Modern love: LASALLE thirtieth anniversary exhibition Curators: Khairuddin Hori and Bala Starr Artists Ahmad Abu Bakar, Lina Curatorial and Research Assistant: Christina Arum Sok Adam, Jon Chan, Choy Published by the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore on Ka Fai, Chua Chye Teck, the occasion of the exhibition Modern love: LASALLE thirtieth anniversary exhibition, 6 November 2014 to 4 February 2015. Amanda Heng, Jeremy Hiah, Djohan Johari, Godwin © 2014, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore Koay, Zai Kuning, Jane Lee, This catalogue is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of research, criticism or review as permitted under Lee Wen, Vincent Leow, the Copyright Act 1987, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the prior Justin Lim, Zulkifle Mahmod, permission of the publisher. mohamadriduan, Donna Ong, Design by Vanessa Ban Ruben Pang, Phan Thao Printed by Allegro Print, Singapore Nguyen, PHUNK, Ana Prvacki, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore Rizman Putra, Shubigi Rao, LASALLE College of the Arts 1 McNally Street Zaki Razak, anGie Seah, Singapore 187940 Email: [email protected] Jeremy Sharma, Shirley Soh, www.lasalle.edu.sg/institute-of-contemporary-arts-sg/ Speak Cryptic, Melissa Tan, Suzann Victor. Curators Khairuddin Hori, LASALLE alumnus, Deputy Programming Director, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and Bala Starr, Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Presented over two levels in the existential reading. It reckons on the largest galleries of the ICA Singapore, aspirations that artists associate with Modern love: LASALLE 30th anniversary learning, their aspirations for a civil exhibition marks a special birthday in society, their dedication to knowledge the history of LASALLE College of the and the pedagogy of an institution, Arts. With thirty years now behind the and the necessity of independent college, the exhibition brings together art practice and collaboration. These a relatively small number of exemplary are qualities and tools that LASALLE artists from among a much larger graduates come to know and in turn alumni group. These few represent eventually pass on, some to their own the many artists whose earliest students, but many others to their professional experiences began on a own communities through various art- LASALLE campus and who have made related platforms. Modern love is as pivotal contributions to Southeast well the intensity and drive that artists Asia’s contemporary art scenes in ways bring to their practice; their need to that go beyond geographical settings. imagine, to generate new ideas, hone skills, and pursue a life with vision. The curators have selected and designed the exhibition with a view to affirming the vitality of contemporary We are very aware that in future creative practices and artists’ LASALLE will continue to transform engagements with communities. along with Singapore. It is likely that The artists themselves exemplify the the next thirty years—conditioned by diverse approaches and independent changing creative opportunities as well thinking of LASALLE graduates. as environmental challenges in Asia— will be even faster, more outward- Modern love is founded on the looking and international. The ambition exuberant and at times overwhelming of LASALLE and its artist-graduates is experience of modern life. In the to contribute and grow with these new sense that it describes a state of play futures, searching out and building the or way of being, the title also has an brilliant new forms of modern Asia. Modern love: LASALLE thirtieth anniversary exhibition, Earl Lu Gallery. Photo: Ken Cheong Modern love: LASALLE thirtieth anniversary exhibition, Gallery 1 and Gallery 2. Photo: Ken Cheong Ahmad Abu Bakar culinary history of Singapore 5 born Malacca, Malaysia, performance art over more Remote, 2013 1963, lives Singapore than 20 years. She served a oil on canvas 10-course degustation menu 32 x 45 cm 1 accompanied by PowerPoint Direction, 1992–2014 slides, having selected her 6 wood, glazed ceramic, metal, ingredients via word-of- Terminal, 2013 paint mouth descriptions, her own oil on canvas 130 x 50 x 50 cm recollections, online research, 34 x 41 cm collections of catalogues, The first version ofDirection books and photographic These 3 paintings from 2013, dated 1992 was shown the accounts. Control, Remote and Terminal same year in Bread & butter are intended to be viewed at the National Museum Art 3 sequentially. Jon Chan Gallery, an exhibition that Juliana, 2014 describes links between them explored the mechanics of 20 inkjet prints on Arches that are both conceptual and the art world. Bread & butter paper pictorial: ‘Contextually, the act included 4 Malay LASALLE each 12.5 x 17.5 cm of violence found in Terminal graduates. Direction was would be at odds with the acquired by the museum Lina Adam first conceived peace found in Control as but later apparently lost. this artwork for a fundraising seen in the different states of Remade