Rizman Putra at SAM
Singapore Art Museum Proudly
Presents
PRESIDENT’S YOUNG TALENTS EXHIBITION 2005
23 April 2005 – 19 June 2005
Third Installment of the Bi-annual exhibition series
SINGAPORE CONTEMPORARY ART EXHIBITION SHOWCASING FOUR EMERGING LOCAL ARTISTS
Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is proud to present President’s Young Talents
Exhibition 2005, the third instalment of the series, inaugurated in 2001. This
year’s presentation has broadened its scope to include design, media and
transmedia practices to reflect international trends in contemporary visual art
practices. Conceived as part of a larger initiative to present young emerging
talents and promote outstanding artistic practices, the exhibition serves as a
platform for the visual arts practices of local promising artists working in
various media. The official presentation ceremony will be held on Friday, 22
April, 6.30pm at the Glass Hall, Singapore Art Museum, with His Excellency
President S R Nathan as Guest-of-Honour.
President’s Young Talents Exhibition 2005 features works by four emerging
Singaporean visual artists with varied beginnings and diverse practices spanning
the fields of film, furniture design, performance, new media and visual arts:
Charles Lim (Co-founder of tsunamii.net and recipient of JCCI Arts Award in
2002), Jason Ong (Grand Prix winner of the Nagoya Design Do! Competition), Tan
Pin Pin (Director of Singapore Gaga, which will premiere at Singapore Film
Festival 2005) and Rizman Putra (Co-founder for the multi-disciplinary
collective ‘Kill Your Television’ which was the recipient of the JCCI Arts Award
2005).
International visual art practices today interact with other fields such as
theatre, technology, architecture and broadcast media to give rise to innovative
hybrid creative expressions. Locally, artists have been engaging and responding
to these directions, taking their practice into newer areas through
collaborations within theatrical performance, artistic expression via new
technological mediums as well as other non-conventional interactions with media.
Featured in this year's exhibition are four artists whose practices transcend
the traditional boundaries of visual art -
CHARLES LIM The project sea state is concerned with the exploration of the
waters around Singapore and contain many different tracks. sea state 1: Inside
Outside is a collection of photographs from that journey and shows buoys,
lighthouses and other assorted objects or structures at sea as the physical
reality to these charted boundaries. These are presented in pairs where an
individual marker is photographed from two perspectives – looking out from and
looking into Singapore – and the seeming indifference between the two opens up
an uncertainty in the fortitude of boundaries and borders.
JASON ONG Furniture is, for Jason, “a playful medium to express the many human
relationships, ideals or idiosyncracies” and in his design explorations, he
strives to create furniture that go beyond serving function and form. Seen in
this way, the pieces shown here, Chair for Day Dreamers and Not Selfish In Bed(s),
are transformed as symbols of his search for meaning, his explorations into
archetypal forms and universal themes.
TAN PIN PIN Spurred by a desire to record and capture moments, to inscribe time
and memories through the film medium whether as photography, documentaries or
experimental short films, Pin Pin created a video, 80kmh, the photographic
series, Friends, Family & Strangers, and the Microwave series of videos where
objects are placed in a microwave oven as experiments in constructing a
narrative with the most minimum requirement - by documenting seconds.
RIZMAN PUTRA For Rizman, performance in all genres (music, theatre, dance, live
art) has become an integral part of his art practice. He considers it to be a
natural development from his fine arts training, to be perceived as a kind of
‘live’ painting. The works presented in the exhibition can then be seen as a
performance structure in three parts, wherein he investigates the conditions of
identity.
The artists are selected by a curatorial committee comprising key experts in
contemporary art in Singapore – individuals involved in design,
cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural practices: Ong Keng Sen (TheatreWorks
Artistic Director), Patrick Chia (Designer), Dr Adrain Cheok (Mixed Reality Lab,
National University of Singapore) and Noorashikin Zulkifli (SAM). Venturing
beyond the conventional boundaries of contemporary visual arts practices, the
works by the artists reflect the rich and varied terrain of art in Singapore
today. Their varied artistic expressions share a common process of intensive
research. Charles Lim adopts a documentative, archival style to establish and
unearth processes of thinking whilst Jason Ong’s designs are often attempts at
elegant resolution of concepts. Audience engagement features prominently in
their quest for ways to communicate with the audience. From Rizman Putra’s
flamboyant persona to Tan Pin Pin’s intensely simple and quiet narratives, these
are young talents who have developed firm voices, both within their fields and
beyond, over years of strong artistic practice.
