November Round-Up

Choong Kam Kow, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo and Đặng Thùy Anh, etc. 
By Ho See Wah

Đặng Thùy Anh, ‘Waiting’, 2019, sculpture installation, epoxy resin, snail egg. Image courtesy of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre.

Silent Intimacy
‘Silent Intimacy’ is the third exhibition to come out of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre’s  ‘Materialize’, a programme that provides mentorship and exhibition opportunities for emerging artists. Artist and designer Đặng Thùy Anh uses the apple snail. The once-important element in Vietnamese farms is now viewed as an invasive threat, and is used as a metaphor for humans’ simultaneous desire for growth and death. 

The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, 8 November to 19 January 2020. 

Choong Kam Kow, ‘Co-Exist 9’, 2019, acrylic colour on canvas, 122 x 152.5cm. Image courtesy of Gajah Gallery.

The Shape of Things: Conceptual Configurations
Dr. Choong Kam Kow is a Malaysian artist and art-educator. He has exhibited internationally and this will be his first solo presentation in Singapore. ‘The Shape of Things’ showcases three distinct body of works created from the late 1960s to early 1980s. The first, the ‘New York Series’ surveys the variances between New York and his hometown of Perak. The second, the ‘Shaped Canvas Series’ is a commentary on his country’s rapid economic growth. Lastly, the ‘SEA THRU Series’ sees Dr. Choong expanding on the ‘Shaped Canvas Series’ amalgamating painting and sculpture. 

Gajah Gallery, 17 October to 10 November. 

Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, ‘flight’, 2019, exhibition installation view. Image courtesy of MO_Space.

flight
Staircases hold a long-standing fascination for Philippine artist and curator Christina Quisumbing Ramilo. She is interested in the varied metaphorical interpretations of the staircase, such as a stairway to the divine. For ‘flight’, the staircase sculptures presented are modeled after the steps she encountered in various locations, from Borobudur in Indonesia to the Aztec Ruins in Mexico. The forms and placements of the staircases invite viewers to think about how stairs have functioned, not only in practical ways, but also symbolically across cultures and times.

MO_Space, 19 October to 17 November.

Citra Sasmita, 'Timur Merah Project: The Embrace of My Motherland’, 2019, acrylic on Kamasan canvas with turmeric and spices, 400 x 90cm. Image courtesy of Biennale Jogja.

Biennale Jogja Equator #5: Do We Live in the Same PLAYGROUND?
Now in its fifth year, Biennale Jogja continues its mission of questioning and reinterpreting the ‘establishment’ and its practices. The show is curated by Akiq AW and Arham Rahman from Indonesia and Penwadee Nophaket Manont from Thailand, and features 52 artists and collectives from Southeast Asia. This year’s theme tackles the idea of peripheral communities and the power relations that sustain the accompanying prejudices through the lenses of of class, race, religion, gender and more. 

Various locations: Yogyakarta Cultural Park, Jogja National Museum, Koesnadi Hardjosoemantri Cultural Center and other places around Yogyakarta, 20 October to 30 November. 

Celine Lee, ‘A Surface’, 2019, exhibition installation view. Image courtesy of MO_Space.

A Surface
Philippine artist Celine Lee’s practice involves using science and mathematics as a gateway to exploring contemporaneity. For ‘A Surface’, the artist explores the materiality of aluminum, the most plentiful metallic element on earth, and creates the topographical image of the Philippines on it. The aluminum etching is used to create the same image on Abaca paper, which is then transferred onto rice paper, and finally onto a surface that is a melding of Abaca and rice papers. The transfers imply exchange, coexistence and network, and asks us to look beyond the surface via these connections. 

MO_Space, 19 October to 17 November.

Polyphony: Southeast Asia
This group exhibition will feature over 300 works by over 30 artists and collectives around Southeast Asia. These include Lugas Syllabus (Indonesia), San Minn (Myanmar), Tran Luong (Vietnam), Wilawan Wiangthong (Thailand) and Tang Da Wu (Singapore). Taking place at the Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, ‘Polyphony’ does not attempt to define what the Southeast Asia art ecology is. Rather, it acknowledges the manifold modes of existence across the many borders and cultures. With this premise, the exhibition presents how the various groups negotiate the realities of contemporary art globalising in a myriad of ways. 

Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, 9 November to 20 December.