DOCSLIB.ORG

Performance Art

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Performance Art (hard cover) PERFORMANCE ART: MOTIVATIONS AND DIRECTIONS by Lee Wen Master of Arts Fine Arts 2006 LASALLE-SIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS (blank page) PERFORMANCE ART: MOTIVATIONS AND DIRECTIONS by Lee Wen Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree Master of Arts (Fine Arts) LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts Faculty of Fine Arts Singapore May, 2006 ii Accepted by the Faculty of Fine Arts, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree Master of Arts (Fine Arts). Vincent Leow Studio Supervisor Adeline Kueh Thesis Supervisor I certify that the thesis being submitted for examination is my own account of my own research, which has been conducted ethically. The data and the results presented are the genuine data and results actually obtained by me during the conduct of the research. Where I have drawn on the work, ideas and results of others this has been appropriately acknowledged in the thesis. The greater portion of the work described in the thesis has been undertaken subsequently to my registration for the degree for which I am submitting this document. Lee Wen In submitting this thesis to LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations and policies of the college. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made available and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. This work is also subject to the college policy on intellectual property. ------------------------------------------------------- Lee Wen iii Abstract Author: Lee Wen Title: Performance art: Motivations and Directions Degree: Master of Arts (Fine Arts) Studio Supervisor: Vincent Leow Thesis Supervisor: Adeline Kueh Month/Year: May, 2006 Number of Pages: 32 Style Manual Used: Modern Language Association (2nd edition) This essay will attempt to make a survey of my personal experience and development working in performance art. In doing so I would also like to go over my motivations and encounters of working in performance art which led me to find the importance of representing the temporal form of performance art in more permanent materials of documentation and archive and organizing art events. Since its appearance in Singapore, the practice of performance art posed various questions. Why would artists feel motivated to work in a temporal art form which does not result in the making of a material art object? Given the temporal and ephemeral nature of performance art how does it continue to be represented? For us who had not seen the actual performances how does one continue to discuss the relevance and contexts of performances made in the past? We depend on evidences or accuracy of interpretations based on other media such as photography, film or videos, writings, interviews and hearsay or other records in various media forms of documentation and archives. What are the various possibilities in representing them after the fact of the said occurrences or “happening” of a temporal performance art work? How do the various media and methods compare and how do we assess them in terms of validity or relevance in relationship to what is deemed as an artwork? Based on this research, we can re-access performance art and its position as a valid artwork in relation to more traditional media. I hope to be able to look into possibilities for future actions and directions to develop my work in performance art and its contribution to contemporary art discourse. v Acknowledgements Many thanks to those who were generous with their time, effort, and support reading the dissertation drafts and offering suggestions and advises, To my supervisors: Vincent Leow, Adeline Kueh, and staff of LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts especially, Milenko Prvacki, Ye ShuFang, Ian Woo, Ahmad Abu Bakar. With special thanks to William Lim, C.J. Wee Wan-ling, Alastair MacLennan, Ray Langenbach, Lee Weng Choy, Audrey Wong, John Low. And all my relations vi Table Of Contents CHAPTER 1: Performance Art: Enactments, Documentations and Re-presentations p. 1 1.1 Introduction p. 1 1.2 Local perspective p. 2 1.3 Historical motivations p. 3 1.4 Global trends, marginal networks p. 5 CHAPTER 2: First Encounters: Towards a Conceptual Framework p. 8 2.1 Introduction p. 8 2.2 Tang Da Wu and the Artists Village p. 9 2.3 S.Chandrasekaran and Trimurti p.10 2.4 Asian Values, State intervention versus Individual vision p. 12 2.5 Birthrights: Identity and Society p. 14 CHAPTER 3: Manifestations p. 17 3.1 Self, ethnicity and multiculturalism p. 17 3.2 Image and context p. 20 3.3 Persona: contrasts and conflicts p. 21 3.4 Journey of a yellow man p. 21 3.5 Ghosts Stories p. 23 3.6 Neo-baba p. 24 3.7 Method against method p. 25 CHAPTER 4: Representations p. 27 4.1 Archive and documentation; memory and history p. 27 4.2 Alternative and strategic use of media p. 29 4.3 Re-enactments p. 31 4.5 Conclusion p. 35 Notes p. 38 List Of Figures p. 44 Figures p. 46 Bibliography p. 60 1 CHAPTER 1 ENACTMENTS, DOCUMENTATIONS AND RE-PRESENTATIONS 1.1 Introduction This essay will attempt to make a survey of my own development working in performance art. In doing so I would also like to go over my own motivations and encounters of working in performance art which led me to find the importance of representing the temporal form of performance art in more permanent materials of documentation and archive as well as art works in more durable media. My research will attempt