Blog Exercise 4 - Singapore Biennale 2008

The theme of the Singapore Biennale 2008 is "Wonder". As defined by the dictionary (and the guide to the Biennale), "Wonder" is a feeling of surprise and admiration caused by something beautiful, unexpected or unfamiliar. It is a feeling not only of curiousity or a desire to know, but is also to feel doubt.

This year's exhibition was jointly held at four seperate locations, at the City Hall, South Beach Development, the Singapore Flyer and at the Marina Bay.

I felt that the exhibitions at South Beach Development were slightly more interactive and interesting than the ones at City Hall. Perhaps the nature of South Beach Development (an ex-army camp) provided a raw, rustic feel to the experience of viewing the exhibits there. Experiencing intricate artwork in a non-airconditioned and sometimes non-ventilated environment certainly was quite an unique experience.

One piece of work which I thought was interesting was Location (6)(2008) by Hans Op de Beeck as seen below.



This is a 18 metre long installation which is housed inside the Containerart Pavilion created by Shigeru Ban at Marina Bay. One has to walk through a long, white corridor before he is greeted by the sight of a seemingly vast, snowy landscape. It is upon closer inspaction that one realises that the "depth" of the installation is created by the use of tilted angles and the manipulation of the sizes of the visual elements (the trees) in the installation.

Indeed, one does experience a sense of tranquility and wonder as he/she takes in the panoramic view of the snowy landscape in this environment. This is a work that transports the viewer from reality into another world, but as mentioned by its creator, the aim of the work is also to generate scepticism about one's location and to highlight the human ability to imagine being in other places.

This work seems to represent how our eyes seem to fool us sometimes, or how we seem to be able to make ourselves disillusioned and force ourselves to see things that we only want to see. Without the context of us entering the long corridor into this "alternate realm", would have even realised that we were actually enclosed in a 18-m long installation? I think the theme of this work would be "Don't judge a book (reality) by its cover".

A work which I thought was not so good at the Singapore Biennale was Bachelor - The Dual Body (2003) by Ki-Bong Rhee. I have no photos of this work as the exhibit was placed under low light in one of the rooms of City hall.

This work is an installation in which a book of philosophy is thrown into an aquarium. Jets of water are then used to create current to keep the book from rising to the surface or sinking to the bottom in the closed, isolated environment.

The "dancing" motion of the book represents Western logical thought having "fun" (as described by the artiste). The artiste wants the "dream-like image to be dominant over the meaning or the material".

Unfortunately, I guess the streams of water current did not really work as well as the artiste had expected. When I viewed the installation, the book did sink to the bottom quite frequently instead of it being suspended in mid-air. Perhaps the artiste could have used a less isolated style of presentation to keep the installation interactive. The writings on the book were not really visible while the dark settings and blue tone of the water creates quite a dull mood which does not seem to bring out the concept of "fun" nor "wonder".