open house - a discussion of multiple perspective across borders

7/25/2019 Open House - A Discussion of Multiple Perspective Across Borders

1/8

OPEN HOUSEA DISCUSSION OF MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ACROSS BORDERS

The 2011 Singapore Biennale: Open House, conceived by Artistic Director Matthew Ngui and curators Russell Storer and Trevor Smith, is the focus of this issue

of Contemporary Visual Art+Culture Broadsheetmagazine. The third edition of the Singapore Biennale, becoming one of the regions resonant focal points for

the introduction of current trends in international contemporary art practice, presents works by sixty-three artists from thirty countries across four exhibition

venues that draw upon emblematic spaces in SingaporeHousing Development Board ats (Singapore Art Museum and 8Q@SAM), shopping centres and night

markets (National Museum of Singapore), and international air and sea ports (Old Kallang Airport). The title Open Househas been conceived not as a theme but

as an invitation into contemporary artistic practice, suggesting the crossing of thresholds between public and private, where boundaries and borders are made

permeable. Eva McGovern, recently an independant curator and writer and now Head of Regional Programs for Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur; Joselina

Cruz, a Manila based curator and co-curator of the 2008 Singapore Biennale; Artistic Director Matthew Ngui; Russell Storer, Curator, Contemporary Asian Art,

Queensland Art Gallery; Trevor Smith, Curator of Contemporary Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; and Alan Cruickshank, Editor Broadsheet

magazine, discuss Open Houses aim to bring together artworks that offer multiple perspectives and myriad creative approaches to questions of how we move across

borders, see other points of view, and form connections with others.

ALAN CRUICKSHANK: You have stated in your media presentation, that the 2011Singapore BiennaleOpen Housesees four exhibition venues, each with their ownparticular character, drawing upon emblematic spaces in Singapore: publichousing apartments shopping malls and night markets and international airand sea ports. The previous two Singapore Biennales also engaged emblematicspaces, such as the Tanglin Army Barracks, City Hall (site of the Japanese surrenderin 1945 and birth of nation, etc.), religious sites and a further colonial militarysite on Beach Road opposite Rafes Hotel. When one might wonder logically whythe National Museum and Singapore Art Museum werent utilised together, as city-art institutions, in 2006 and 2008 as they will be in 2011, the focus upon publichousing apartments, shopping malls, night markets and international air and sea

ports retains a certain city-history specicity through its public infrastructureand community buildings unlike most other biennales, emphasising both aSingaporean-ness and Asian-ness.

Such specicity might present to an international audience theslipperiness of an overt history-tourism quotient kicking in, much like this yearsBiennale of Sydneyand its usage of Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour which saw500,000 people take a free ferry ride to the island underscored by a colonial,penal and military past, ie. the sites character predetermining if not overridingthat of the artworks. This has been of some contention in both previous SingaporeBiennales with City Hall and Tanglin Army Barracks for example. But it wouldseem to be a lesser issue in this edition with theBiennalebeing presented in theNational Museum and the Singapore Art Museum, though the Old Kallang Airportmarginally continues that trend.

As a comparison, the Gwangju Biennales theme this year articulateda sprawling, multifaceted investigation of the ties that bind people to imagesand images to people [of] humanitys intense relationship with images [and]in a world now inundated with a seemingly endless stream of photographs anddigital phantasms the exhibition attempts to understand how images havebeen transformed though recent social and technological upheavals, in otherwords, a global theme rather than one of a city or region-specicity. As we knowGwangjus raison detreis also different, being founded in 1995 in memory of thespirit of civil uprising resulting from the 1980 bloody repression of the GwangjuDemocratisation Movement, whereas Singapores seems to be more about desiringa city-cosmopolitanism.

Whereas both Belief (2006) and Wonder(2008) presented a somewhatethereal premise, Open Houseappears an attempt to present the cultural overthe historical, a people and community (or software) directive rather than beinghistorical/infrastructure (hardware) based. This you have alluded to, observingthat at customary festivities such as Hari Raya, Deepavali and Chinese New Year,people open their homes to others, inviting them to visit, eat and talk. This isnot only a gesture of hospitality and goodwill but also an opportunity to reect,negotiate and exchange. The threshold between the private and the public ismade permeable, if only for a moment, relaxing boundaries between individualsand barriers between groups. This would seem to be a quantum leap in theBiennales vision in an engagement of its audience and society in general.

MATTHEW NGUI: By emblematic spaces in Singapore we refer more to thesymbolic spaces that may be seen to represent a typical Singaporean spacetheHousing Development Board ats, the city with its various places for transaction,ie. shopping centres, shops, places to eat/drink, clubs, streets etc., the air andsea ports geared for international movement and exchange, and the highly urbandowntown public space at the foot of the CBD. And we have aligned the variousexhibition venues to these spacesthrough architectural similarity, historicalreference and the potential to differentiate one space from another. Hence, 8Qand its mothership, Singapore Art Museum (both former schools), have been alignedto the HDB at because of the presence of common corridors; National Museum ofSingapore to the city as it is larger, slicker and more spatially generous; old Kallang

Airport, Singapores rst purpose-built airport (with an anchorage for seaplanes),hence it will be used to reference ports. The National Museum was used as a majorexhibition venue in the rst Biennale, though none of the museums were involvedin the second edition. The organising institution for SB2011has shifted from theNational Arts Council to the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), so it makes sense tolocate one of the main elements of the Biennalethere. The National Museum islocated within an easy walk from SAM so it also made sense to gravitate a goodportion of the works within the citys cultural precinct. Apart from these practicalnotes, the curatorial team felt that it would be good to have a variety of spaces aswell. As the artworks are so varied, it is also important to have the same degreeof texture in experiencing the venues.