as much as possible to follow an academic format based on published materials. However, it is an endeavor embarked upon with the foreknowledge that there are very few comprehensive written surveys with references to performance art in Singapore art history.i With the help of some exhibition catalogues, my perspectives are informed largely from personal experiences and conversations via actual encounters with the artists than on textual readings alone. There have been claims that one cannot partake in making judgmental critical discussion of performance art unless one had actually seen it “live”. The “live” element of performance art and its dissolving of the separation between the artist and spectator also privileges itself as an unmediated form which arouses an immediate, unique and radical cultural experience. However this is contradicted by the fact that many of our understanding and knowledge 2 of performance art has been studied and written about from evidential proofs via other media such as photography in the early hey days and increasingly in film and videos today. When making her wide-ranging discussions on performance art practices, Amelia Jones held the premise that there is no possibility of an unmediated relationship to any kind of cultural product, including performance or body art. ii Such privileges should not override other knowledge that arises out of the documentary traces of a live presentation. Being there to see the live presentation does not mean that the audience would immediately know or understand more about the work. A later research based on documentation, whether in the form of photography, textual or oral, film or video, with the help of hindsight and historical distance may lead to a more meaningful and clearer appraisal. 1.2 Local perspective In South East Asia the practice and development of performance art had become progressively more intensive within the 1980’s up to today. The recent growth and diversity of contemporary art in South East Asia remains unconsolidated research due to its diverse social historical situations of rapid changes and emphases on post-war politics of nation-building and economic development. iii Added to that its varied cultural histories and multi-lingual status where even if there were published literature, a large part of it would not be in English. Performance art too have been prejudiced into a marginal position in the market driven society, ignored by the mass media or may also be misrepresented by institutions due to its radicalized potential. Within Singapore’s context TK Sabapathy had cited Tan Teng Kee's 3 Picnic event of 1979 as the first evidence of performance art. Tan created a one-hundred-meters long painting entitled “The Lonely Road”. He then cut into smaller pieces and incinerated one of his sculptures at the end of the event.iv The next foray into performance art is that of Tang Da Wu in 1982 who presented “Five performances” at the National Museum Art Gallery. Following this Tang went on to initiate The Artists Village in 1988, an alternative space and group came together in the last remaining farms of Singapore where experiments by various artists forayed into performance art.v In the same year 1988, Salleh Japar, Goh Ee Choo and S. Chandrasekaran put together an exhibition called “Trimurti” where some performances were also presented. vi Within contemporary art perspective, performance art is traced back to the Futurists, Dadaists and Surrealists during the early 20th Century. Most surveys of performance art would cite the movements in the post-war 1950’s such as Happenings and Fluxus in the U.S. and neo-realism in Europe together with Gutai in Japan as the starting point of performance art as a genre in its own right of tradition and historical discourse.vii Without the knowledge of our own local contexts and historical developments, one would easily fall into the fallacy that our local forays into performance is merely an copy of Western art history which is comparatively found in more publications and documentations.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Heiser, Jörg. “Do It Again,” Frieze, Issue 94, October 2005
    Heiser, Jörg. “Do it Again,” Frieze, Issue 94, October 2005. In conversation with Marina Abramovic Marina Abramovic: Monica, I really like your piece Hausfrau Swinging [1997] – a video that combines sculpture and performance. Have you ever performed this piece yourself? Monica Bonvicini: No, although my mother said, ‘you have to do it, Monica – you have to stand there naked wearing this house’. I replied, ‘I don’t think so’. In the piece a woman has a model of a house on her head and bangs it against a dry-wall corner; it’s related to a Louise Bourgeois drawing from the ‘Femme Maison’ series [Woman House, 1946–7], which I had a copy of in my studio for a long time. I actually first shot a video of myself doing the banging, but I didn’t like the result at all: I was too afraid of getting hurt. So I thought of a friend of mine who is an actor: she has a great, strong body – a little like the woman in the Louise Bourgeois drawing that inspired it – and I knew she would be able to do it the right way. Jörg Heiser: Monica, after you first showed Wall Fuckin’ in 1995 – a video installation that includes a static shot of a naked woman embracing a wall, with her head outside the picture frame – you told me one critic didn’t talk to you for two years because he was upset it wasn’t you. It’s an odd assumption that female artists should only use their own bodies.
