As Singapore Art Week kicks off, the city-state’s art scene comes alive with a flurry of new exhibitions. From poignant self-portraits by a former Burmese political prisoner to colonial photography manipulated with AI, here are six standout shows to see.
Htein Lin
‘Reincarceration’
Richard Koh Fine Art
Through January 27, 2024
Burmese activist-artist Htein Lin has often painted himself trapped behind bars or ensnared in barbed wire. Since joining the pro-democracy demonstrations against Burma’s military dictatorship in the 1980s, the artist has faced repeated torture and imprisonment. When he was first jailed in 1998 for six and a half years, he scavenged for lighters, bars of soap, and prison uniforms to create artworks to depict his plight. Once released, he continued documenting his experiences. Then, last year, he was unexpectedly imprisoned for several months along with Vicky Bowman, his wife and the former UK ambassador to Myanmar. ‘Reincarceration’ unveils works that Htein Lin painted in jail last year as well as in the intervening years between his sentences. Raw and filled with emotion, the paintings capture the artist’s internal struggles while also asking pressing questions about human rights violations in Burma today.
‘Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics’
ShanghART Gallery
January 17 – 30, 2024
Spread across six locations in Singapore’s Gillman Barracks gallery district, ‘Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics’ is one of the most anticipated exhibitions of Singapore Art Week. Organized by local non-profit The Institutum (founded by Malaysian collector Andreas Teoh) and co-curated by Zoé Whitley and Clara Che Wei Peh, the ambitious show brings some 100 artists from Africa, Asia, and their diasporas into dialogue. Highlights of the presentation at ShanghART Singapore include Tse (2016), a monumental silvery tapestry of bottle caps by Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, and Thai artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s haunting film On Blue
(2022), which documents a sleepless woman in a strange jungle-like set that is eventually consumed by fire.
Heman Chong
‘Meditations on Shadow Libraries’
STPI Gallery
January 17 – March 10, 2024
Singaporean conceptual artist Heman Chong has been described as having an almost fetishistic love for books. For years, the graphic designer-turned-artist has been painting careful replicas of book covers, some of which appear in this intimate show. Curated by Brian Kuan Wood, the co-curator of the most recent Taipei Biennial, the exhibition functions both as a single artwork and as a series of separate pieces that investigate the idea of personal, informal libraries and the circulation of knowledge among individuals. Standout works include screen prints of heavily redacted pages from John le Carré’s novel Call for the Dead (1961), Chong’s way of confronting the problem of censorship across Southeast Asia. Another compelling series is ‘Eternal Returns’ (2023): Tiny name-card-sized paintings on metal sheets list the addresses of demolished homes where cultural figures in Singapore once lived.
‘Customised Postures, (De)colonising Gestures’
Gajah Gallery
January 19 – February 18, 2024
This show shines a spotlight on young and established artists from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines who are reframing their countries’ pasts. Curator Alexander Supartono juxtaposes contemporary artworks interrogating the colonial gaze with unsettling ethnographic images, such as a portrait of ‘Rangoon coolies’ from 1868 (‘coolies’ was a term used to refer mainly to impoverished Chinese immigrants who came to Singapore in the latter half of the 19th century seeking work). Works of note include a piece from Singaporean artist Robert Zhao Renhui’s photographic series ‘Singapore Crocodile 1930s’ (2023) and a print from Indonesian artist Abednego Trianto’s series ‘What Am I Going to Be When I Grow Up? Raden Ayoe of Course’ (2015). Inspired by a set of colonial postcards he discovered showing the capture and killing of a crocodile, Zhao trained an image-generating AI model using two existing photographs alongside historical written records of the event to create new fictional colonial-era images. The resulting works aim to retell the story of the animal’s capture from a local’s perspective. Meanwhile, Trianto collaged fragments of colonial-era studio portraits onto a letter by women’s rights activist Raden Adjeng Kartini, speaking out against oppressive patriarchal traditions that persist today.
‘Doxa & Episteme – In Search of the Real Deal’
Mizuma Gallery
Through February 8, 2024
In the video work Eat This! (2021), London-based Indonesian artist Victoria Kosasie places a photograph of her grandparents in her mouth and starts to chew. The black-and-white print, shot in the mid-1940s during Indonesia’s struggle for independence, gradually fades and dissolves in her saliva. In the background, an image of her grandparents slowly morphs as it is digitally manipulated. Kosasie’s visceral performance – which grapples with intergenerational trauma, the role of technology, and the challenges of archiving the past – sets the tone of this insightful group exhibition. Using video, photography, and AI, the six Southeast Asian artists explore ideas relating to the digital manipulation of cultural knowledge and beliefs surrounding national identity.
‘Self and Beyond’
Ota Fine Arts
Through March 2, 2024
A trio of talented Asian women artists take center stage at Ota Fine Arts. At the heart of the show are Indian-American artist Rina Banerjee’s exuberant sculptures festooned with found objects ranging from a white ostrich-feather duster to colorful Murano glass, shown alongside several of her evocative watercolors. Seen together, her works delve into issues of gender, sexuality, and post-colonial identity. Meanwhile, London-based Maria Farrar’s paintings home in on women at work. Whether it is a waitress unfurling a billowing tablecloth or factory workers quietly packaging biscuits, Farrar’s work explores visible and invisible female labor. In contrast to these figurative works are Indonesian artist Christine Ay Tjoe’s energetic abstract paintings, which express her emotions while simultaneously reflecting on larger themes of nature and human existence.
Singapore Art Week 2024 runs from January 19 to January 28.
Payal Uttam is a journalist and critic who divides her time between Hong Kong and Singapore.
Published on January 17, 2024.
Caption for full-bleed image: Robert Zhao, Singapore Crocodile, 1930s (detail), 2023.