A Duad in Play: Francis Ng & Ronald Ventura

Featuring two young leading artists of Southeast Asia, Singaporean multidisciplinary artist, Francis Ng and Filipino contemporary visual artist, Ronald Ventura, the exhibit opens till Mar 3, 2010, from 10am to 6pm (closed on monday) at ICA Gallery 1 Basement 1 #B1-04, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.

A Duad in Play is co-curated by Artesan Gallery + Studio and the Institute of Contemporary Arts at the LASALLE College of the Arts. It is supported by The National Arts Council of Singapore and the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines. It also aptly concludes the series of commemorative activities celebrating forty years of diplomatic ties between Singapore and Philippines.

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2 Solo Exhibitions @ Osage Singapore

Java's Machine: Phantasmagoria by Jompet, and Soft Death by Louie Cordero, November 14 - December 27, 2009. Opening Reception: Friday, November 13, 2009, 6:30pm.

Jompet | Java's Machine: Phantasmagoria
Java's Machine: Phantasmagoria explores syncretism as a strategy to reconcile dispersed and disparate points of reference in Javanese cultural history. This is exemplified by Java, the War of Ghosts, the centrepiece installation, which also underscores the other works in the exhibition. Java, the War of Ghosts features 'invisible' soldiers made flesh by their uniforms-amalgams of the Dutch and Javanese military attire-and equipment. Suspended from the ceiling, each plays a different sound, synchronised into an electronic orchestra. A discordant yet strangely harmonious combination, the installation is a representation of Java's patchwork heritage. Jompet's soldiers do not serve a military function; they stand in formation, aloof, rather than tangled in battle. They are literally held down by the very things that constitute them, the sheer bulk of a civilisational parade. However, this is not intended as a criticism. Jompet's syncretism can be read as a discourse on post-colonialism and globalisation, a celebration of unruly beauty. As with Java's heritage, harmony can be negotiated in the multiplicity of patches that make up today's global community.

Louie Cordero | Soft Death
Dismemberment, mutilation, brain, blood, intestines, membranes, capillary... these are imageries abundant in the works of Louie Cordero. Yet more than just gore and the grotesque, Cordero's works, which draw inspirations from the streets, idiosyncratic semiology of various subcultures, popular culture, myths, and mass media, is reflective of a contemporary fascination with both the refined and the lewd. In Soft Death, which showcases a series of new drawings and paintings, ornate savagery appears alongside jovial or otherwise indifferent characters, often critically wounded or in a state of physical distortion-perhaps hinting at the contradiction underlying contemporary culture. Repulsive yet strangely captivating, Cordero's works are an ingenious manipulation of the sick pleasure one derives from the abject, and a direct confrontation with contemporary society.



Osage Gallery
11B Mt Sophia, #01-12, Singapore 228466
TEL : (65) 6337-9909
FAX : (65) 6337-1151
EMAIL : info@osagegallery.com
Mon-Sun and Public Holidays : 10:00 am - 7:00 pm

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Land of the Morning: The Philippines and its People

16 Oct 2009 - 10 Jan 2010
@ Special Exhibitions Gallery, ACM Empress Place

Made up of 7,107 islands, the Philippines is known for its stunning natural beauty and its people - warm, resilient and synonymous with the People Power movement. Land of the Morning: The Philippines and its People explores the identity of the Filipino people, created by the blending of indigenous local cultures and foreign influences.

More than 300 years of Spanish colonial rule is most visible in the religion, language, architecture, art and food of the Philippines. Today, the Philippines has the largest Catholic population in Asia. Muslim communities in the south, indigenous highland communities and the influence of Chinese migrants add to the picture of cultural diversity that is the Philippines.

This unprecedented exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum features more than 290 rare and important artefacts - ancient gold, Catholic imagery, tribal artefacts and contemporary Filipino artworks – from museums and private collections in the Philippines, some of which will be on display for the very first time.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Ayala Museum, Manila.

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Pics of Jane Lee exhibit @ Osage Singapore

Pictures on selected works from Jane Lee Solo Exhibition at Osage Singapore are available here. Click here and here to read the reviews.

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Agus Sumiantara and Dodit Artawan @ ARTSingapore 2009

Agus Sumiantara

Agus Sumiantara and Dodit Artawan are indonesian contemporary artists, members of Taxu Art Clinic, who are managed by SIGIarts. I met them at SIGIarts booth this afternoon at ARTSingapore 2009. Since I don't have the images of the artworks exhibited at the fair, pardon me if I plucked a sample of their work from their last exhibits here.

