to tell them what to think. Take Hoy Cheong’s work for example. I think his most successful works are those that ask the audience to complete it (e.g. text tiles, tapestry of justice, etc). In tapestry of justice, the gesture of adding your thumbprint is a symbolic one. This tapestry won’t actually change the ISA policy, but it reminds the audience that we all have a role to play. Sometimes I think that the role of art is not to change the world, but to remind us that we have the potential to do it.
7. CURRENTLY, YOU HAVE ‘RECREATED’ YOUR INSTALLATION PIECE ‘RISE, RISE, RISE’ AT VALENTINE WILLIE FINE ART. THOSE UNFIRED CLAY TEXT SUCH AS ‘MY BODY’, ‘MY CULTURE’, ‘MY COUNTRY’ ETC ON FLOOR STUCK WITH JOSS STICKS, NOT MERELY CONTAINED THE IMAGINATION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY, BUT, IMPLCATED A CONCERN TO SEEK FOR A ‘UNIVERSALISM’ KIND OF VALUE. CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG!
Yes, I think that one of the tensions in ‘rise, rise, rise’ is between that of personal and ‘universal’ identities. Is it possible that what is mine can also be yours? I am not searching for ‘universalism’, i.e. a way to unite all of us as human beings. Rather I wished to highlight the perpetual tension between personal desires and community desires. When a person says ‘my country’, they are claiming an ownership of the country. But in return the country also claims an ownership of you. That is a tension that will always go back and forth. If I can understand why I must call my country ‘my country’, then maybe I can understand why other people must call their country ‘their country’. I am not trying to find solutions, but new ways of understanding desire.
8. AS I KNOW, THE WORK WAS FIRST SHOWN AT MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. WHAT HAD MADE ME CURIOUS WAS THE REACTION OF RECIPIENT FROM ABROAD TO LOCAL. (I.E. WHAT YOU SAID, ‘AND DON’T FORGET THE AUDIENCE!’) DID THEY SHARE ANY RESPONSES IN COMMON, OR SPECIFICALLY?
A lot of people in Australia do not really know the significance of joss sticks. Hence they were quick to see the work as ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’. They thought it was very beautiful, calming, etc. But here, I think more people saw the piece as being about loss and desire. When you light joss sticks at home or in a temple, it is as an offering, to pray for personal peace and hope, and also to pray for the dead. To me this work has always been about desire, because the joss sticks are never to be lit. The smoke will never rise, bringing your hopes to the sky. Instead they stay on the ground. But we will always hope! And there is always the potential for fulfillment, which is indicated in the smell of the joss sticks that fills the gallery. And it is this potential that keeps us going, to pass each day. One major difference in presentation was that in Australia, when listing my materials, I had to say ‘clay and prayer incense’. But here I used instead ‘clay and joss sticks’.
9. CAN YOU DISCUSS A LITTLE BIT FURTHER ABOUT ‘DESIRES’?
I grew up in Buddhist family, so I went through all the rituals - like putting joss sticks, offering food, going to the temple, etc. I never really knew what it meant to be a Buddhist. But when I went overseas, there were no temples and no altars, so I began to learn more about Buddhism in a very personal way, without direct influence from family or (to a lesser extent) society.
The Buddha teaches us that our worldly desires or attachments are the reason for the suffering that we endure as human beings. I realize this, yet I constantly feel like I cannot let go of my desires. I always have attachments, like to my friends, my lovers, my family, my dogs, my pet fish, my favorite nasi lemak stall, my favorite brand of shoes, my favorite artists and my own art career.
But I would like to stress that my work IS NOT ABOUT BUDDHISM. I seek to understand how desires make the world go round – how it creates love and war, how it compels us to make the most humane sacrifices or the most disgusting acts of hate. My work IS NOT ABOUT SHOWING HOW TO LET GO OF DESIRES. I am very far from that stage and I do not know if I will ever reach that stage in my lifetime. My work is more about trying to understand.