    [Show full text]
  • September/October 2016 Volume 15, Number 5 Inside
    SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016 VOLUME 15, NUMBER 5 INSI DE Chengdu Performance Art, 2012–2016 Interview with Raqs Media Collective on the 2016 Shanghai Biennale Artist Features: Cui Xiuwen, Qu Fengguo, Ying Yefu, Zhou Yilun Buried Alive: Chapter 1 US$12.00 NT$350.00 PRINTED IN TAIWAN 6 VOLUME 15, NUMBER 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016 C ONT ENT S 23 2 Editor’s Note 4 Contributors 6 Chengdu Performance Art, 2012–2016 Sophia Kidd 23 Qu Fengguo: Temporal Configurations Julie Chun 36 36 Cui Xiuwen Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky 48 Propositioning the World: Raqs Media Collective and the Shanghai Biennale Maya Kóvskaya 59 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Danielle Shang 48 67 Art Labor and Ying Yefu: Between the Amateur and the Professional Jacob August Dreyer 72 Buried Alive: Chapter 1 (to be continued) Lu Huanzhi 91 Chinese Name Index 59 Cover: Zhang Yu, One Man's Walden Pond with Tire, 2014, 67 performance, one day, Lijiang. Courtesy of the artist. We thank JNBY Art Projects, Chen Ping, David Chau, Kevin Daniels, Qiqi Hong, Sabrina Xu, David Yue, Andy Sylvester, Farid Rohani, Ernest Lang, D3E Art Limited, Stephanie Holmquist, and Mark Allison for their generous contribution to the publication and distribution of Yishu. 1 Editor’s Note YISHU: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art PRESIDENT Katy Hsiu-chih Chien LEGAL COUNSEL Infoshare Tech Law Office, Mann C. C. Liu Performance art has a strong legacy in FOUNDING EDITOR Ken Lum southwest China, particularly in the city EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Keith Wallace MANAGING EDITOR Zheng Shengtian of Chengdu. Sophia Kidd, who previously EDITORS Julie Grundvig contributed two texts on performance art in this Kate Steinmann Chunyee Li region (Yishu 44, Yishu 55), updates us on an EDITORS (CHINESE VERSION) Yu Hsiao Hwei Chen Ping art medium that has shifted emphasis over the Guo Yanlong years but continues to maintain its presence CIRCULATION MANAGER Larisa Broyde WEB SITE EDITOR Chunyee Li and has been welcomed by a new generation ADVERTISING Sen Wong of artists.
