ART SG UNVEILS 2025 PLATFORM PROGRAM
ART SG is delighted to announce the 2025 PLATFORM program of dynamic, large-scale, and site-specific installations presented throughout the fair. This innovative showcase features a selection of artworks that reflect the latest trends in contemporary art practice, exploring themes from the Asia Pacific region and beyond.
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Shavonne Wong, Meet Eva Here, 2024, video, dimensions variable. Presented by The Columns Gallery.
Shavonne Wong
Meet Eva Here, 2024
Presented by The Columns Gallery
Shavonne Wong invites us into an evolving dialogue surrounding human connection in the age of AI. Featuring an interactive chatbot with a 3D virtual character named ‘Eva’, participants can engage with Eva through anonymous conversations, polls, comments and likes. The interactions will be uploaded onto a public Instagram diary, which becomes a mirror to our emotional landscape in the presence of an AI companion. Eva provokes meaningful reflections on how we connect with technology, prompting us to consider what the future of human-AI relationships might hold.
Khairulddin Wahab, Landscape Palimpsest, 2023, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Cuturi Gallery.
Khairulddin Wahab
The Lands Below the Winds, 2024
Presented by Cuturi Gallery
An installation comprising three canvases by Khairulddin Wahab, a Singaporean artist who was awarded the 2018 UOB Painting of The Year award. Titled “The Lands Below the Winds”, the installation weaves together narratives from historical geography and maritime history, exploring the deep connection between the Malay Archipelago and its surrounding seas.
Wahab’s works express narratives drawn from cultural geography, environmental history and post-colonialism in Singapore and Southeast Asia. A region profoundly shaped by its intricate relationship with water, the extensive coastlines, riverways and archipelagos have played a vital role in shaping its historical development. The installation expresses the paradoxical role of water as a deadly yet life-giving force, and reveals the power of the sea as both a barrier and a conduit to the world beyond its shores.
Indicative photograph only.
Miya Ando, 銀河 Ginga (The Silver River In The Sky) commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park, New York 2019. Photo by Nick Knight.
Miya Ando
Moon Ensō (Engessō 円月相), 2024
Presented by Sundaram Tagore Gallery
An installation that consists of 29 panels of printed silk chiffon, representing a complete lunar cycle of 29 days, with each panel depicting a phase of the moon, beginning and ending with the new moon. Created by Miya Ando, the work embodies the ephemeral nature of the moon, and expresses the impermanence and interdependence of nature. The imagery is derived from Ando’s Moon Almanac, a series of 1345 small, natural indigo dye on washi paper drawings of the moon, created daily over 2.5 years of the Covid pandemic in New York City.
Holding deeper meaning in the artwork’s title, Ensō (円相), meaning “circular form” in Japanese, is traditionally rendered in one calligraphic brush stroke and represents the universe, elegance, strength and the Zen principle of no-mind. Ensō is also a symbol of the concepts of absolute enlightenment, the void, liberation and emptiness (Mu) expressed as the moon. The Japanese word, Engesso, means ‘moon circle’.
Indicative photograph only.
Pablo Reinoso, Promenade Chambord, 2022, painted steel, 130 x 580 x 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Waddington Custot.
Pablo Reinoso
Promenade Chambord, 2022
Presented by Waddington Custot
Pablo Reinoso’s acclaimed ‘Spaghetti Bench’ series makes its presence in Singapore in an installation titled ‘Promenade Chambord’. In this series, the ubiquitous yet anonymous public bench is adapted and transformed into an object of intrigue. By pushing the limits of the bench’s function, the furniture grows its own branches and stretches out into whimsical, playful curls of spaghetti. The installation challenges and extends the notion of an object’s functionality, and invites viewers to reflect on the relationship between furniture and design.
Reinoso’s bench sculptures have been installed in numerous public locations, including beside the River Thames in London, along the Quai Gillet in Lyon and on the south terrace of the Elysée Palace in Paris. The artist’s work is held in public collections worldwide, including Société des Amis du MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Fonds national d’art contemporain, Paris; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil.
Mella Jaarsma, Surat Terakhir / Last Letter, 2024, performance – digital print on cotton, antique mirrors. Image credits: Mie Cornoedus. Courtesy of Baik Art.
Mella Jaarsma
Surat Terakhir / Last Letter, 2024
Presented by Baik Art
Mella Jaarsma is inspired by the site of the post office in Jakarta’s old town that was built by a Dutch architect during the colonial era. Many letters have passed through this place. It has been the centre of communication for so many years and sending letters has been a very important mode of communication, especially between Indonesia and the Netherlands. When Mella started living in Jakarta in 1984, writing and posting letters to her family and friends in the Netherlands was a part of the artist’s daily routine.
‘Surat Terakhir / Last Letter’ refers to the idea that the ‘Kantor Pos’ is entering a new stage in history. Part of its history has been cut off or made obsolete. It occupies a new purpose now, searching for other ways of transmitting messages. In this transition a certain chapter closes. ‘Surat Terakhir’ is an installation about the many letters that have passed through this post office bearing within them so many stories and emotions.
Mella collected some of these postcards from her Dutch family members that were sent from Indonesia to the Netherlands in the 1940’s. Some postcards and envelopes she found in various archives that still bare stamps from the 18th and 19th century. This collection of postcards and handwritten envelopes shows certain aesthetic conventions that have lasted for so many centuries, but which will not be carried on by the generations to come.
Showcasing the works of artists representing the latest in contemporary art from the region and beyond. View these distinctive installations at ART SG 2025, returning to Marina Bay Sands from 17 – 19 January 2025 (VIP Preview and Vernissage 16 January). Read more about PLATFORM here.
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