Personally, I think that it is wonderful that art can bring people tospaces that are either forgotten or restricted, even better if there is a relationship

between the selected artworks and the site/space. The reality, however, isabout the availability of the old Kallang Airport to be used as a Biennalevenue.As the city ponders upon the future of the buildings and site within the venue,a contemporary art exhibition is one of the few events capable of temporarilytransforming such a space into a meaningful experience for the visitor. We arenot only using the space for its physical size, but also its historical and culturalrelevance to the artworks that will be installed there. If people wish to see the oldairport buildings and site, and this would be one of the few last opportunities to doso before it is rebuilt, I hope they will get to see some great art as well.

As an independent artist and a co-curator in the last Biennale, I havebecome more interested in looking closely at artistic practice than the nalartwork, that is, to move our research area closer to its founding ideas and skills ofthe artist instead of interpreting or suggesting possible meanings for the artwork.We know and have seen how artistic processes engage with a space to produce

critical site-specic works. In some ways, all artwork is site-specic and so thechallenge for the SB2011curatorial team is to formulate ways in which we couldcritically consider an artists process in relation to space. One of the obvious waysin which to do this is to open discussions with artists about their practice whileconsciously looking at how their processes work into or massage the cultural,historical and spatial aspects of places about, or in which, the work is made.As the exhibition is to be in Singapore, we began to consider the city and itsparticular spaces to frame and give life to these artists processes. The result sofar has been an open house to our city and artistic process, with half of theworks being new commissions or premiers, all being relevant to the city as a site.In this way, one can see that our own curatorial process has been a spontaneous,spatially driven one, much like an artist process, a combination of seeing, doingand thinking. Hence, much of SB2011is rather about down-to-earth making and in

so doing a real engagement with spaces and people is encouraged.

Opposite: Tatzu Nishi, The Merlion Hotel(artists rendering), 2011

Photo courtesy the artistPage 20: Rafael Lozano- Hemmer, Open Air: Relational Architecture 18(artists rendering), 2011Photo courtesy the artist

Page 24: Beat Streuli, Images from Wolfsburgseries, 2007

Photo courtesy the artist and Eva Presenhuber Gallery, Zurich


2/8

1 9 C O N T E M P O R A R Y V I S U A L A R T + C U L T U R E B R O A D S H E E T 4 0 . 1 2 0 1 1


3/8


4/8

RUSSELL STORER: It is important that a biennale relate to local conditions andexperiences to some extent. We werent trying to create a Singaporean culturalclich for tourists, but rather use these familiar spaces as a starting point foraudiences, the majority of whom are local. We also wanted to give each spacea structure so that they dont just blur into each other but have a specic logic.On the other hand, one thing that sets the Singapore Biennale apart is itslocation, and from the beginning it has included a large number of Southeast Asianartists, often quite young, who may be unfamiliar to the international circuit.It is therefore a chance for people to see a range of work from this part of the

world and is a signicant platform for local artists. What makes a good exhibitionhowever is how the artworks, wherever they are from, are put into dialogue witheach other, and how this might open up other layers of interpretation and broaderideas. Although Robert MacPherson works with Australian vernacular language, forexample, he is also concerned with questions around materials, artistic labourand the everyday, as are Ceal Floyer and Martin Creed, so we have brought themtogether.

TREVOR SMITH: I think that your opposition of local specicity and globalthematics is too tightly drawn. Massimiliano Gionis remarkable Gwangju Biennale10,000 Liveswas invested in ideas about trauma and image making, photographyand witness that clearly resonate with the traumatic history of Gwangju thatyou eloquently describe. In fact, I think Open House shares a great deal with

10,000 Lives in its attempt to make a show whose engagement with localspecicity allows it to organically and powerfully open onto issues of more generalconcern. In Gwangju it was very much about our production of and relationshipto images; in Singapore its much more about how we communicate and relatethrough the making and exchange of objects. This seems highly appropriate giventhat Singapores extraordinary social evolution is based precisely on economicdevelopment, on constantly innovating to service the ows of goods and servicesin the global economy.

And I think its useful to press this question of local specicity a stepfurther relative to your point about cosmopolitanism. HDB ats are a Singaporeanvariant of social housing, which of course, is a worldwide phenomenon, not justAsian. In Singapore, these ats, along with a host of other government programsand policies, could be described as attempts to engender/engineer a kind ofcosmopolitanism. Quotas ensure that the social and ethnic mix cannot devolve

into racial or ethnic enclaves. Its a policy that exerts a strong measure of socialplanning, but its at least unafraid to acknowledge the cultural nature of theproblem. Cosmopolitanism never exists in a fully realised State; it can only everbe actively renewed or rejected, whether top down by government or bottom upby artists.