Says Mr Kwok Kian Chow, Director, SAM, “President’s Young Talents Exhibition
2005 is the highlight of SAM’s contemporary art programming in 2005. We are
delighted to have the continued support of His Excellency President S R Nathan
for this project. Since its conception in 2001, President’s Young Talents has
become a platform for our young emerging talents. It recognises artistic
development rooted within a vibrant local art scene, yet with an eye towards
international artist practices. The series has become an important event in the
local art calendar. We understand the importance of providing support and
recognition for contemporary visual arts and our own artists who are emerging
talents in their field, and hope that the exhibition series may be a first step
leading to many other openings including international opportunities."
An exhibition that taps into the pulse of current artistic practices and
experiences, President’s Young Talents Exhibition 2005 promises to be
Singapore’s contemporary visual art event of the year. So visit the exhibition
to get an update on the contemporary art scene in Singapore! In conjunction with
the exhibition, there will be series of guided tours of exhibition led by
curator of exhibition on 30 April, 21 May and 18 June at 1pm, SAM Lobby. For
enquiries, call 6332 3220.
Full biography of the artists and curatorial committee are appended.
For media interviews, images and further information contact:
Lynn Tan DID: 6332 3219
Marcom Executive FAX: 334 7919
Singapore Art Museum Email: Lynn_Tan@nhb.gov.sg
Suenne Megan Tan DID: 6332 3215
Acting Assistant Director, FAX: 334 7919
Marketing and Corporate Communications Email: Suenne_Megan_Tan@nhb.gov.sg
Singapore Art Museum
For more information, visit http://www.singart.com/
Exhibition opens to public : 23 April to 19 June 2005
SAM Galleries 1.5 and 2.5
Mondays to Sundays : 10am to 7pm, with extended hours and FREE
Admission on Fridays from 6pm to 9pm
Singapore Art Museum is located at 71 Bras Basah Road, Singapore 189555
General enquiries, please contact Front desk at 6332 3222.
Appendix
Artists’ Biography
RIZMAN PUTRA
Beginnings: Born 1978. First at La-Salle College of Arts for his Diploma in
Visual Arts and then BA in Fine Arts from Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology, Australia.
Now: Flamboyant performer and visual artist, co-founder of multi-disciplinary
collective, KYTV (Kill Your Television), lead singer for Tiramisu, member of The
Artists Village.
Rizman found a natural path from his training in fine arts towards performing in
all genres (music, dance, theatre, live art) as a way to create ‘live’
paintings. His multiple and various characters and personae are all expressions
of his investigation into the conditions of forming and performing identities.
The works presented here can then be seen as performance structure in three
parts. In Who Is Manic Jango? A Young Singaporean, Malay, Muslim and
Contemporary Artist, Rizman explores his alter-ego, Manic Jango, through devices
such as portraits, props and playback of an earlier performance. Copper Brown
Blues features interviews with youths, asking them the single question of where
they see themselves in ten years’ time as a tool for mapping one’s self. The
final part sees the transformation of a section of the gallery into the dramatic
setting, Stairway to Funk, for a live performance in the galleries.
CHARLES LIM
Beginnings: Born 1975. Former national sailor. BA in Fine Arts (first class
honours) from Central St Martins College, United Kingdom.
Now: Partner of tsunamii.net, visual artist with a propensity towards
technology, gadgets and gizmos. Recently participated in Insomnia, part of
Singapore Season in London, United Kingdom.