especially for group exhibition in 2014 the bodies in each picture. I Modern love, the current work to benefit fellow artist and imagine that the light at their is a reconstruction based on friend, the late Juliana Yasin. feet [in the painting Control] memory and photographs Funds were raised to help is light emitting from the of the original. Inscribed defray the costs of cancer image found in Terminal’. The vertically on each face of treatment. Adam regularly surface of each small canvas a wooden column are the visited Yasin during her stays is painterly, the colours words: evolution, conceptual, in hospital. In the span of muted. Although none are conservative and beautiful. An a single day she captured actually alone, the people ‘art-world weather vane’ made details of Yasin’s room and depicted appear isolated from clock parts, metal and her movements as she went from one another in shadowy glazed ceramic stands on top about her daily routine, taking darkness or the half-light of a of the column. steps towards recovery bedroom television screen. post-surgery. The carefully Catalogue Lina Adam cropped images are printed 7 born Singapore 1971, on small rectangles of paper Pretense, 2007 lives Singapore that are represented here synthetic polymer paint on as individual sheets but canvas 2 were originally bound into 80 x 145 cm The culinary history of an artist book. The prints are Private collection, Singapore Singapore performance art displayed in 2 vitrines as a of works re-presented, 2014 selection of fragments rather Pretense depicts 2 rows of performance with table, than a continuous narrative. unsmiling men wearing white chairs, tableware, food, scarves on their heads or PowerPoint presentation Jon Chan around their shoulders. It is 90 minutes approx., overall born Singapore 1982, based on a photograph that dimensions variable lives Singapore accompanied a Singapore 7 November 2014, newspaper article. The 7:30–9:00 pm 4 article described a false in the Control, 2013 report published in a Thai Performance art can be oil on canvas newspaper claiming that challenging to document and 32 x 45 cm terrorists were operating is often poorly remembered. in Malaysia, and giving the In this performance, Lina photograph as evidence. exhibition Adam re-imagined the The article used by Chan countered that the image artefact is accompanied by a During a visit to the Amanda Heng dimensions variable Apathy is an inkjet print in in fact depicted a group text written by Singaporean northeastern coast of born Singapore 1951, 14 January 2015, black and white. The image, of Malay students wearing writer Ng Yi-Sheng. Singapore nearly 10 years lives Singapore 4.30–6.00 pm composed of several layers, is costumes at a school party. ago, Chua discovered typographic and architectural. 12 makeshift shelters, each 16 In this performance, Jeremy It appears to depict the 8 ‘The man who rode crocodiles’ structure characterized by Singirl, 2011 Hiah’s body is hidden below interior of a building, with Bus, 2006 from ‘The Lan Fang the individuality of its maker <www.singirl.net/gallery.php> ground. Above the surface, 2 or more levels collaged oil on canvas chronicles’, 2012 and by its temporary purpose. Visit the site on your only his hand appears, together. The typography of 50 x 50 cm high-definition video, colour, The shelters are made from smartphone or tablet holding aloft a lit candle the title is ambiguous, in parts sound wood, tarpaulin and found encircled by barbed wire in reading as a new surface Bus was made in 2006 when 6 minutes materials by people who fish 17 an enactment of the logo of layer and in others integrated Jon Chan was studying fine and spend their leisure time Singirl@Lorong Buangkok, 2011 Amnesty International. Hiah’s into the collision of built forms arts at LASALLE. At the time This short documentary film in the area. Paradise pays digital print mounted on statement with this work that comprise the underlying he was interested in American was inspired by the poem tribute to these structures. polystyrene-cored board is to draw attention to the picture. and European painting, written by Luo Fang Bo, the In several photographs it is 110 x 254 cm disputed situation of human especially Gerhard Richter’s founder of Lan Fang Republic. possible to glimpse high-rise rights in Singapore. He has Godwin Koay Baader-Meinhof paintings. The original poem narrates Singapore on the horizon. 18 undertaken this performance born Singapore 1987, Bus depicts the real event the ritualistic practice of Over time Chua believes Singirl in print, 2006 twice before; once in Xi’an, lives Singapore of a bus crashing into a tree. exorcising crocodiles. The the shelters will gradually screenprint and photographic China, and once in Singapore. The violence of the scene is story has since morphed disappear from a landscape transfer with embossing on 22 mitigated in the painting by into multiple versions in local that is increasingly shaped handmade paper 20 Excerpts from ‘Notes from a a screen-like surface pattern folklore.