JOSELINA CRUZ: In response to Alans reference to the specicity that the currentBiennaleseeks to consider and grapple with, and even the reference to history-tourism, I nd this particular aspect as one of the more challenging and even,intellectually-engaging and emotive strategies taken on by the Singapore Biennaleso far. I nd that the local specicity of works, after much thought and reection,lead us to a certain extent towards more universal, bigger ideas. This beingthe case, there is much to be said for this trend of sites pre-determining but

hopefully not overriding the artworksthe latter though is a challenging factorfor most artists. History has this capacity to overshadow art and its objectsthereis nothing that is more co-opting than the grandiosity of history (both written andoral), and the turns of events that change and direct the lives of people across theworld. Sites will always remain as memorials whether these are recognised or not. Regarding Matthews comments in response to Alans observations aboutBiennale sites and artistic practice, I like his use of the mothership. I havethis desire to say thrusters on full at which the response would have beenengage. Setting aside sci- parlance, almost every large-scale exhibition hasthe unwavering objective of engaging publics. And I think that Matthew as ArtisticDirector has kept this mostly in mind. And kudos to him, he has taken on theimportant engagement on the other side of the spectrum, of directing our gazemore closely at artists and their processes of production. This Biennalethus goesinto all directions that look to engagement as a primary directive. His consciouschoice of the spaces (whether this be SAM, the old Kallang Airport or the NationalMuseum) for their historical and cultural relevance to the artworks that will beinstalled there is an equation that waits to be resolved upon the opening of theexhibition and once the artworks are set in place. In the same breath I would liketo point out that most of the exhibition spaces are weighed down by their specichistories (SAM used to be a Catholic boys school and has gone through a fraughthistory as a museum site). Thus artworks situated in all the spaces may or maynot make reference to the history of the site and its architecture. These decisionsare left to the curators. I agree with Trevors interpretation (10,000 Livesin itsattempt to make a show whose engagement with local specicity allows it toorganically and powerfully open onto issues of more general concern) of GwangjuBiennales similarity with Open House. I may have hinted at this in my earlierresponse to Alans initial commentary. Alan also pointed out that the initiation

of Gwangju came from a specic historical perspective, whereas Singapores was

more a desire for a city cosmopolitanism. Perhaps this Biennalewill overturnthe original impetus for cultural cosmopolitanism and skew it towards an actionand/or strategy that could only push it to a kind of maturity.

ALAN CRUICKSHANK: In a similar interlocutor-curator discussion in Broadsheet37.3in which Matthew you took part, Singaporean art critic Lee Weng Choy remindedus of his proposition in an essay titled Biennale Demand in a earlier issue (Vol37.1), where he argued for the importance of asking not just what audiences,critics and artists want from biennales, but what biennales might demand of us.

He asserted that, biennale criticism is as repetitive and predictable as the objectsof its criticism. So if critics want to fault the conceits of curators, they too mustrecognise that they have a responsibility. Perhaps we might have better biennalesif our criticisms of them were also better. He further went on to say, Instead ofalways being disappointed with these conventional representationsof wantingmore than whats paraded in one city after anotherwhat if we really listened tothe demands that biennales make of us? And to see them as emergent traditionsor, at least, to contemplate that possibility as a horizon. Such discussionsas this and other recent attempts, endeavour to engage better criticism, forbetter or worse. Weng Choy alsoasserted that, Far too many discussions of theseexhibitions are characterised by the rush to judgement, and by the assumptionthat a biennale is indeed a thing in itself, rather than a phenomenon that maynot quite cohere The tendency to talk about these grand projects in grand terms

often is at the expense of closer engagementsCloser engagement would seem to be what you are seeking inyour process as Artistic Director. In that particular discussion (Vol 37.3), youresponded by saying that, As a curator, I dont consciously seek out artists ortheir work as knowledge/material, or categorise them in groups from which onecould select examples for various exhibition purposes Hence, Im especiallyinterested in the processes artists engage in the making and thinking about art.And my selection is based on this interest. I nd that I am much more attracted tothese processes than with the nished product. This would very much seem to bethe driving force behind Open Housefor you as Artistic Director, as this Biennalewill examine artistic processes and their links to the daily transactions that takeplace between individuals, groups, cities and nations. You have said that suchartists practices are not simply about something in the world, rather they are realattempts to exchange information, translate experiences and even trade places;

artists nd ways to embed themselves within such systems of control, turningunspoken desires toward unexpected ends.

Is your Biennaleproposing a closer audience engagement with the artit is presenting and is this a different demand then of prior editions? In terms ofyour interest in the artistic processes engaged in the making and thinking aboutart, this has a potential to present artworks that escapes the comprehension ofthe audience more attuned to product or end results, such as paintings andphotographs, or other recognisable objects identiable as art.

MATTHEW NGUI: Both you and Lee Weng Choy are Correct in seeing a biennale asa (relatively) big thing. And big things have ramications, both small and large.While looking critically at artistic process, it is fair to say that the process ofputting a biennale together itself also has local spin-offspeople and companies

prepare the spaces, organise and build the exhibition, liaise with and executethe artists designs and instructions especially with the works made in Singapore,pull information and produce the catalogue and all other collaterals, departmentshave to know the biennale to be able to market and communicate it, and soon. All this is done before the rst visitor enters our doors. These activities giveopportunity for engaging and understanding the art to be shown in a different butnevertheless real way that in my humble opinion is not to be underestimated.There is sometimes the misconception that if we focus on process, things becomeprocess as things or transactions that we perform everyday. For example, but notto be reductive, the work of Gulsun Karamustafa from Istanbul is about dressingup, while Singaporean artist Ming Wongs work is about imitation. It is, however,precisely the artists choices as to when and how to dress up and what to imitatethat then, within the contexts of specic cultures, reveal something of that cultureand place. These processes are located in specic placesGulsuns dressing

up video is set in an apartment, a home, while Ming Wongs work is about theslippages in a reinterpretation of Pasolinis 1968 lm, Teorema. Hence Gulsunswork will be shown at SAM@8Q (the HDB at) and Mings at Kallang Airport, whereinternational travel and cultural transactions took place. We hope that in this way,the processes or everyday transactions can be seen as relevant to the venuesthat in turn represent the emblematic or symbolic spaces of Singapore.