As part of tsunamii.net, a cross-disciplinary artistic collaboration, Charles
explored the physical aspect to the virtual spaces of the Internet as a way of
critically examining contemporary acceptance of the Internet as an unbounded
space. As a development into his solo work, Charles spent a week in the waters
surrounding Singapore to explore her borders that are so clearly marked out on
the virtual spaces of a map. sea state 1: Inside Outside is a collection of
photographs from that journey and shows buoys, lighthouses and other assorted
objects or structures at sea as the physical reality to these charted
boundaries. These are presented in pairs where an individual marker is
photographed from two perspectives – looking out from and looking into Singapore
– and the seeming indifference between the two opens up an uncertainty in the
fortitude of boundaries and borders.
TAN PIN PIN
Beginnings: Born 1969. Initially, BA in Law, Oxford University, United Kingdom.
Then photography, then MFA in Film and Video Production, Northwestern
University, United States of America.
Now: Independent filmmaker known for her Singapore-focused documentaries.
Recently premiered at Singapore International Film Festival.
Deeply affected by the speed of change in Singapore’s urbanscape while she was
growing up in the post-independent years of the 70s and 80s, Pin Pin overcomes
the resultant insecurity with a desire to record and capture moments, to
inscribe time and memories through the film medium whether as photography,
documentaries or experimental short films. These attempts at documentation are
exemplified in her video, 80kmh, and the photographic series, Friends, Family &
Strangers. In 80kmh, Pin Pin records her journey on a single videotape with no
cuts from Changi Airport in the east to the westernmost point in Tuas. In
Friends, Family and Strangers, she took photographs of anyone and everyone all
around Singapore within a set period, pushing herself out to places she would
not have usually visited. This idea of imposing narrow frameworks and
disallowing intrusive forms of editing or selection are evident in the Microwave
series of videos. Objects are placed in a microwave oven as experiments in
constructing a narrative with the most minimum requirement - by documenting
seconds.
JASON ONG
Beginnings: Born 1970. Diploma in Product Design, Temasek Polytechnic, then
Masters in Furniture Design, Domus Academy, Milan, Italy.
Now: Concept-driven furniture designer, lecturer (furniture design) at Nanyang
Academy of Fine Arts.
Furniture is, for Jason, “a playful medium to express the many human
relationships, ideals or idiosyncracies” and in his design explorations, he
strives to create furniture that go beyond serving function and form. Seen in
this way, the pieces shown here, Chair for Day Dreamers and Not Selfish In Bed(s),
are transformed as symbols of his search for meaning, his explorations into
archetypal forms and universal themes. Both works are simple evocative
structures – a steel chair and bed respectively – that curiously shifts the
audience’s attention from design details to ideas, imaginary and imagined
worlds. Exploring the Void, a presentation of study models and conceptual
images, represents a departure from this strand of thinking and is an exercise
in designing furniture that starts from looking at how to support the human form
with negative spaces. The result is furniture that is highly sculptural and
visually attractive but deformed from recognisable furniture shapes.
Curatorial Committee
Dr Adrian Cheok is the Director of the Mixed Reality Lab, National University of
Singapore, which experiments with combining virtual and physical realities. In
this regard, he has exhibited at Ars Electronica Museum Of The Future (Austria)
in 2003 and worked on other collaborations with artists including a project that
was shown in Interrrupt, a cyberart exhibition at Singapore Art Museum (2003).
Patrick Chia is a local furniture designer with international appeal. His
designs were chosen by Philippe Starck to be the centrepiece for the Mondrian
Hotel (Los Angeles, USA) while his squeeze bench has been acquired for the
permanent collection of the Tel Aviv Art Museum. His works have been featured
extensively in international publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wallpaper,
Surface and Elle Décor.
Ong Keng Sen, Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, applies an interdisciplinary
approach to his projects including The Flying Circus Project, a laboratory
project that brings together traditional and contemporary Asian artists from the
fields of theatre, music, dance, video, visual arts and ritual. As a curator, he
has recently presented Insomnia at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA),
London, United Kingdom as part of Singapore Season.
Noorashikin Zulkifli is the Programmes Executive at the Singapore Art Museum.
Her major projects included Wunderpark! last August. This was a two-week
programme featuring an installation of an artist’s concept of a park, with a
strong public engagement direction, as members of the public could create,
contribute and install their own artworks, objects, writings into the park.