I know this post is really late, my apologies. No excuse for me for coming with posts like this that late, and to think that I’ve wasted a month away not blogging down what I have learned. It’s just that there are photos to resize, remembering who are the artists, which thankfully I have taken an image of the description. Let’s hope I can get the flow of things here.

I was down in Singapore for Lion King. I had the whole afternoon free to myself and I decided to go for the Singapore Biennale 2011. I was in luck that during this whole open house, entrance for the museums were free on every Sunday and I was visiting the museums on Sunday. Awesome.

First, I will start with what I have seen in Singapore Art Museum, my thoughts about it.

Artist: Julian Göthe
Title: Voices from the Off 2, 2008
Very interesting structures with wires tied at the background. It gives the industrial feel where you’re driving on the road and seeing such stuff.

Artist: Shahrul Jamili Mikson
Title: Making sense can something get out of hand
The hands reminds me of my friends final year project where she did something about hand signals which sometimes can mean differently in different countries.

Artist: Wit Pimkanchanapoin
Title: Not Quite a Total Esclipse
It was interesting to see this thing work. Occasionally you see the shutters moving after a few seconds, creating different shadows in the background.

Artist: Nadia Bamadhaj
Title: Quiet Rooms
I remember what caught my attention was the texture of the both of the art pieces. Upon closer inspection, you can see a hidden stories behind the story you see at the first glance. I know it sounds confusing but at the first glance, you see a head or a uterus, and when you look closer for the details, you can see apartments, houses and other things. Like what it was described, “.. trying time in the life of a married couple wishing to start a family in Yogyakarta suburban kampung.”

Artist: Chun Kaifeng
Title: He is Satisfied from Monday to Friday and on Sunday He Loves to Cry
It looks very white and sterile and something about it feels very empty. Also, if you’re observant enough, you will see knives arrange around in the room. You can’t see a knife clearly in the photo, but it’s there.

Artist: Jompet Kuswidananto
Title: Java’s Machine, Phantasmogoria
This is a scariest installation there. I was wondering what was the sound outside and I went in and I see a multitude of invisible army. You thought you’re viewing the video and suddenly one of the phantom soldier suddenly hit the drums out of nowhere and if I’m not mistaken, one of the soldier could move the feet.

Artist: Chng Seok Tin
Title: Flowing
Flowing series. Intricate work. Looks like some pen sketching but realised that these pieces are done with this process called etching.

Artist: Noberto Roldan
Title: Faith Sorcery, Sorcery in Faith #1 and #2
Very interesting take on certain cultures in live, where people could be Christians and yet practised sorcery. I like how he used the concept of positive and negative space in this particular piece. Yes, as you can see, you actually see a combination of voodoo dolls and pictures of Virgin Mary and Jesus.

Artist: Tan Oe Pang
Title: Fruit Basket
I just like this piece. Simplification of what a fruit basket will look like.

Artist: Tan Oe Pang
Title: Vegetable, Fruits and Bees
I admit that I have nothing much to say about this except that I love chinese paintings where it looks very fluid.

Artist: Wu GuanZhong

The following three art pieces of ink and oil art pieces from Wu Guanxhong. His philoshopy in his paintings:

Oil and ink painting are like the two blades of a pair of scissors cutting a new outfit. The two blades may not necessarily the same length, and the ways of using the scissors, exerting different strengths, for example, may also differ from time to time. Hence when I feel that I have come to a deadlock in oil painting, I will choose to paint in ink. However I will revert to oil when I feel my dabbling in ink has come to a deadlock.

Title: I forgot to shoot the description of the art piece below
I really like the texture and it feels like the grass is growing really well and flowers are blossoming.

Title: The Wu Village
When I first saw it, it looks like another type of texture but upon looking closer, it looks like ‘petempatan padat’. Sorry, I really don’t know what it is called in English since I took Geography in Bahasa Malaysia. I like how they focus in the middle as the centre of attention and as it goes further away, it fades off. I’m not too sure whether the houses in the centre looks larger and clearer to show hierarchy in the village.

Title: Kites seen again
I like how they played with the tree textures and where the kites are flying around like little butterflies.

Artist: Nadiah Bamadhaj
Title: 147 Tahun Merdeka

Truth to be told, I did not like her photo manipulation skills. It is not that great but the reason why I shot some of her works because I relate to what she is going to convey here, since I’m a Malaysian. I feel these pieces speak about how Malaysia is like in the next 147 years if there is no improvement.

Remember back in 2001 there was the issue of the SJK (C) Damansara which was asked to relocate from Section 17 to Tropicana? I felt that the photographer was trying to give solutions or how the country is going to be in the near future. But hmm, why do they have to create a S.R.K. (C) 2 Damansara to look like Ikea building?