RUSSELL STORER: Open Houseis not conceived as a theme but a way of thinkingthrough the Biennalewhat happens when you open your doors to others andinvolve yourself in an exchange? Its an active, rather than a passive process.This question hopefully carries through on a number of different levels, from thestructuring of the venues, to the works in the exhibition, to the experience ofthe exhibition itself. In our thinking for the Biennale, starting with Matthews

interest in process, we wanted to move away from big picture themes which tend

21

C O N T E M P O R A R Y V I S U A L A R T + C U L T U R E B R O A D S H E E T 4 0 .1 2 0 1 1


5/8

to present artworks so that they have to be about something, and instead throwthe focus onto the activities we are all engaged in. That might be as artists andviewers within the context of making and looking at art, but also in everyday life,which for many artists is the subject of their work and embodied by the materialsand techniques they use, the conceptual strategies they employ, the ways theyinstall their works in spaces and involve audiences. This is not to say that theworks are devoid of content, but in many cases the content ows out of how theworks are put together and the chain of artistic decisions that are made. StuartRingholt, for example, talked about his Vitrines(2010) magazine works, where he

cuts a circle in an image and replaces or rotates it, as a way to make sculpturewhen you dont have a lot of money or spaceyou can just cut up an image ofa Henry Moore or a Giacometti and make your own version. Through this simpleintervention the work begins to say a lot about how we relate to art history, aswell as the fragility of form and meaning.

TREVOR SMITH: Even though the exhibition is not thematic, art works still point veryclearly to anxieties and issues in the world around usissues of self-determination,surveillance, global trade, labour, and negotiating the shifting denitions of publicand private etc. Our decision to use familiar architectural typologies that amplifythe spatial qualities of the each venue is an attempt to help differentiate theexperience you might have in each venue as well as to suggest to the visitorthat all this conversation about process might in fact have something to do with

their everyday experience. One of the great ironies of exhibition making is thathuge energies are expended trying to make an event accessible by marketing andteaching easily digested themes. Yet this can often become a problem becausethe theme per se is rarely what makes an artist important. Extraordinary artworkscontinue to be made about pretty much any area of human endeavour you canimagine. Instead, what makes an artist important is their struggle to expresssomething of their experience of those endeavours, labouring to articulatevocabulary, nd material, and develop form to express that. This struggle is whatI would dene as process. And while the work of art might be unique or highlyspecic, its inspirations are deeply rooted in daily lifein places like apartmentbuildings, shopping malls, airports, and so forth.

JOSELINA CRUZ: In response Russells comments I was contemplating that perhapsthis thinking favours structure rather than the artists idea or even in some cases,

the resulting object. The audience it appears will be critical in activating manyof the works. Placing such a wide range of works that involve the audience (and Iwould like to qualify the word involve in the sense of their physical relationshipwith the site, object, context as being a kind of catalyst that makes the workpossible.) Wont this be exhausting for the audiencethey will be weaving throughworks that demand for them to activate it? They are in many ways also artists.How do the curators plan to address this stress artworks will ask of its audience?

RUSSELL STORER: I think you are underestimating the audience. In my experiencepeople love to be involved, and if the space is made for them to feel welcome,informed, and open to the work then it is an energising rather than an exhaustingexperience, and people do give it the time. The works in the exhibition operateon many levels, and you cantand shouldntdirect people to experience or

interpret them in any one way. Take Charlie Whites OMG BFF LOL (2008), forexample, a seemingly simple series of short animations of teenage girls. At rstglance they could be witty spoofs of Valley girls like something out of Josie andthe Pussycats (that shows my age). But if you spend more time with them, they areactually very poignant and even tragic vignettes, and they also carry references togender theory and Marxist critiques of capitalism, if you want to go there. You canoffer signposts, but in the end we come to art works on our own terms.

EVA McGOVERN: The title of this years Biennale roots itself in the customaryritual of the open house during the many diverse religious festivals in the region.This is a complex event within the Singaporean and Malaysian contexts thathighlights racial diversity and celebration (something that tourism continues tomarket) and as you state in your media release, it equates to/involves a relaxingof borders/boundaries at a socio-cultural level. Everyone is welcome regardless of

race, religion and culture, to celebrate, talk and of course, eat. On an internationallevel this type of relational strategy, of process, of interaction, fullls manyof the goals of biennaleseducation, interaction, site-specicity, culture, etc.It is also a novel experience for the international visitor who will relate this tohis/her own cultural contextreligious festivals, personal celebrations, publicholidays, etc. Or at the very least enjoy the experience of something new, and ofcourse, problematically exotic. As Alan mentions, when combined with sites ofcultural value it becomes a hybrid tourist passive/active encounter. On the locallevel the open house also highlights the relaxing of racial division prevalent inmulticultural Singapore and its neighbor Malaysia. Is Open Houseattempting toshare these tensions to problematise what biennales can be in this type of specicand complicated racial landscape?