I feel that although we might not speak the same language, or come from the same background, our desires can be quite universal and can be a way of understanding each other. For example, everyone wants to live, to survive. Everyone has a different idea of HOW to live or to survive, but the desire is pretty much the same.
When someone makes an act of violence against you, for example putting a bomb in your house, you feel as though they are not a human being, just as they do not see you as a human being. But we must still try to understand them as human beings, as human beings with desires. If not we will become worse than animals, worse than ghosts.
10. I THINK WE CAN’T KEEP THIS CONVERSATION ON GOING, BY EXCLUDED YOUR RECENT FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION ‘BOATS & BRIDGES’. IN THIS CASE, YOU SEEM TO BE PROVIDING AND EXTENDING A LOT OF ‘PERSONAL DESIRES’ (SUCH AS MEMORIES, COMMENTS, HOPES, MEANINGS ETC), BY THE USE OF METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE. DO YOU THINK THE WORKS RECEIVED A WELL RESPONSE? (IN PARTICULAR, AMONG THE LOCAL AUDIENCES)
In general, I have to say that I am quite happy with the response I got for my first solo exhibition.
Many of my friends who have not seen my work before came to the opening, as well as my mum and dad. I heard this response many times : ‘Sharon, I don’t know what it all means, but I think it’s very cool!’ I guess I don’t really know how I feel about that, since I hope that my work provokes thought in people.
It is quite important to me that people don’t have to know me, in order to understand my work. Maybe it’s not so much that I want them to understand what I am trying to say, but I just want them to get something, anything at all, from my art. Whether it is a feeling of wonder, calmness, imagination or even confusion, as long as the audience has brought something home with them after seeing my show, then I’m happy.
I think a lot of people saw this show as about ‘coming home’ or ‘balik kampung’ after studying overseas. Yes, that was a part of it, but it was not really about my personal transformation. It was more about how we experience a place with our body and our mind, so when you are in-between places then you become more aware of your body and your mind.
11. WHAT ARE YOUR ‘DESIRES’ AND ‘DREAMS’ THAT YOU ARE PROBABLY PINNING ON MALAYSIA’S CONTEMPORARY ART COMMUNITY? (EDUCATION, CRITICISM, INSTITUTION ETC.)
I would like to see more people (artists, galleries, institutions) doing constructive things for themselves, the art community and in the end, society. I think that there has been a very long period of analysis and criticism about what is lacking in our art scene. I think that it is now time for us to start to move away from that, time for action.
By ‘action’, people might think that I mean something very radical, like throwing eggs in front of parliament building, or something like that. But that is not what I mean. I think artists can act by taking their art seriously, making good art that is professional and thoughtful. It doesn’t have to be political! I don’t believe you have to be an ‘artivist’ in order to be relevant. I think gallerists can act by searching out and building up young artists, instead of focusing too heavily on putting up high-profile shows of established artists. I think art writers and art critics can act by making constructive criticism, by realizing that their role goes beyond just calling something very good or very bad.
Identifying what needs to be done is very important. But doing what needs to be done is also very important. This is what I hope to do in my role as an artist.
Labels: art
¶ 1:18 PM 2 comments
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Galapagos
line up the sails
foul up the clews
bring her down
her knees will hold
all for the sight of galapagos
haul in the ropes
no blows in sight
a smooth roll under
the sheetbends hold
all for the sight of galapagos
captain sir you know the way
line by line the stars arrange
clouded over by the watch
though the light should hold
all for the sight of galapagos
missing winds
traded tales
shore-bound
taking tea and having scones
leaves don't mean a thing to me
compass safe
weight thrown off
waiting now
and the dream will hold
all for the sight of galapagos
foul up the clews
bring her down
her knees will hold
all for the sight of galapagos
haul in the ropes
no blows in sight
a smooth roll under
the sheetbends hold
all for the sight of galapagos
captain sir you know the way
line by line the stars arrange
clouded over by the watch
though the light should hold
all for the sight of galapagos
missing winds
traded tales
shore-bound
taking tea and having scones
leaves don't mean a thing to me
compass safe
weight thrown off
waiting now
and the dream will hold
all for the sight of galapagos
Labels: B.A.P.
