Post on 06-Apr-2016
description
transcript
17 October – 23 November 2014Silverlens Singapore
VINCENT LEONG: Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (This Day in History) in collaboration with RogueArt
Vincent Leong’s practice has consistently engaged with structures
and systems of representation to provoke a critical reconsideration
of where and how we locate meaning. He uses various strategies
to deconstruct our experience of popular, iconic or everyday
material, at times subtracting, reconfiguring and recontextualising
key elements, playing off the visual and other aesthetic codes that
govern our perception.
In this exhibition of new and recent works, Leong meditates on the
contradictions and difficulties of framing a national consciousness,
and the means of its representation.
The works adopt or refer to familiar forms of expressing national
identity and agenda – landscape paintings, school murals, a national
monument, the newspaper, and a patriotic song – but they fail to
articulate any clear messages. References are pulled from different
key points in a national narrative – a colonial past, a moment of
independence, a formation of a new nation, a current day, a vision
of a united future; and then pulled apart. Emotional and aesthetic
undercurrents of pride, nostalgia, youthful angst, frustration, and
hope press against one another and up against the pane of this
compromised narrative.
The ideas for the works in this show have been developed over the
past few years, growing out of the artist’s personal experience and
anxiety as a citizen negotiating a problematic national and social
context. Yet each of them pivots on a calibrated sense of disconnect
with and between messages propagated about his national identity.
They pose questions about nationalism and patriotism, news and
propaganda, history and progress, and their meaning.
The title of photograph Kenapamu, Malaysia? (2014) can be roughly
translated as “Why, Malaysia?”. It is a pun on “Keranamu Malaysia”
(“For you, Malaysia”), the theme song for Malaysia’s National Day
from 2000 to 2006. Leong’s photograph is of Malaysia’s national
monument, the Tugu Negara, built in 1962 as a monument to the
brave soldiers who fought the war against communism, which
helped lead to the independence of the Federation of Malaya in 1957.
The historical context of this conflict is in itself problematic 1, but the
angle of this photograph poses a broader question: What does it feel
like to look at a national monument from behind?
Following the moment of Independence, Malaysia was formed in 1963
with the union of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. For the opening
act of this exhibition, Singapore neo-rock ’n’ roll band The Pinholes
performs the song “Divided Land”, celebrating Singapore’s entry
into this union, or reunion, of communities. The physical meaning
of “Malaysia” changed within a very short time. With Singapore’s exit
from the union just two years later, and the very different paths the two
nations have taken since, would young Malaysians and Singaporeans
today recognise, or sing along to, the words of this song?
Through its modern history to today, cultural unity has been a
mainstay of Malaysia’s national agenda as a slogan of the ruling
party and for global tourism 2, while component factions continue
to lobby for a racialised agenda, dividing education and economic
development according to racial categories.
“Recently there have been heated arguments on ‘keeping politics out
of schools’; but it has always been part of our education. Propaganda
gets to you at a very early age, when one submits to be part of the
by RogueArt
1
Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (This Day in History)
system. For example, time and time again, we are told that we live in
a multi-cultural nation, although it is mainly governed by and focused
on only three groups of people: The Malays, Chinese and Indians
(and sometimes ‘Others’). We learn that it is always important to
know ‘who you are’ and ‘who they are’. I would like to believe that
it wasn’t always like that.”
– Vincent Leong
For 1000Malaysia (2014), Leong has collected images of school
murals propagating messages of 1Malaysia and cultural unity,
compositing them into a jigsaw puzzle. Fragmented and incomplete,
how do we begin to piece it together?
Adult generations of Malaysians have accustomed themselves to
the reality of limited press freedom, and the idea of mainstream
newspapers, owned by companies linked to political parties, being
a mouthpiece for political agendas. Mainstream newspapers’
messaging in response to the most recent elections, however,
created a heightened furor against its prejudices.
“There have always been criticisms of mainstream media as
propaganda, and its prejudice increases during election seasons; but
of late, these war-chats are now a daily occurrence. Always searching
for new threats, in hope of uniting against a common enemy. UMNO’s
mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, has been provoking citizens by stoking
religious and racial sentiments. Some writers of the hateful articles
published don’t even dare to give their real names. Who are the
organisers and what do they hope to achieve with this?”