TREVOR SMITH: I dont know that Ive ever lived anywhere that isnt a complicatedracial landscape. Often those places that pretend there isnt an issue have thebiggest issues of all. So I really respect Singapore for at least acknowledging theimportance of the co-existence of cultures. But rather than continually rehearsingthe idea of diversity and the uniqueness of different cultural and racial groups,we might get further ahead in the conversation by acknowledging that all suchgroups do share something. They share a volatile space of relationshipsboth asindividuals and as groups. This volatility is negotiated and managed through actsof trade, exchange and translation, which become the drivers of cultural change.

One of the amazing things about the art world is that it is one of the few placeswhere it is generally acknowledged that it is a self-evident good that we all havedifferent ideas and ways of sensing and perceiving the world, even if our idealsare disappointed from time to time. A biennale is big enough to make visible thatvolatile space, to have a boisterous conversation in front of a broader audience,not just between categories of things, but highly specic works of art.

MATTHEW NGUI: If Open Houseis, as per Evas question, attempting to sharethese tensions to problematise what biennales can be in this type of specicand complicated racial landscape, it does so through the work of the artists inthe Biennalerather than the curators consciously making selection of works toillustrate the position. For example, we invited Arin Rungjang for a research periodand he proposed a documentation and exchange project with Thai construction

workers in Singapore. He could have proposed a more form-based work, and thatwould have been ne as well. Although the reading of the work is important, weare consciously focusing on the artists process of making. The artists in SB2011have a broad range of interests and foci. As you know, in contemporary art manyartists make propositions in different ways, using different meansthey commentdirectly upon and make reference or draw parallels to various issues, includingthose of difference. Other artists working this vein include Navin Rawanchaikul,Ming Wong, Phil Collins, Louie Cordero, Tracey Moffatt and the collaborationbetween Dahn Vo and Leonor Antunes.

EVA McGOVERN: On a wider level Open House aims to highlight and questionthrough artworks with myriad creative approaches how we move across borders,see other points of view and form connections with others. Migration, shiftingand dissolving borders through political change, globalisation, the legacies of

postcolonialism and hybridity is something that has been discussed heavily forsome time now. In todays current contemporary landscape many younger artistschoose to reject such issues, refusing to dene their hybridity. Can you elaboratemore upon what these borders are and how the Singapore Biennaleattempts tobring fresh approaches to this subject?

TREVOR SMITH: I have a great deal of sympathy with that refusal to self dene.Walt Whitman said it best: We contain multitudes. When Im curating I actuallydont think so much about borders at all. Borders may emerge, but one beginssensing a force-eld through the spaces youre working with, the conversationsyoure having, and of course most importantly the artists and artworks that aretriggered almost intuitively when you encounter a space. I am not advocatingblindness, rather I think these acts of intuition are a form of knowledge that is

deeply understood but often (if its at all interesting) you arent able to quite putit into words yet. The act of exhibition making is a process of making that force-eld manifest.

RUSSELL STORER: One of the things that draws me to art is its way of manifestingoften irresolvable tensionsit is able to hold a number of complex and contradictoryideas in play and is continually mutable and exible. As Trevor says, its one ofthe few places where it is good to have contesting ways of seeing, and it offers arare space where denitions can continually be rethought. More and more we aredriven to articulate, systematise and categorise thingsas the world gets broaderand more accessible on one hand, the desire to set up boundaries increaseson another. Artists are continually grappling with these questions and offerremarkable and challenging perspectives. An artist such as Danh Vo, for example,often uses objects that connect with his personal history as a Vietnamese refugee

to Europe, with the legacy of colonialism in Southeast Asia and its tail-end, theVietnam (or American) War, a consistent undercurrent. Yet he is always disruptingsimple readings of history and identity by placing these objects in relation tothings from other times and places, and shifting authorship to friends and family.

EVA McGOVERN: In addition you state the goal to see other points of view andform connection with others. There is an immediate tension here with who thoseothers are and the need to be careful not to enter into processes of othering.Curatorially, one cant control interpretation and expectations based on the sheerdiversity of audiences but at the same time such spectres nevertheless must beaccounted for and with, once again, fresh ways of problematising and reinventingdiscourse around the topic.


6/8

TREVOR SMITH: We deliberately didnt put others in postcolonial quotation marksbecause it seems to us that the recognition of otherness is not just conned tocrossing sociological categories but is at the heart of every human interactionfriendship, sex, trust and conict etc. Its what drives our desire to communicatewith one another and sometimes what drives us apart. One might even say thenegotiation with otherness is precisely the space of culture. What will Phil Collinsmanifest in his engagement with the skinheads in Malaysia? What does it meanfor Ming Wong to remake Pasolini in Italy? Or for Arin Rungjang to create a loungefor the Thai workers in Singapore? All of these projects speak to broad social

categories but they are also much more intimate and layered than all thattheyall making visible all those desires, ironies and tensions that make us human.

MATTHEW NGUI: Art is one of the areas in this topic of otherness that guresstrongly. I dare say that many of us have a sense of otherness in us and with that,within an artists process, it can form part of their core of ideas, from which theyview the world and make their art. The expression of it is almost always complexIthink this has to begiven the realities out there. As such, and within the spiritof Open House, it is even more important to encourage the process engaged byartists to run their course and to have expression, especially in the commissionedworks. It is our duty in the Biennaleto trace this process and to present it.

