Razor-sharp sickles from Indonesian blacksmiths, rubber slippers from inmates in Singapore and used blankets from anonymous citizens in Busan. These are just a handful of the unusual materials that Filipino artists Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan use to create installations, which explore ideas of memory, displacement and home.
Running through 27 June at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Sounds of Blackness is a landmark exhibition bringing together the work of artists from the African diaspora, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah and anchored by works from the collection of Filipino collector Timothy Tan.
ART SG speaks to collector and ART SG Advisory Group member Pierre Lorinet about his collecting philosophy, his views on what it will take for Singapore’s art ecosystem to flourish in the next decade and ART SG’s role in the region. Pierre also shares insights on ‘From Western Minimalism to Asian Political Abstraction’, a significant curation of works from his private collection that audiences will be able to see in January, during Singapore Art Week.
ART SG visited the home studio of Ashley Bickerton (1959 – 2022), who enjoyed what he described as “a long and often breathless career”, creating artworks spanning all manner of mediums and visual languages. Oscillating between dream and dystopia, beauty and the grotesque, Bickerton’s vibrant and intoxicating works cast a keen eye on humanity, culture and consumerism, and our place within the wider arc of time and history. Bickerton’s works will be presented with Gajah Gallery at ART SG in 2023.
Now in its seventh edition, the Singapore Biennale has become a distinctive event in the region’s art calendar, connecting artistic practices from the region with a larger global conversation. Helmed by June Yap, Binna Choi, Nida Ghouse and Ala Younis, the 2022 edition named ‘Natasha’ eschews conventions of titling in favour of giving the Biennale a name, which, in Yap’s words, “can produce a sense of familiarity or intimacy…suggesting a connection at a personal level”. ART SG looks at some of the highlights from this year’s Singapore Biennale.
The Bangkok Art Biennale returns for its third edition from 22 October 2022 to 23 February 2023. Titled CHAOS : CALM, the Biennale will present works by 73 leading artists over multiple sites in the city as well as online. ART SG speaks to Prof. Dr Apinan Poshyananda, the Biennale’s Chief Executive and Artistic Director, about the importance of mounting this major presentation of contemporary art in Bangkok, memorable artwork-site activations, and the future of the Bangkok Art Biennale.
One of Singapore’s foremost contemporary artists, Jane Lee works primarily with the medium of paint, creating visually resplendent works that draw the viewer in with their heavily textured surfaces and dynamic presences. Much of Lee’s work seeks to redefine painting’s conventions while vividly bringing to life paint and painting’s materiality and processes. ART SG speaks with Lee to hear how she found her ‘voice’ in abstraction, and her journey as an artist.
Ming Wong is best known for his re-working of world cinema classics, in which he deliberately ‘mis-casts’ himself and others, often playing multiple roles in a foreign language. He represented Singapore at the Venice Biennale in 2009 with a presentation that revisited the golden age of Singapore cinema, for which he was awarded a Special Mention by the International Jury of the 53rd Venice Biennale. ART SG catches up with Wong on the occasion of the launch of his new public art work at the Singapore Art Museum, titled Wayang Spaceship.
Museum MACAN’s “Agus Suwage: The Theater of Me”, is a major survey exhibition of the work of Agus Suwage, one of Indonesia’s leading contemporary artists, who came to prominence in the mid-to-late 1990s. Curated by Museum MACAN Director Aaron Seeto and refracted through intimate and personal narratives, the work in this exhibition addresses sweeping cultural and political themes. The exhibition includes around 80 works, consisting of major installations, sculptures, paintings, and drawings, and explores the development of Agus Suwage’s work in Indonesia’s Reformasi context.
Filipino collector and ART SG Advisory Group Member Marcel Crespo talks to ART SG about how his collecting practice has evolved over the years, what he looks out for before acquiring an artwork, and how his perspective has shifted after taking a break from the art circuit during the pandemic.
ART SG reviews two solo exhibitions at Manila’s The Drawing Room, each reflecting on aspects of Filipino existence: Mark Salvatus’ ‘Crackling for a Piece of the Moon’ and Christina Lopez’s ‘Pro Forma’. With a shared sensitivity to social inequality, Salvatus and Lopez use topography and technology to shine a light on what affects the Filipino way of life, encounters, and experiences.
This June, documenta opens in Kassel. The 15th edition of one of the art world’s most significant events is helmed by Indonesian collective ruangrupa, and is premised on the idea of collaboration and shared resources. ART SG speaks to artists in Singapore whose practices and spaces revolve around these ideas of collaboration and collectivity.