¶ 6:00 AM 0 comments
Thursday, December 01, 2005
The Baudrillard Hangover
The topic for class tomorrow is an overview of post-modernism. In preparation I have been re-reading my post-modern theory, like all good teachers do, one day before the lecture is due to be delivered.
One of the dogs is at my feet, sleeping without a care in the world. Her favorite place is now under the work table in my studio. She’s getting older now so she sleeps a lot and gets peevish when I deign to change my position in the house. She cares not for post-modern theory, preferring occasional sun-baths in our little yard.
I remember my first proper reading of Baudrillard in the year two. What a phenomenal mind-fuck! I walked around Melbourne city for a full day, seeing everything from sea-gulls to trams to little old women with strollers to my very own self as moving signifiers. Nothing is real! Representation is reality! I know what simulacrum is, and context and appropriation and juxtaposition and authorship and it all means absolutely pea-mush! Afterwards I believe me and Luke shared a joint and proceeded to drink many jugs of beer together over at the Lounge on Swanston St. Typical art students – everything is an epiphany and the world’s problems may be resolved over pints of VB.
I remember the stimulation and a sudden awareness of my own mind, like someone had hooked it up to a car jack and put a couple of hundred volts in. Now that I am back in Malaysia, the hands must turn what the mind knows into things that are useful and productive. How may one quantify and codify this awareness of mind into concrete data that may be given specific value, so that as a society we may see the value of having a mind that is alive? It has been drummed into us that education is important, but still what is important is the number of A’s. the size of our university campus and the quality of sound systems in the auditoriums.
I titled my previous post ‘For nothing’. Somewhere in there is a profound desire to see changes in the various economic and social systems on which the world runs its engine. This seems at odds in an art and a mind that pursues understanding and knowledge, vigorously and with passion, with no real concrete application as to how to ‘make this world a better place’, as it were. I can only sense vaguely that the mind is incredibly important, that art is incredibly important, words and expression and concepts and philosophy are incredibly important.
And it is now also incredibly important to return to post-modern theory so I don’t just talk wildly out of my ass tomorrow.
One of the dogs is at my feet, sleeping without a care in the world. Her favorite place is now under the work table in my studio. She’s getting older now so she sleeps a lot and gets peevish when I deign to change my position in the house. She cares not for post-modern theory, preferring occasional sun-baths in our little yard.
I remember my first proper reading of Baudrillard in the year two. What a phenomenal mind-fuck! I walked around Melbourne city for a full day, seeing everything from sea-gulls to trams to little old women with strollers to my very own self as moving signifiers. Nothing is real! Representation is reality! I know what simulacrum is, and context and appropriation and juxtaposition and authorship and it all means absolutely pea-mush! Afterwards I believe me and Luke shared a joint and proceeded to drink many jugs of beer together over at the Lounge on Swanston St. Typical art students – everything is an epiphany and the world’s problems may be resolved over pints of VB.
I remember the stimulation and a sudden awareness of my own mind, like someone had hooked it up to a car jack and put a couple of hundred volts in. Now that I am back in Malaysia, the hands must turn what the mind knows into things that are useful and productive. How may one quantify and codify this awareness of mind into concrete data that may be given specific value, so that as a society we may see the value of having a mind that is alive? It has been drummed into us that education is important, but still what is important is the number of A’s. the size of our university campus and the quality of sound systems in the auditoriums.
I titled my previous post ‘For nothing’. Somewhere in there is a profound desire to see changes in the various economic and social systems on which the world runs its engine. This seems at odds in an art and a mind that pursues understanding and knowledge, vigorously and with passion, with no real concrete application as to how to ‘make this world a better place’, as it were. I can only sense vaguely that the mind is incredibly important, that art is incredibly important, words and expression and concepts and philosophy are incredibly important.
And it is now also incredibly important to return to post-modern theory so I don’t just talk wildly out of my ass tomorrow.
Labels: art
¶ 8:07 AM 0 comments