EVA McGOVERN: By emphasising process there is an assumption being made that

audiences already have condence in looking at, engaging with, and critiquingart forms that have allowed for relaxing the need for straightforward object/endresult and viewer interaction. However, despite an impressive arts infrastructurein Singapore, I would imagine there still needs to be a framework to understandthe demands placed upon the v iewer to examine artistic processes and their linksto the daily transactions between people. In order for a biennale to have resonanceto the people of its host city it must address the character and behaviour of bothits informed and uninformed local/international audiences. How is the curatorialteam addressing these issues and what framework for interpretation is beingprovided?

TREVOR SMITH: The rst thing were doing for the viewer is we assume they areinterested enough to engage with our attempt to articulate what it is we valueabout an artist in the context of this exhibition. Wrapping up art in populist

thematics always leaves the visitor disappointed because of the cognitivedissonance between their experience and the marketing message. At least I hopewere not spending all this energy and resources to misdirect peoples attentionfrom the very beginning. I must say that one of the difcult things concerningtalking about process is that every human being has a process. As a general termits pretty meaningless except to point to a set of cultural acts that are oftenundervalued in a zero sum game economy. Where artistic process really getsinteresting is in the particular. One of the real problems of having this kind ofconversation before an exhibition happens is that we spend most of our timenecessarily talking in speculative generalities. We were 1500 words into thisconversation before an artists name was even mentioned. I suspect as much asIm really enjoying this conversation I must admit to being very aware that theemphasis of our discussion would in fact be very different if we were actually to

have experienced the exhibition before talking about it. One important way that itwould be different would be in our capacity to collectively debate the particulars,which would bring us back to talking about individual artists and their practices,which is denitely what interests me both as a curator and as a human being.

RUSSELL STORER: We have spent a lot of time dissecting the curatorial prcis!Audience development is certainly a key issue for contemporary art in Singapore,as it is in many places, and we have worked hard to make the exhibition accessibleand inviting. This has informed everything, from the graphic and exhibitiondesign, to the free opening weekend program and public opening party, to thedetailed visitor information such as wall texts, audio and guided tours, as wellas the website, short guide and catalogue. The framework of the exhibition, aswe mentioned before, is also geared toward connecting with local experience,to try and break down the sense that contemporary art does not somehow relate

to your own life, which is an issue for everyone, not just Singaporeans or a non-art public. By focusing on process we are trying to emphasise the particular inworks and what artists do. As Diane Arbus famously said, the more specic youare, the more general it will be. It has the capacity to reach further and deeperinto things. I also like something that American lm theorist and art historianKaja Silverman has said, which is it is through the most private and uniqueaspects of our lives that we correspond with other beings.

JOSELINA CRUZ: The wonderful thing about Singapore is it resembles a petri dishin which (certain) social and/or political experiments can be carried out. Whereaspetri dish experiments are contained, Singapores engineering leaks beyond itsports to inuence other contexts. Perhaps the curators could elucidate furtheron how the Biennaletakes on the Singaporean governments policy that exerts

a strong measure of social planning, but its at least unafraid to acknowledge

the cultural nature of the problem. Whether this policy is acknowledged by itsproponents with no apologies, as well as recognised by those affected by thepolicy, I would like to ask the curators how much the awareness of this policy fedinto their thinking for SB2011? When I was engaged as co-curator for the 2008Singapore Biennalethis was an acknowledged fact, but something that remainedvery much not discussed and unspoken. The reality of this policy of social planningas pre-determined by the government (among other policies) was really a whiteelephant. Of course, this background consciousness of the Biennale being inSingapore, supported and nanced by the government presupposes an almost fail-

safe mechanism at the risk of critique (or even giving the exhibition a sense ofirony) with the choice of artworks. But perhaps this time around with a new set ofequations there might eventuate other outcomes?

RUSSELL STORER: We are of course aware of the social and political system inSingapore, and its historical relationship to contemporary art which has changedenormously over timethe fact that there is now an international biennaleis something that was perhaps difcult to imagine even ten years ago. It is agovernment-funded project, but then most biennales are funded by city or StategovernmentsSingapore is hardly unique in this regard. There is enormous valuein offering multiple viewpoints from artists all over the world, which tap into bothlocal and global issues, and providing Singaporean artists a platform to reectupon their own society in their work. One aspect of our idea of Open Houseis to

invite in different perspectives, which I think theBiennaledoes.

MATTHEW NGUI: I am not sure as to the sort of social planning policies Joselinais referring to. There have been incentives to procreateSingaporeans presentlybeing encouraged to have more children while in the 1960s and 1970s the policywas to stop at two, to systems that encourage lial piety so that the elderly aresupported by the immediate family, to the encouragement to read and appreciateart! Governments are so-called because they govern, and to govern, they requireregulatory systems put in place by policies determined by legislature, preferablyput in place by a fair public voting system, with an unbiased judiciary to balancethings out. With proper consensus, any government body has the mandateto carry out their policies, without which, things will fall apart. Perhaps youquestion how an inherently conservative government like Singapores can sustaina contemporary art biennale without choking it? If so, there is an assumption

made therethat conservatism per se is the antithesis of contemporary art. In thereal world and in all countries, there are works that are perceived as problematicbut on a balance, most, if not all are exhibited. Can you remember any worksthat were disallowed in the 2008 Singapore Biennale? Balance I think is theoperative word here. As curators, we have been assigned the task to shape aBiennalethat is insightful, sharp and fresh, and part of this also means showingwork that challenges the viewer enough to raise questions about art and life.This is recognised by the various boards, committees and those within the civilservice, even if some are particularly conservative. Hence the discussions havebegun and it will continue, to formulate and present what we will nally see atSB2011. We dont agree with every opinion expressed or thing that happens, butto put things in perspective, it must be noted that the Singapore Biennaleas anentity, pushes at various fronts of exhibition-making; use of old buildings and

sites in transition, willing to risk major installations in public places, putting asubstantial amount of public funds into a contemporary art event and justifyingevery dollar of it, engaging young and new staff and companies to work withthe Biennale, using intra-governmental pathways to reach out to the schools andpublic. In some wonderful way, I see the SB2011as a site-specic installationabout Singapore; whether it is cutting edge or not is a reection on the state ofart in the nation.