    [Show full text]
  • KLAS Art Auction 2014 Malaysian Modern & Contemporary Art Edition XI
    Lot 36, Abdul Latiff Mohidin Mindscape - 27, 1983 KLAS Art Auction 2014 Malaysian modern & contemporary art Edition XI Auction Day Sunday, September 28, 2014 1.00 pm Registration & Brunch Starts 11.30 am Artworks Inspection From 11.30 am onwards Nexus 3 Ballroom, Level 3A Connexion@Nexus No 7, Jalan Kerinchi Bangsar South City 59200 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Lot 65, Ong Kim Seng Himalayan Panorama, 1982 2 3 Lot 64, Lim Tze Peng Thian Hock Keng Temple, Circa 1970s KL Lifestyle Art Space c/o Mediate Communications Sdn Bhd 150, Jalan Maarof Bukit Bandaraya 59100 Kuala Lumpur t: +603 20932668 f: +603 20936688 e: [email protected] Contact Information Auction enquiries and condition report Lydia Teoh +6019 2609668 [email protected] Datuk Gary Thanasan [email protected] Bidder registration and telephone / absentee bid Lydia Teoh +6019 2609668 [email protected] Shamila +6019 3337668 [email protected] Payment and collection Shamila +6019 3337668 [email protected] Lot 78, Ibrahim Hussein, Datuk Untitled, 1974 Kuala Lumpur Full Preview Date: September 11 - September 27, 2014 Venue: KL Lifestyle Art Space 150, Jalan Maarof Bukit Bandaraya 59100 Kuala Lumpur Auction Day Date: Sunday, September 28, 2014 Venue: Nexus 3 Ballroom, Level 3A Connexion@Nexus No 7, Jalan Kerinchi Bangsar South City 59200 Kuala Lumpur Time: 1.00 pm Map to Connexion@Nexus 7 Lot 77, Abdullah Ariff Chinese Junk, 1956 Contents 7 Auction Information 10 Glossary 18 Lot 1 - 77 149 Auction Terms and Conditions 158 Index of Artists Lot 37, Yusof Ghani Siri Tari, 1989 Glossary 6 BASOEKI ABDULLAH 1 AWANG DAMIT AHMAD Indonesian WomAn in Red, 2006 Iraga Dayung Patah, 2006 Oil on canvas | 69 x 50 cm Mixed media on canvas | 100 x 101 cm RM 35,000 - RM 45,000 RM 8,000 - RM 18,000 2 TAJUDDIN ISMAIL 7 JEIHAN SUKMANTORO Magenta Landscape, 2001 Miryam, 1997 Acrylic and pastel on board | 61 x 60 cm Oil on canvas | 70 x 70 cm RM 3,000 - RM 8,000 RM 7,000 - RM 12,000 3 Ismail Latiff 8 HAN SNEL Angkasa Mandi Angin No.
    [Show full text]
  • Marina Abramovic and Destiny of Performance Art
    Marina Abramovic and destiny of performance art Introduction In this thesis I would like to dedicate myself on researching and explaining some important elements related to the performance art as a particular sort of visual arts, Marina Abramovic as a pioneer of Performance Art and to try to predict potential destiny of the performance or may I say less pretentious, to give some remarks regarding possible direction of performance art toward new generation of performance artists as well as performance practices. At the beginning I must give a very short overview of what exactly was performance art in the near past. In the 1960ʼs performance art has been established as action against museums, galleries, and any kind of commercial value. Artists involved in performance practice in that time have decided to refuse any sort of documentation such as video, photographs or sound during the performing. The work would only exist afterward by word of mouth. In the 1970ʼs performance art becomes a radical form against every political and moral in justice in the world. In the 1980ʼs when commercial art becomes very popular, performance art has faced a complete crash without any possibilities of surviving or developing. Paintings and commercial sculptures were produced for art trade and dealing. Performance artists who faced the problem of what else to do started to switch from performance to architecture, installations and commercial art pieces in order to benefit of their art. Marina Abramovic and her former partner Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen) faced the same problem, as well. Through the 1980ʼs and in 1990ʼs , Marina Abramovic continued performing, deeply believing in the possibilities of the body transformations and the energy transition via performance art.
