A survey.

So as it turns out, my substack received a surprising mention during a panel. I guess I can say that I am both pleased and amused? Perhaps, there is something to this.

I've been thinking about Singapore turning 60 and how art can be a way to understand the current moment. I'm not so interested in art that simply captures narratives of growth and progress. Instead, I'm thinking of it as a marker of sophistication, particularly in how we contend with immediate issues. Simply put: What is currently important (and to whom?), and how are we talking about it?

For instance, in Suzann Victor's solo show at Gajah Gallery, A Thousand Histories, fresnel lenses offer multiplying experiences through the stubborn conduit of colonial postcards of Southeast Asia.

I had a pleasurable time witnessing faces of diverse ethnic groups made complex beyond a singular framing. It was like an orchestrated invocation of everyone in history somehow - those reduced in a single frame and recomposed as a collective. Fates and stories shared. I mean, how incredibly lonely to be in a frame all by yourself!

At the National Gallery of Singapore, a new exhibition titled, Singapore Stories: Pathways and Detours (mainly Gallery 1) untangles complications about representation. Chen Wen Hsi's Portrait of an Indian Girl sits beside Cheng Pai Mu's Portrait of a Girl. In the latter, her ethnicity is not mentioned - she is just a girl. Yet, the latter is oddly rendered in somewhat similar skin tone as the former, even though Cheng's girl is most likely Chinese. Through this proximity, a productive tension is produced. Something is unstable. Truly, people are complex!

In the iconic painting by Georgette Chen titled Family Portrait, proximity again complicates the ease of representation. Nearby, a body toils; the legs of abstract workers claw at the ground for stability, a strange contrast to Chen's demeanor. A new tension emerges: one of class and upbringing.

Then later, a watercolour of a handsome Sadagopan (not just an Indian Boy) by Lim Cheng Hoe, titled The Red Scarf also known as Sadagopan. Also, the glorious Son of Sail by S. Mahdar depicting a Malay youth beautifully sculpted in pencil (and the resemblance to an artist who ironically paints…Spanish men!)

Maybe a question for our 60th: How do we desire differently? How do we untangle through our simultaneous presence?