EVA McGOVERN: Trevor, its a very valid and important comment/observation thatwe are making in speculative generalities about the Biennalebefore it has actuallyhappened and before Alan, Joselina and myself have had a chance to experiencethe sites and works in order to talk about specicities. And also that it is in theparticular as you say, that artistic processes get really interesting whichinspires us as both cultural professionals and humans who relate our personal

experience to artistic output that leads to important meditation on our humanity.It is this human quality of art, the disruptions, complexities and details rootedwithin the individual that then open up more generalities which are accessible towider audiences as Russell points out when quoting Arbus. I am in total agreementwith you. Many of my comments and questions have lifted specic phrases andideas from the pre-opening press material and website which is another limitationto this conversation. However, despite this limitation, I wanted to continue todiscuss a few generalities in terms of cultural context that have been mentionedby you Matthew and Russell. Then after the BiennaleI hope we do get a chance totalk more about specities! When we were discussing the problems of othering,of reinventing thinking around it and the embracing of a shared volatility toreinvent and move beyond the limits of the postcolonial you discuss the abilityof the Biennaleto be a boisterous conversation in front of a broader audience

that moves between the particular and the specic. I wanted to learn more about

23



7/8


8/8

rstly what types of conversations and discussions you had with the artists youhave invited and how the processes of working with them as curators have beenapproached within the concept of the Open House, or as Russell says, somethingthat is not a theme but an active process of thinking about a biennale. How haveyou discussed this active process of the biennale with the artists involved andwill audiences be privy to some of these thoughts? Also, boisterous conversationsare always important and necessary for the spaces they open up, based upon theclashes, triggers, conict and diverse approaches that speak to one another whenbrought together in a biennale. I understand that you are focusing on process but

what are the types of curatorial moderating in terms of these conversations thatare taking place, and can you give any specic examples of the boisterousness interms of sites and artists and how you have guided this?

TREVOR SMITH: All of us on the curatorial team value enormously the conversationswe have with artists and indeed learn enormously from them. Many of our bestideas come from or are inspired by the artists. I think this is one reason we wereso interested in foregrounding the question of process in this Biennale. As faras the exhibition goes, roughly half the artists are creating new work so thoseconversations and processes have been as enormously varied as you might imagine.The work in the exhibition indeed takes on many forms and may sometimes beextremely multilayered, but I think there is a shared disinterest in obscuringprocess. There arent many artworks in this exhibition where you are left

wondering how somebody created something. Whether its something traditionallycraft-based like Shao Yinong and Muchens embroideries of obsolete money ormaterially present like Martin Creeds plywood stack or media driven like CandiceBreitzs video portraits of twins, these are works that are quite direct. The twinswere clearly interviewed, the plywood is stacked, and the embroideries are handmade. Many works are quickly graspable at a contextual level. Beat Streulisportrait of Singapore, Jill Magids installation employing CCTV footage, or KohNguang Hows archive of Singaporean art history all clearly spell out both thecontext and means of production.

In a section of the catalogue called Open Book, Goto Design havearticulated sketches, process images, and source materials that many of theartists are working with and our catalogue essay is very much focused on talkingabout process. Finally there will be a series of updates on the website that mightcontain artist interviews, commentary from people who have been working on the

Biennale, and musings on the installations and projects in process.As to the question of curatorial moderating, every exhibition is an

articulation and staging of difference, a conversation of othersdifferentsubjectivities and points of view. Because we are working with different venues,each of these can have a very different expression too. 8Q and Singapore ArtMuseum suggest psychological and performative arenas with works isolatedin individual spaces. The National Museum is much more media driven andinvites interaction between the artists. Old Kallang Airport is more open stillwhere abstract dynamics of translation, trade, labor, and translation play out.So hopefully the visitor will feel as if they are not only seeing different works ofart but that each venue offers them a different attitude and experience.

EVA McGOVERN: The Singapore Biennale has used some offsite venues that

have then been regenerated into high-end consumer venues, the Tanglin ArmyCamp immediately springs to mind. Singapore is very committed to a type ofcreative economy, or working within culture to brand the city/State as a takingadvantage of the potential of the conuence of art and wealth in the countryasophisticated, progressive and prosperous member of the global economy. This issomething that is a difcult topic to discuss because it can allude to compromiseof integrity for specic economic opportunities. In addition, Singapore is still atightly controlled environment with many strict censorship rules that lead to atype of self-censorship for many local artists that is intentional or unintentional.This must to some extent have an impact on a biennale that is about openess, sharingof processes and thinking, of human experiences, that are raw and complicated.This is a difcult topic to discuss and one that I am not sure how I would answerif I was operating within your context as curator, but it is nevertheless one of therealities inherent in biennale construction. Do you have any comments about this

specic context, which is also prevalent for every biennale throughout the worldand the negotiations of different agendas?