Dodit Artawan

Other participating artists at SIGIarts booth are Ketut Moniarta, Ali Rubin, Ichwan Noor, Arief Tousiga, and Benny. Only Agus and Dodit are present during the fair. Catch them while you can at ARTSingapore 2009. The fair ends Monday, October 12, 2009 by 5 pm.

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Pics of Agus Suwage's Circle exhibition

Click here. The exhibit runs till October 24, 2009 at STPI Singapore. Read the reviews here and here.

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Jane Lee @ Osage Singapore

Osage Singapore is pleased to present the first major solo exhibition of Jane Lee's work since being awarded the Singapore Art Prize for her work at the Singapore Art Show in 2007. From Lee's investigations into processes of painting and materiality through to her recent large-scale installation presented at Singapore Biennale 2008, the exhibition offers audiences a rare opportunity to follow the development of her artistic practice from 2004 to the present day.

Lee's work examines painting by pushing the limits of the materials and techniques used in painting. Through her use of unconventional materials and innovative techniques, her paintings highlight their processes to draw attention to the way the paintings have been made or constructed, and in so doing re-examine painting's significance and relevance for contemporary art practice.

Opening Reception: 25.09.2009, 6:30pm

Public Programmes

'Abstraction Today'
Lecture by Prof. Tony Godfrey
17 October 2009 (Saturday), 3:00pm

Panel Discussion: 'Painting in Asia Today'
Participants: Prof. Tony Godfrey, Eugene Tan, and Tan Guo-Liang
07 November 2009 (Saturday), 3:00pm

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CHUN KWANG-YOUNG: NEW WORKS

Aggregation09-JU038BLU, mixed media with korean mulberry paper,
163 x 131 cm, 2009, © Chun Kwang-Young

Aggregation09-AU001P, © Chun Kwang-Young / Singapore Tyler Print Institute 2009

Chun's artworks reflect his intense involvement with both Western art and the rich heritage of his homeland. The series Aggregation which begun in the mid-1990s is composed of hundreds of tiny triangles wrapped in Korean Hanji (mulberry paper). Inspired by Chun's childhood memories, these wrapped triangles are evocative of medicine herbal bundles hung in clusters from the ceiling of his family run pharmacy. Though herbal medicine is a dying art in Korea, Chun is keenly aware of the historical and personal resonance of his chosen medium.


CHUN KWANG-YOUNG: NEW WORKS
Exhibition: August 15 - September 12, 2009, STPI Gallery, Singapore
Exhibition walkthrough: Saturday, August 15, 2.30 - 3.30pm

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The Air Conditioned Recession: A Singapore Survey

With Singapore facing its deepest economic recession, there is a growing sense amongst the people of this island republic that their government cannot always be expected to provide all the answers to their shared problems, that oftentimes, the answers lie within themselves. This also means a loosening of state strictures that have hitherto dominated social political debate within the republic. This loosening has also been hastened by the space that the internet allows.

The Air Conditioned Recession – A Singapore Survey, will attempt to address some of the underlying issues that remain under the surface by mining existing works by Singaporean artists created in the past few years.

Participating Artists: Alicia Neo, Amanda Heng, Alan Oei, Cheo Chai-hiang, Ghazi Alqudcy & Ezzam Rahman, Jason Lim, Jason Wee, Jimmy Ong, Jing Quek, Junaidi Waee, Lynn Lu, Michael Lee, Safaruddin Abdul Hamid, Tang Da Wu and Tan Seow Wei.

The Air Conditioned Recession is a partner programme of SINGAPORE ART SHOW 09.

Partner event: Checkpoint Theatre presents Recalling Mother from 26 to 30 August, at 8pm nightly at the gallery. Written and performed by Claire Wong & Noorlinah Mohamed. For more information, please visit www.checkpoint-theatre.org.


The exhibition opens until August 30, 2009. For more information, please click here.

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Ian Woo

The Magnetic Waterfall, acrylic on canvas, 160 x 170 cm, 2009

The Curtain, acrylic on linen, 195.5 x 296 cm, 2009

Works from Ian Woo: Flux Technicolour, spotted at Fortune Cookies Projects.

(images © Ian Woo and Fortune Cookies Projects)

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