    [Show full text]
  • Rabih Mroué / Cristiane Bouger / Panaíbra Canda / Lucy Mcrae E Bart Hess / Valmir Santos / Jadranka Andjelic
    idança.txt Volume 3 Abril 2011 idança.txt Volume 3 April 2011 Becoming Transnatural. Foto: Lucy McRae. RABIH MROUÉ / CRISTIANE BOUGER / Becoming Transnatural. Photo: Lucy McRae. PANAÍBRA CANDA / LUCY MCRAE E BART HESS / VALMIR SANTOS / JADRANKA ANDJELIC A PERFORMANCE E A RECONSTRUÇÃO DO EFÊMERO Por Cristiane Bouger Cristiane Bouger desenvolve trabalhos nos campos da live art, instalação, dança contemporânea, teatro experimental, texto e vídeo, propondo um discurso relacionando corpo, biografia, cultura e política. Bouger foi escritora colaboradora para a PERFORMA 09 – The Third New Visual Art Performance Biennial, em Nova York, e é escritora contribuinte para o Movement Research e National Dance Center Bucharest na residência Moving Dialogue: A Bucharest/New York Dance Exchange (2010/2011), nos Estados Unidos e na Romênia. Na última década, publicou aproximadamente 30 artigos e entrevistas em livros, revistas, periódicos e jornais no Brasil, Estados Unidos, Portugal e Inglaterra. PERFORMANCE AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EPHEMERAL By Cristiane Bouger Cristiane Bouger develops work in the fields of live art, installation, contemporary dance, experimental theater, text and video to engage in a discourse intertwining body, Marina Abramovic. Thomas Lips, 1975/2005. biography, culture and politics. She was a collaborating writer for PERFORMA 09 – The Third New Visual Art Performance Impressão cromogênica emoldurada: 65 x 51 1/2 polegadas Biennial, in New York, and is a contributing writer for Movement (165,1 x 130,8 cm), edição de 7 com 3 APs. Research’s Moving Dialogue: A Bucharest/New York Dance © Marina Abramovic, Exchange. During the last decade she published nearly 30 Cortesia: Sean Kelly Gallery, Nova York articles and interviews in books, magazines, journals and newspapers in Brazil, the United States, Portugal and England.
    [Show full text]
  • Exhibition Guide
    ArTScience MuSeuM™ PreSenTS ceLeBrATinG SinGAPOre’S cOnTeMPOrArY ArT Exhibition GuidE Detail, And We Were Like Those Who Dreamed, Donna Ong Open 10am to 7pm daily | www.MarinaBaySands.com/ArtScienceMuseum Facebook.com/ArtScienceMuseum | Twitter.com/ArtSciMuseum WELCOME TO PRUDENTIAL SINGAPORE EYE Angela Chong Angela chong is an installation artist who Prudential Singapore Eye presents a with great conceptual confidence. uses light, sound, narrative and interactive comprehensive survey of Singapore’s Works range across media including media to blur the line between fiction and contemporary art scene through the painting, installation and photography. reality. She has shown work in Amsterdam Light Festival in the netherlands; Vivid works of some of the country’s most The line-up includes a number of Festival in Sydney; 100 Points of Light Festival innovative artists. The exhibiting artists who are gaining an international in Melbourne; cP international Biennale in artists were chosen from over 110 following, to artists who are just Jakarta, indonesia, and iLight Marina Bay in submissions and represent a selection beginning to be known. Like all the other Singapore. of the best contemporary art in Prudential Eye exhibitions, Prudential 3D Tic-Tac-Toe is an interactive light sculpture Singapore. Prudential Singapore Eye is Singapore Eye aims to bring to light which allows multiple players of all ages to the first major exhibition in a year of a new and exciting contemporary art play Tic-Tac-Toe with one another. cultural celebrations of the nation’s 50th scene and foster greater appreciation of anniversary. Singapore’s visual art scene both locally and internationally. 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, 2014 The works of the exhibiting artists demonstrate versatility, with many of the artists working experimentally Jeremy Sharma Jeremy Sharma works primarily as a conceptual painter.
