WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia @ CAMK

This show feels like a burst of uncontained energy. With ambition and variety in their approach, the curators of Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Yokohama Museum of Art and the Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto have gathered an impressive roster of artists from SAM’s collection to give a raw impression of their working concerns. Not every work is a masterpiece – some quite the opposite – but virtually every artist included has made an effort to transcend regional stereotypes. In some pieces, there is a rich irony that complicates the meaning further.

Massive changes in the region’s recent economic history are a central theme. Post-Independence Singapore’s growth rate rivalled the Japanese bubble years in its explosive GDP rise – 8% on average until 1999 – and the country has physically expanded by 20% since it started reclaiming land forty years ago. This combined with its transformation into a crucial port city and tourist destination have irreversibly changed Singapore’s landscape and that of its neighbours. The immediacy of such change is clear in Francis Ng’s Constructing Construction 1 (2001). The highway pylons seem ripped in half, filling the sky space of the composition like imposing jagged arrows. As a commuter bus glides into the frame from the right, it is clear that there is no division between built and unfinished districts; rather, the city is the backdrop of constant pushes to expand. Daily living for Singaporeans is depicted as perpetual ‘constructing’: always existing within the matrix of development.

Other artists have sought new ways to depict the rush of societal development. Chang Yoong Chia’s manga-like story painted on ceramic spoons takes the objects of hawker centre meals of instant noodles to tell a story of a mother who thinks her son has abandoned her, but who turns out, finally, to have been waiting for her all along [below]. It is childlike and twee in the graphic simplicity of its design, but transposed in a totally original way onto the backdrop of modern city living. In the rush of urbanization, Chang’s art suggests, a nation may forget the moral heritage of its fables.

Chang’s art is just one example of the original approach to media taken by many of the artists, with results that are as unexpected as they are sometimes shocking. By far the most potentially offensive piece in the show is Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s Thai Medley I, II and III (2007) in which the artist reads ancient poetry over the unclaimed corpses of women in a morgue where she worked. The video quality is so basic, the lighting so stark that the piece has a drastically ‘home-made’ effect. We see the cheapness of the floral cloth draped over the women; the occasional insect on the floor. Thus even though Rasdjarreamsook interlays the footage with beautiful audio streams of Thai mourning song, as viewers we are denied the poetic distancing perhaps afforded by top class visual effects. It is a meditation on mourning and an attempt to give dignity to those who had no one to read their burial rites, but the piece itself does not offer dignity as a screen behind which to hide from the carnality of death.

Rasdjarmreamsook’s piece is either brilliant for being crushingly to-the-point, or a terrible invasion of the privacy of the deceased. But one great thing about the works I didn’t like in this show was how much I found myself disliking them. There is nothing bland or corporate in any of the pieces, which is to be commended for a partly government-funded exhibition with a remit to appeal to a mass audience.  Essentially – ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ doesn’t give you the option of not having an opinion. The pieces are ferociously forward in communicating a message, and that in itself – whether you agree or not  – is exciting.

The fearlessness endures in works that explore the history of the artists’ homelands, which often means a tangled mess of colonial politics.  The term ‘postcolonial’ has been refined over years of academic scrutiny in literature, but in contemporary art it still seems available for exploring in novel ways. Malaysian artist Ahmad Fuad Osman’s approach is an installation of slides of Malaysia under British rule, which the audience is invited to sit before like classroom stuents. The images are fascinating documents of another age – but is it really a useful stategy to insert into each one the jokey figure of 21^st century nameless Malaysian? I am slightly unconvinced. But whether or not you like his approach, Osman undeniably confronts you with the point that you are looking at images constructed – just as modern Singapore is ‘Constructing Construction’ – to give a very specific message. We are forced to think about who took the picture, why it was preserved, and how it aimed to be an instrument of Western governing stability.  Osman’s photoshopped hippie may be infuriating, but he does succeed in disrupting the message of colonial superiority.

The will to re-interrogate the messages of history and then, further, to apply that scrutiny to contemporary life is the most exciting part of this exhibition. Irony is powerfully – and surprisingly – at work. Steve Tirona’s images of the ex-First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos – known amongst other things for owning 3,000 shoes – look at first like a condemnation of her excessive lifestyle. She is shown in pseudo-fantastical poses, surrounded by expensive locations and surreal fripperies. In one piece in the Imelda series she steps fully-preened out of a golden bath; in another, she takes tea in a crazily over-decorated sitting room while her poodle vomits diamonds. Yet this was actually a pro-Imelda campaign, commissioned by her grandson to market her latest line of luxury accessories. The photographs at once denigrate her decadence and advertise it as the apex of luxurious living; something to laugh at, or aspire to? The pictures don’t give you an easy answer and it seems Marcos is craftily aware of her own image as a pin-up woman for the excesses of the economic boom in the Philippines. Far from being victim to this, she laughs at herself – and then directs it to her advantage.

The combination of new media, fearless subject matter and wit leads me to agree with SAM’s former Director Tan Boon Hui that this show has ‘triumphed over academic conservatism’ to clearly communicate the ‘value and power of art from this region’. Moreover it is a brilliant multi-national project for the Contemporary Art Museum of Kumamoto, which itself deserves more attention as a first class museum space. The show comprises 25 artists from eight countries, whose works run the full gamut from polished to rough, poetic to vaguely repellent, but never shy away from boldly speaking their concerns in new ways. That is not to say everything is loud – some of the simplest pieces evoke the most lingering impressions. Charles Lim contributes a long film of Singapore’s monsoon storm drains: turning the image of a city of booming skyscrapers on its head in a lonely picture of the empty veins that interlace the metropolis.

So – to concede a little to regional generalisation – what can we expect from Southeast Asian art? Technical experimentation, a thirst for pushing politics to the fore, an engagement with history and and above all – a raw drive that will not be liked by all but may turn out to be a breath of fresh air given the huge problems of censorship experienced by mainland Chinese artists – still the loudest voice in Asian contemporary art. SAM’s Mr. Tan has previously said ‘it’s important in contemporary art that we have movement and there are different voices coming along’. The jungle is still wild, and I hope that in gaining international exposure the artists here will have a chance to develop without losing their fundamental creative energy.

 

‘Welcome to the Jungle: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia from the Collection of Singapore Art Museum’
is at Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto until November 24th 2013

2-3 Kamitori-cho, Chuou-ku, Kumamoto city, 860-0845 Japan http://www.camk.or.jp/english/

 

All works discussed are from the collection of Singapore Art Museum.

Filed under: Main, Review, Uncategorized Tagged: Annabel James, art, contemporary art, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, design, exhibition, gallery, installation art, Japan, Japanese art, Kumamoto, Malaysian art, political art, postcolonial art, Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, Southeast Asian art, Tan Boon Hui, Yokohama