SAM Triple Bill: A Conversation with Khim Ong and Duncan Bass

Installation view of Jane Lee’s Status (2009), as part of Lila: Unending Play at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

Jane Lee’s presentation at SAM, Lila: Unending Play is the first solo exhibition dedicated to a Singapore artist since SAM’s move to Tanjong Pagar Distripark. How is Lee’s practice significant/relevant to the contemporary art scene in Singapore and internationally?

Khim Ong (KO): Throughout her practice, Jane Lee has been questioning the practice of painting and its relevance to contemporary art. Well known for her material and conceptual explorations of the nature of painting, her works are often heavily textured and possess a dynamic form that push the boundaries of what a current-day painting practice could be. This material interest also extends into explorations of what and where painting is and could be: as surface, object, body or interplay of spaces and sensations. Some of the earlier works presented in the exhibition reflect the artist’s response to her own questions of painting’s status in contemporary times and they continue to resonate while being visually captivating. The new works commissioned for the exhibition demonstrate Lee’s persistent pursuit of the endless potential of a practice in painting. It is an exhibition that expands the possibility of what an exhibition of painting could be and manifests the playful approach Lee takes in her practice.

What other solo exhibitions can we look forward to from SAM in 2023 and 2024?

KO: In November this year, visitors can look forward to Ho Tzu Nyen’s solo exhibition, Time and the Tiger, which is a survey of Ho’s wide-ranging practice across film, video, installations, and theatrical performances, with a new commissioned work that traces the histories of time, temporalities and horological traditions in the region and beyond. More details of this exhibition will be shared in due course.

Installation view of Hito Steyerl’s Factory of the Sun (2015), presented at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

Hito Steyerl’s Factory of the Sun premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2015 but still feels very relevant today, which is remarkable given how quickly technology and the virtual world move, and move on. In what ways did the work anticipate contemporary digital culture? 

Duncan Bass (DB): Hito Steyerl has a remarkable gift for anticipating the trends of contemporary media culture. Factory of the Sun’s use of viral social media content and questionable cable news segments are even more poignant since the rise of TikTok and “fake news” discourse. While Steyerl always makes a point to engage with the newest technologies in the production of her work, in my opinion, their continued relevance comes from the personal anecdotes that ground the narratives and the artist’s insightful use of technology as an expression of the social, political, or ideological systems that develop and deploy these technologies.

Are there aspects of the digital realm today that have outpaced the premises envisioned by Factory of the Sun?

DB: While Factory of the Sun weaves together aspects of artificial intelligence, fake news and social media, it is a product of its era. Rather than the algorithmically-driven “bots” that populate Factory of the Sun, the current discourse is focused primarily on “generative AI”—text and images synthesized from ever-larger datasets—yet the issues that Steyerl addresses remain relevant as these new iterations of machine learning technology have amplified potential to shape political discourse and the forms of digitally-mediated labor. 

Installation view of Khairulddin Wahaba’s Landscape Palimpsest (2023), as part of SAM Contemporaries: Residues & Remixes at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

In the presentation SAM Contemporaries: Residues and Remixes, it appears that quite a number of the works on show are preoccupied with legacies of colonialism. Why do you think this topic continues to be mined by the younger generation of Singapore artists?

KO: The colonial period is a much referenced/remembered phase in the history of the region, just as World War II and subsequent developments of ideas of nationalism which were catalysts for many key moments in social and political history in the region. Looking at and thinking about the past is one of the crucial ways we learn to situate and understand ourselves in the present. It is inevitable that artists are drawn to these periods in their artistic research when what transpired then continues to leave traces today.

Is there anything distinctive about how this generation of artists in Singapore addresses these issues, compared to previous generations? Are there similarities, or shifts in attitudes and approaches?

KO: Artists from different generations respond to pertinent issues of their time and this is evident in how many of the works in the exhibition reflect on changing landscapes, shifts in values and ideologies, explore the impacts of technology, or considers the influence of digital networks on our experience of the world and human/non-human relationships. Access to information, new technologies, and the global network of discourse offer artists today more ways and modes of production and presentation. What remains core to artistic research and practices then and now is their attempt to add a voice to global conversations, from the perspective of Singapore and the region.

These interests can be seen in Residues & Remixes. An example is how both the works of Yeyoon Avis Ann and Fyerool Darma allude to interworking of the analog and the digital, and draw from everyday objects or images in circulation – Avis’s A Collisional Accelerator of Everydays (A.C.A.E.) borrows the process of quantization to evoke minute shifts in perceptible reality and invites new associations with common objects and familiar sounds; Fyerool Darma’s Total Output featuring Aleezon, berukera, billyX, Jasim, Lee Khee San, Lé Luhur and rawanXberdenyut employs the idea of glitch as both a method for image-making but also a conceptual device for reflecting on cultural/industrial excess, creative labor, and productive discordance. 

Installation view of Moses Tan’s a caveat, a score (2023), as part of SAM Contemporaries: Residues & Remixes at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

What can we discern about the concerns of artists in Singapore, based on this presentation? Why has SAM singled out these particular artists and their approaches to artmaking as significant? Will there be other similar surveys in future?

KO: SAM Contemporaries is a biennial project, and each edition is a result of sustained conversations between SAM curators and artists on their interest and work and presents the outcomes of these dialogues, whether in the form of an artwork or other formats of presentation. While each edition will feature selected practices, it is not a comprehensive survey of contemporary art in the moment. Rather, SAM Contemporaries is set up to be a platform that enables collective and collaborative research amongst curators and artists, and introduce to the public a selection of emergent practices in Singapore that reflect some of the material and means of our times.

What are some trajectories of thought and/or artistic production that might be addressed in subsequent editions of SAM Contemporaries? Do the SAM Residencies feed into this conversation in any way?

KO: Future editions of SAM Contemporaries will continue to be led by developments in artistic practice and research of interest to locally-based artists. While it begins with the museum’s curatorial and research interest in mapping contemporary art from Southeast Asian perspectives, the selection for each edition takes an open-ended approach to enable fluidity and a spontaneous meeting of ideas rather than starting with a thematic framework. In this manner, inter-relations are allowed to emerge from ongoing conversations between museum curators and a multitude of artists which is a core part of the curatorial and research work at SAM. 

Installation view of Priyageetha Dia’s LAMENT H.E.A.T (2023), as part of SAM Contemporaries: Residues & Remixes at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

Lila: Unending Play by Jane Lee, Factory of the Sun and SAM Contemporaries: Residues and Remixes are on view now at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark until 24 September 2023.