    [Show full text]
  • Associate Artistic Director, Theatreworks, Singapore Associate Artist, the Substation, Singapore
    Associate Artistic Director, Theatreworks, Singapore Associate Artist, The Substation, Singapore vertical submarine is an art collective from Singapore that consists of Joshua Yang, Justin Loke and Fiona Koh (in order of seniority). According to them, they write, draw and paint a bit but eat, drink and sleep a lot. Their works include installations, drawings and paintings which involve text, storytelling and an acquired sense of humour. In 2010, they laid siege to the Singapore Art Museum and displayed medieval instruments of torture including a fully functional guillotine. They have completed projects in Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, The Philippines, Mexico City, Australia and Germany. Collectively they have won several awards including the Credit Suisse Artist Residency Award 2009, The President’s Young Talents Award 2009 and the Singapore Art Show Judges’ Choice 2005. They have recently completed a residency at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne. MERITS 2009 President’s Young Talents 2009 Credit Suisse Art Residency Award 2005 Singapore Art Show 2005: New works, Judge’s Choice 2004 1st Prize - Windows @ Wisma competition, Wisma Atria creative windows display PROJECTS 2011 Incendiary Texts, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Dust: A Recollection, Theatreworks, Singapore Asia: Looking South, Arndt Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany Postcards from Earth, Objectifs – Center for Photography and Filmmaking, Singapore Open Studios, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia Art Stage 2011, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore 2010 How
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded from Brill.Com09/28/2021 03:24:39AM Via Free Access ,    
    Blood, Sweat and Tears. The Martyred Body in Chinese Performance Art Tania Becker When we speak of offending images in the context of contemporary Chinese art, some of us may remember articles that were published in , voices of outrage in reaction to Zhu Yu’s performance Eating People: Is it art when a man eats a dead baby? london — My God, what kind of society do we live in? A Chinese man eats a dead baby on TV and actually claims it’s art! The announcement alone unleashed one of Great Britain’s hottest debates on the freedom of the media, the press, and art: the British tv Channel wanted to broad- cast the documentary Beijing Swings, which includes photographs of Chinese artist Zhu Yu apparently eating a dead baby. According to Zhu, the corpse is from a miscarriage. In one of the photographs, he’s washing the body in a sink. Another photo shows him biting into a dismembered body part. Zhu has said that the pictures were taken during a perfor- mance titled »Eating Humans« in his house in Beijing. Yesterday, Zhu Yu claimed that as an artist, it’s his job to initiate debates over morality and art. His work involves exploring whether boundaries still exist. It does not, however, seem to bother anyone when this »artist« transgress- es these boundaries. Not even the guardians of the law — because de- spite the fact that artists using human body parts for their art can be sentenced to ten years in prison, nothing happened [...]. Tania Becker - 9783846763452 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 03:24:39AM via free access , After the images made the rounds in the Internet, the shocking act of consum- ing a fetus met with reactions worldwide.
    [Show full text]
  • Brother Joseph Mcnally P
    1 Design Education in Asia 2000- 2010 Exploring the impact of institutional ‘twinning’ on graphic design education in Singapore Simon Richards Z3437992 2 3 Although Singapore recently celebrated 50 years of graphic design, relatively little documentation exists about the history of graphic design in the island state. This research explores Singaporean design education institutes that adopted ‘twinning’ strategies with international design schools over the last 20 years and compares them with institutions that have retained a more individual and local profile. Seeking to explore this little-studied field, the research contributes to an emergent conversation about Singapore’s design history and how it has influenced the current state of the design industry in Singapore. The research documents and describes the growth resulting from a decade of investment in the creative fields in Singapore. It also establishes a pattern articulated via interviews and applied research involving local designers and design educators who were invited to take part in the research. The content of the interviews demonstrates strong views that reflect the growing importance of creativity and design in the local society. In considering the deliberate practice of Singaporean graphic design schools adopting twinning strategies with western universities, the research posits questions about whether Singapore is now able to confirm that such relationships have been beneficial as viable long-term strategies for the future of the local design industry. If so, the ramifications may have a significant impact not only in Singapore but also in major new education markets throughout Asia, such as the well-supported creative sectors within China and India.
    [Show full text]
  • Art of Tang Da Wu
    This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Body and communication : the ‘ordinary’ art of Tang Da Wu Wee, C. J. Wan‑Ling 2018 Wee, C. J. W.‑L. (2018). Body and communication : the ‘ordinary’ artof Tang Da Wu. Theatre Research International, 42(3), 286‑306. doi:10.1017/S0307883317000591 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/144518 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883317000591 © 2018 International Federation for Theatre Research. All rights reserved. This paper was published by Cambridge University Press in Theatre Research International and is made available with permission of International Federation for Theatre Research. Downloaded on 27 Sep 2021 10:02:22 SGT Accepted and finalized version of: Wee, C. J. W.-L. (2018). ‘Body and communication: The “Ordinary” Art of Tang Da Wu’. Theatre Research International, 42(3), 286-306. C. J. W.-L. Wee [email protected] Body and Communication: The ‘Ordinary’ Art of Tang Da Wu Abstract What might the contemporary performing body look like when it seeks to communicate and to cultivate the need to live well within the natural environment, whether the context of that living well is framed and set upon either by longstanding cultural traditions or by diverse modernizing forces over some time? The Singapore performance and visual artist Tang Da Wu has engaged with a present and a region fractured by the predations of unacceptable cultural norms – the consequences of colonial modernity or the modern nation-state taking on imperial pretensions – and the subsumption of Singapore society under capitalist modernization. Tang’s performing body both refuses the diminution of time to the present, as is the wont of the forces he engages with, and undertakes interventions by sometimes elusive and ironic means – unlike some overdetermined contemporary performance art – that reject the image of the modernist ‘artist as hero’.