Ah, I didn’t know about the foreign student quotas.

Hmm, I don’t really get it but I guess I put it there because it’s Angkasapuri?

Some issues never change, and hopefully it change Let’s talk about the Obedient Wives Club so the husbands don’t go out to other women for sex.

Well, our self confessed first lady said that the tsunami is cause by the lack of green technology and most Malaysians hope that they could build a nuclear reactor in Putrajaya. So this how it will look like if we build a nuclear reactor there.

These is what happen when the government doesn’t preserve our heritage and demolishing it for commercial areas. Look at our Pudu jail now. Oh wait, it’s not a jail since only the door remains.

Artist: Shooshie Sulaiman

No titles for the works below as I could not find them. So I’m going to put in an excerpt from the booklet:

Her installation for SB2011 comprises spaces within spaces, based on buildings that have personal significance for the artist in Malacca and Kuala Lumpur. Inside its rooms are drawings, collages and video in which different times, spaces, and actions overlap, representing memories and experiences relating to the artist’s father and her close friend Ah Guat.

I was the only who sat through the whole interview between artist and Ah Guat while the rest of the visitors was scurrying around me. At some parts it was funny when the interview when Ah Guat said a vulgar word and the interviewer said, “Eh, jangan kata tu lah. Tak baik tau.”

(Interviewer turns to her friend who is recording the video)

“Eh, you heard what she said? She said p***.”

We finally get to know about Ah Guat when the interviewer gave her some cigarettes to smoke and Ah Guat opened up and shared her life. Ah Eng was from a poor family and when she was 14 years old, she married a older man through an arranged marriage. Her husband though was older, but knew that she was still a young girl so he did not force himself on her. She continued her story that her sister in-law did not like her and her sister in-law had accused many times that Ah Eng got beaten up before. Not only that, her sister in-law is having affair with her husband.

It was very sad. At first you wouldn’t like her because she is very resistant to others, but after listening to her stories, you actually feel sad for her and will think why humans can be so cruel sometimes.

Artist: Roslisham Ismail aka Ise
Title: Secret affair
There were few fridges there with a video. Nothing spectacular but just that you just want to open it up and see what is different from the different fridges.

Artist: Koh Nguang How
Title: Artists in the News
He is one passionate artist in Singapore. He actually collected a lot of newspapers regarding the art scene in Singapore. He was there when I went there but there was a lady that was asking him a lot of questions about the arts and sharing about what her family do. I was reading through some of the archives and realised that the art scene in Singapore has its own set of problems but at least the government is still supporting them.

Artist: Matt Mullican
Title: Most of them are untitled, but it is a bulletin board with mixed media.

I can’t remember why I shot this. Weird photography angles?

A calendar of his holidays and special days

I just like how they manipulate colours and words.

Artist: Stuart Ringholt
Title: Untitled (Artforum #5)
I love this style of illustration and the typography. Reminds me of some of the story books I have and no, my storybooks don’t have sexy ladies in it.

I also watched Tan Pin Pin’s short films. Here are my thoughts on the six shorts.

The Impossibility of Knowing
This was one interesting shot where the director read some news archive and went to the sites where the tragedies such as suicide, a fire, a tunnel collapse, to name a few. With empty places and the voiceovers, it did sound like a ghost movies, but it is not.

Snow City
I admit that I did not get this film.  All I see polar bears, cold places, and a construction site. Hmm…

9th August
An archive of Singapore National Day’s Parade. Feels like Malaysia’s Independence day, but this was interesting as you can see Lee Kuan Yew aging, and his son Lee Hsien Loong in the later years of the National Day’s Parade.

Ivan Polunin’s Sound Archive
I could not hear the sounds clear enough, or I was getting fidgety as I wanted to see more stuff. Swamp areas in Tuas to the coffeeshop. I’m still trying to find the link there.

Rogers Park
I felt that it is a drama of things not going the right way.  Latchkey boy, his neighbour upstairs and the neighbourhood cat and its owner, all different things at a different places but end up with disaster at the same place. Well, that’s what I felt about it.

Moving House 1997
An interesting documentary about the exhumation of the director’s great grandparents in Singapore. It was interesting to listen to the interviews that was conducted with her relatives and what they taught about the exhumation, the superstitions and the government. The older generation seems to trust the government a lot as they say, “Well, the government know what is best for us. They say the living need more land. They say exhume, and we say alright.”

This ends part of the Singapore Biennale in Singapore Art Museum. Part 2 will be about the art pieces in National Museum of Singapore.