– Vincent Leong
Impropaganda (2014) is a pared-down reflection on the role and character
of the media today, which can be read both on a local and a global
level. A stack of broadsheets emptied of text, it reduces the newspaper
medium to its cold reality as space for rent, a form of real estate mapped
according to the design of commercial and political interests. In this
illegible, ambivalent works, questions hang in the air about the kinds of
agendas shaping our contemporary reading of the nation.
Leong’s interventions into various forms of national representation may
appear as simple, playful formal exercises. Yet they are also emotional
acts, expressing a sense of betrayal, frustration, disenfranchisement,
fragmentation and loss.
The exhibition’s title is borrowed from an educational television and radio
programme, “Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah”, aired on a daily basis on Malaysian
national television and radio since 1980, which creates a bridge between
the trials and achievements of a nation’s past to a present day.
Two digital works, made in collaboration with Martin Constable,
create a similar bridge across history, using a form of node-based
software to composite contemporary elements into early 19th
century landscapes of Penang.
In One Hundred Years (2014), a couple of young motorbike riders hang
out in the foreground of a landscape captured by Captain Robert Smith,
a British colonial artist in 1818, a tourist information complex now nestled
in its once pristine hillslopes. In Pictures of You (2014), Smith’s Cascade,
from the same year, and later popularized in print versions and modern-
day postcards, a damming project, complete with warning signs,
interrupts the flow of a luscious cascade.3
2
These picturings of a country’s landscape and identity have already
been written over by the present. How will we see this day in history,
tomorrow?
In Roundabout (2014), we find a different kind of pun on the
Malaysian landscape painting. The young biker character appears
again, this time in the role of the painter, marking the canvas with
the front wheel of his bike, in what is known in mat rempit slang
as a “roundabout”. Illegal street racers who terrorise local traffic
(and are at times hired by political parties to popularise their
campaigns), mat rempit represent a renegade community, a racial
and cultural stereotype of bored, frustrated youth out to prove
their daring and masculinity.
3
1 The Malayan Communist Party (MCP) was a crucial ally of the British dring the Second World War, fighting against the Japanese Occupation. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the MCP changed its name to ‘Malayan Peoples’ Liberation Army’ (MPLA) in 1948, and the party began to campaign for a Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Malaya, which included Singapore. Thus began the long war between the MPLA and British colonial and then Malaysian forces, and the 12-year Emergency period, which ended in 1960.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Communist_Party2 “Malaysia, Truly Asia” has been the theme for Tourism Malaysia’s promotions since 1999.3 The two works are titled after songs by British rock band The Cure, led by the vocalist and songwriter, Robert Smith. “During the early 1980s, the band’s increasingly dark and tormented music helped form the gothic rock genre.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cure
There is a kind of violent listlessness expressed in the act and form of
this marking – a pointless journey in an autocentric landscape “where
roads replace rivers, trees make way for concrete towers, automobiles
behave like animals. This is our landscape now.”
“If only I’d thought of the right words,
I could have held on to your heart.
If only I’d thought of the right words,
I wouldn’t be breaking apart/ all my pictures of you.”
– Pictures of You (Robert Smith, 1989)
4
From left to right: 1000Malaysia, Impropaganda and Kenapamu, Malaysia?
Installation view at Silverlens, SingaporePhoto: Silverlens Galleries
5
Kenapamu, Malaysia?digital c-print mounted on 3mm aluminum composite sheet59.06 x 40.16 in • 150 x 102 cm2014Editions of 15
Impropagandaoffset print on newsprint, broadsheet format, 16 pages, 555 copies, in acrylic display case45.48 x 8.27 x 17.32 in • 115 x 59.5 x 44 cm2014Editions of 2
6
7
1000Malaysiajigsaw puzzle32.48 x 46.77 in • 82.5 x 118.8 cm2014Editions of 2
8
From left to right: One Hundred Years, Pictures of You (in collaboration with Martin Constable) and Roundabout
Installation view at Silverlens, SingaporePhoto: Silverlens Galleries
9
Roundaboutold motor oil, tyre skid marks on canvas10 x 10 ft • 120 x 120 in • 304.8 x 304.8 cm2014
10
One Hundred Years(in collaboration with Martin Constable)20 minutes video, framed 32” LCD TV and USB flashdiskframed TV: 22.24 x 34.65 in • 56.5 x 88 cm2014Editions of 3
11
Pictures of You(in collaboration with Martin Constable)25 minutes video, framed 24” LED TV, USB flashdiskframed TV: 27.56 x 18.5 in • 70 x 47 cm2014Editions of 3
12
GALLERY EVENT
Gallery Event (Opening Reception)
The Pinholes Performance17 October 2014
watch full performance here
13
Vincent Leong (b. 1979, MY) is an iconoclast and saboteur whose works in video,
assemblage and site-specific installation often pare down experience to sets of structures
and systems. By selecting aspects of the ordinary and the popular, he investigates social
misconceptions within a larger cultural context.