    [Show full text]
  • After Utopia Premises the Idea of Utopia on Four Prospects
    1 May – 18 Oct 2015 Organised by Supported by In celebration of © 2015 Singapore Art Museum © 2015 Individual contributors All artworks are © the artists unless otherwise stated. Information correct at the time of the publication. Exhibition Curators: Tan Siuli Louis Ho Artwork captions by: Joyce Toh (JT) 1 May – 18 Oct 2015 Tan Siuli (TSL) Louis Ho (LH) All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior consent from the Publisher. Printer: AlsOdoMinie, Singapore Cover Image: H. Eichhorn, Tropic Woods (detail), issued by Meyers, lithographed by Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig, 1900, as featured in Donna Ong, The Forest Speaks Back (I), 2014. Photograph by John Yuen. Image courtesy of the Artist. Inside Cover Image: Maryanto, Pandora’s Box (detail), 2013, 2015. Image courtesy of the Artist. n naming his fictional island ‘Utopia’, writer Thomas More conjoined the Greek words for ‘good place’ and ‘no place’ – a reminder that the idealised society he conjured was fundamentally phantasmal. And yet, the search and yearning for utopia is a ceaseless humanist endeavour. Predicated on possibility and hope, utopian principles and models of worlds better than our own have been perpetually re-imagined, and through the centuries, continue to haunt our consciousness. Where have we located our utopias? How have we tried to bring into being the utopias we have aspired to? How do these manifestations serve as mirrors to both our innermost yearnings as well as to our contemporary realities – that gnawing sense that this world is not enough? Drawing largely from SAM’s permanent collection, as well as artists’ collections and new commissions, After Utopia premises the idea of Utopia on four prospects.
    [Show full text]
  • Press Release【The 12Th the Benesse Prize Awarded to Singapore
    【Press release】 Jan.14,2020 Benesse Holdings, Inc. Representative Director and President CEO Tamotsu Adachi The 12th the Benesse Prize Awarded to Singapore Biennale 2019 Artist Amanda Heng The 12th Benesse Prize was awarded to Ms. Amanda Heng of Singapore by Benesse Holdings, Inc. (“Benesse”: Headquartered in Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, Japan; Representative Director and President, CEO: Tamotsu Adachi) and the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). The award ceremony was held at the National Gallery Singapore on January 11th, 2020. The 12th Benesse Prize was presented in collaboration with SAM, the organizer of Singapore Biennale 2019 and was open to all artists participating in the Biennale. The following five shortlisted artists were selected by an international jury and announced at the SB2019 media conference in November 2019: Amanda Heng (Singapore), Dusadee Huntrakul (Thailand), Haifa Subay (Yemen), Hera Büyüktaşçıyan (Turkey), and Robert Zhao Renhui (Singapore). The final selection took place at Benesse Art Site Naoshima, where the winner was selected from the shortlist. The prize is awarded to an outstanding artist chosen from the artists participating in the Biennale. The prize recognizes an artist whose work embodies an experimental and critical spirit, beyond conventional practice, and who demonstrates the potential of developing an artistic reflection around the theme of “Benesse” (Well-Being). Ms. Heng will be commissioned to either create a work to be exhibited at Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Japan, or have her artwork become part of its collection in the future, in addition to receiving a cash prize of JPY 3,000,000 (including a visit to Benesse Art Site Naoshima) from Benesse.
    [Show full text]