MATTHEW NGUI: You highlight two of the most common criticisms of Singaporefrom a predominantly typical liberal viewpointthat Singapore is always ultimatelydriven by commercial interests, and within the State, censorship chokes openness.Like all generalisations about countries, this does not take into account the manyspecic, individual and community actions that dont t the generalisation. I oncetook the Curator of documenta X, Catherine David around the streets in Singaporemany years ago and she remarked about the interstitial life that she saw, quiteunlike the homogenous image of the city-State painted by her friend, Rem Koolhas.That remark also opened my own eyes. Given that you say that this context is alsoprevalent for every biennale throughout the world, my response wont be terribly

unique. You are absolutely right to say that we do have to work with the realities

of different and sometimes competing desires within a biennales structure. Wework with what weve got. For me it is much more about how one works with theparameters rather than trying to impose what we might think as a totally freestructure for a biennale, which doesnt exist. It is important that we understandthe preambles to regulatory structures and to attempt to balance competing aims.In looking at process the curatorial team has also been actively engaged on alllevels with the due process of getting such a large, internationally visible andState-funded project off the ground. Singaporeans are a tough, resilient groupof people and with this, comes a level of conservatism. But people are people

and not the same. There is recognition of this and as Joselina has mentioned,Singapore is a petri dish where experiments are done. I see the Singapore Biennaleas one of these bold experiments to see what it does within and outside Singapore.We either take it or leave it and decide whether or not to participate.

ALAN CRUICKSHANK: In my initial reference to last years Gwangju Biennaleas apoint of comparison for Open Houseand its themefor want of a more academicdescriptionengaging the global big picture, I could have taken that strategyat least one step further by referring to another regional biennale of prole, theShanghai Biennale. Shanghais introduction into The Biennale Game was for it topresent the city as a international gateway to China, one imagines it leading upto last years World Expo. After varying presentations of the last decade 2010saw it similarly engage the global big pictureRehearsal, where it offered the

provocation; how can we get out of the dilemma of artistic creation in the currentmilieu of an artistic system seamlessly and endlessly constituted by internationaldiscourse, mega exhibitions, art fairs and transnational capital? How do we identifythe internal frontiers of the art world hijacked by global capitalism while weare ourselves part of it? Okay, somewhat art-self-referential, but something toponder here perhaps. Curated as two parts: Exposition and Recapitulation, itpresented processes of trial and experimentation of the theme of the ShanghaiBiennaleon the international stage and be viewed as the Biennales emulationof and feedback to the international art scene. Gwangjus in memoriamraisondetrehas already been well articulatedthough as Joan Kee said in a roundtablediscussion in this magazine in 2006, the Gwangju Biennale is, sited in a cityfamous for political trauma its almost as if each one has assumed a theme moregrandiose than the lastbut it is one that has ultimately eschewed nation-State-referentiality, as has Shanghai, at least in this most recent instance. The Singapore

Biennales role in assisting a renaissancing of city-State as cosmopolitan commerceand cultural gateway to the region, to rival Hong Kong, is undisguised. The 2008Biennalewebsite was proof of this, extolling virtues of a global, multiculturalport built on free trade etc. with all the appearance of an IBM homepage, suitedbusinessmen shaking hands with that international corporate can-do branding,the Biennale itself sourced elsewhere via the navigation bar if one could bebothered to nd it. Fumio Nanjo referred to the rst Biennales exhibition sites aspower centres, and perhaps a continual locating of the Biennaleat similar socio-historical sites continues that enforcement. But in highlighting these perspectivesis not to be critical. All biennales are conceived by their host cities to position thelatter as an international cultural if not commercial destinationthat is a given.But if we contemplate beyond such positioning, at for example, Nanjos assertionthat biennales are not simply for the international art cognoscenti who follow

them around the world [but] are actually and primarily for a local audience,then apart from my initial comments we might conjecture further about the notionof an open house and the domestic publicit has a double-edged countenanceto it here, connoting conceits of freedoms of assembly and discourse, as referredto elsewhere in this discussion and in previous discussions in this magazine withSingapore Biennalecurators and regional curators and critics (for the 2006 and2008 presentations). Ultimately, like the Biennale of Sydneyand its incorporationof the Sydney Harbour tourist mecca site of Cockatoo Island (attendances up 82%on 2008), the muscularity of an exhibition environment of any biennale will alwayshave an impact upon its outcomeperceived or otherwise. But perhaps the nalword here should be from a local. June Yap, curator and commentator in the2006 Broadsheetroundtable Calibrated Expectations stated; If the event is toreally live up to its name, its value should be in its ability to continue throughproviding a longterm meaningful experience for its participants and its audiences.

The freedom to create an exhibition and to understand it through privilegingthe curatorial process over, say, nancial or political agendasthis is what willestablish continuity for a biennale it is the willingness to negotiate that createsthe possibility for deeper engagement within the artistic community and withaudiences, and such deeper engagements are essential to a biennales sustaineddevelopment.

25


2011 Singapore Biennale: Open House

13 March15 May, 2011Singapore Art Museum (including SAM at 8Q)

National Museum of SingaporeOld Kallang Airport

Marina Bay

www.singaporebiennale.org

open house - a discussion of multiple perspective across borders

Documents