Sculpture for All

excerpt of the article by Sian E Jay, World Sculpture News, Winter 2000, pages 56 - 63.

 

Singapore's development as a regional visual arts center received a significant boost with the opening of Sculpture Square in October 1999. Its two-month-long inaugural exhibition, Provocative Things, brought together 16 of Singapore's most innovative sculptors...

...There are wall pieces in the exhibition that refer to us to the art of relief sculpture... Chng Nai Wee's Biotics suggest a piece of functional apparatus and sits uncomfortably, testing our notion of a relief.

The almost futuristic imagery suggested by Chng Nai Wee's Biotics on the other hand, is both starting and stark. He leads us to question on the use of biochemicals to build and enhance the human body and its performance, using the means of enhancement rather than the finished product to make his point. The vials of biochemicals in the aluminum cryopreserver suggest a future nightmare, a conveyer belt of perfected people...