VINCENT LEONG
SOLO SHOWS
2014 Vincent Leong: Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (This Day in History), Silverlens, Singapore
2012 You Are Here, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur
2007 Tropical Paradise, Sculpture Square, Singapore
The Exhibition That Was, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur
2006 The Fake Show, Reka Art Space, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2014 Re/call/Re/form/Re/master, curated by Jason Wee, Silverlens, Singapore
Fall into the Sea, to become an Island, Run Amok Gallery, Penang
2013 No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, Guggenheim Museum, New York
2012 CUT2012: New Photography From Southeast Asia: Politics, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Singapore
2011 Tanah Ayer: Malaysian Stories from the Land, Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung
2010 The Future of Exhibition: It Feels Like I’ve Been Here Before, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, Singapore
2009 Some Rooms, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong
13th Jakarta Biennale, Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta
2008 Contemporary Art in School Project (CAIS), Stella Maris School, Kuala Lumpur
2007 The Independence Project, Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur
Selamat Datang ke Malaysia, Gallery 4A, Sydney; and Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur
4 Young Contemporaries, Num Thong Gallery, Bangkok
Threshold, 13, Jari Art Space, Gwangju and Zeroone Design Center, Seoul
2005 3 Young Contemporaries, Valentine Willie Fine Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
ART RESIDENCIES
2009 Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama
2007 Sculpture Square, Singapore
2006 Asian Cultural Contents Creation Center Workshop, Gwangju
AWARDS
2004 BT Goldsmiths prize in Digital Media, London
2004 Malaysian Video Award for Best Experimental Video: Amateur, Kuala Lumpur
EDUCATION
2004 Goldsmiths College, University of London, London Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
2000 Centre of Advanced Design (CENFAD), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Foundation Studies
SILVERLENS (Manila and Singapore), through its
exhibition program, artist representation, art fair
participation, and institutional collaboration, aims
to place its artists within the broader framework
of international contemporary art dialogue.
SILVERLENS, founded by Isa Lorenzo and
Rachel Rillo, has earned recognition from both
artists and collectors as one of the leading
contemporary art galleries in Southeast Asia.
Artists represented include Maria Taniguchi,
Patricia Eustaquio, Gary Ross Pastrana, Luis
Lorenzana, and I Lann Yee. Recent collaborations
include the Museum of Contemporary Art and
Design Manila, Vargas Museum Manila, and
Singapore Art Museum. Silverlens participates
annually in key international art fairs.
in collaboration with
Vincent Leong: Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (This Day in History) in collaboration with RogueArtCopyright © 2014 by Vincent LeongAll rights reserved.
Published by Silverlens Singapore Pte Ltd
Vincent Leong: Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (This Day in History) in collaboration with RogueArt presented in Silverlens, 12 September to 12 October 2014, at 47 Malan Road, #01-25, GillmanBarracks.
Exhibition Notes by RogueArt
No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the above mentioned copyright holders, with the exception of brief excerpts and quotations used in articles, critical essays or research.
ISBN: 978-981-09-3107-0
Cover Image:Kenapamu, Malaysia?, 2014; Vincent Leong (detail)
Back Cover Image:Impropaganda, 2014; Vincent Leong (detail)
P H I L I P P I N E S
2F YMC Bldg 22320 Don Chino Roces Ave ExtMakati City 1231 T +632.8160044F +632.8160044M +63917. 5874011Mon-Fri 10am-7pm, Sat 1-6pm
S I N GA P O R E
47 Malan Road#01-25 Gillman BarracksSingapore 109444T +65.6694.4077F +65.6694.4077 M +65.9782. 3013
www.silverlensgalleries.cominfo@silverlensgalleries.com www.silverlensgalleries.com