JASON ONG

 

 

Artist Talk Topic: Milan Debut

Speakers: Jason Ong and Yih Ming

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 Time: 2.30 – 4pm

Venue: Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts NAFA Campus1, Wing B Headquarters & School of Visual Arts Building #03-0880 Bencoolen Street Singapore 189655

Admission: Free

Synopsis: Jason Ong and Yih Ming will share their design experiences pertaining to designs’ concepts. Some of these concepts depict archetypal forms, universal themes and the search for meaning which attempt to explore the different definitions of furniture. They will also share about their exhibition experiences in Milan.

About the Artists: Jason Ong and Yih Ming

Jason Ong is an independent furniture designer with a penchant for conceptual development. Taking a keen interest in the subject of humanism and the human condition, the design intention is ultimately a search for new ways to perceive furniture, beyond serving function and form. Jason recently exhibited his work at the Salone Satellite 2005 in Milan, the President’s Young Talent Exhibition 2005 at the Singapore Art Museum and at the Singapore Pavilion in Aichi World Expo 2005. He was awarded the Grand Prix for the Chair for Daydreamers at the 2ndNagoya Design Do! International Design Competition in 2000.

Yih Ming Kok obtained his Diploma in Interior Design from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in 2000.International projects include Oil tanking, Imperial Tobacco, Purple Train, CAL Learning Centre, DLA PIPER RUDNICK GRAY CARY (SINGAPORE) Pte LIMITED amongst others. He is presently a professional design consultant where he focuses on design, research and development. He has taken part in numerous design competitions, amongst which the “ROC” Chair, which he designed with Kiel ONGG, was short-listed as a finalist or the Singapore International Furniture Fair Competition 2003. He exhibited OREA chair & table in Milan Salone Satellite 2005.


 


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.