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Medium at Large explores the nature of art
Mella Jaarsmaâs Shaggy
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Mella Jaarsma's Shaggy. JP/Stevie Emilia
When artists probe and ponder the fluid nature of art ' of the art's medium, at large ' the results are a feast for the eyes and food for the soul.
The ongoing Medium at Large exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum explores how the medium is used in skillful, imaginative ways to embody the weight of its concept, symbolism, as well as social and cultural significance.
Of the 29 artworks on display, drawn mostly from the museum's permanent collection, three are by prominent contemporary Indonesian artists: Mella Jaarsma, Melati Suryodarmo and Titarubi.
The museum's director, Susie Lingham, said the exhibition purposely looks at how artists ' such as sculptors, painters and photographers ' use various methods and move into something else or evolve. 'If you don't have the expertise, you cannot evolve,' she said.
The exhibition, she said, explored the medium itself, both the materiality and the non-materiality of it.
'As a museum that collects art for national posterity, contemporary art can be notoriously difficult, as such works test the limits of collecting and preserving art,' she said.
In contemporary art, she said there was always an element of surprise, but not just for the sake of it.
'[The element of surprise is] often rooted in some kind of research. It's expressed in a way that gives you a new viewpoint. To me, it's nothing else. It's about creative new perspectives. Willingness to explore. Willingness to stand at another place,' Lingham said.
While examining art as concept, process, method and material, the exhibition revels in the rich expanse of materials that contemporary artworks can be made of, and from, along with the very 'slipperiness' of mediums, as categories and genres begin to slide into one another.
The artwork media presented in the exhibition, which runs until April this year, range from oil paint, rattan and human hair to honey, whitening soap and live bullets.
Through the array of unexpected materials, viewers are expected to be able to examine the creation, experience and encounter the artworks.
They are then further invited to reflect on the fundamental questions of what defines art and how meaning is conveyed through the artists' choice of materials and the methods they employ.
The exhibition displays Melati's Exergie ' Butter Dance photo and video works that capture the moments in which the artist ' renowned for her highly physical, time-based performances ' dances on pieces of butter that cause her to slip and fall repeatedly.
In the piece, Melati, who studied under renowned Butoh dancer Anzu Furukawa and acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramovic, uses her body as a theatrical canvas that captures the tragicomedy of people's contemporary experiences and existence.
In her installation work entitled Shaggy, made out of hair and hair curlers, Mella ' co-founder of the Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta who is best known for her artistic practice that revolves around the body and its coverings as potent signifiers of identity and its social and cultural politics ' touches on hair as a symbol of womanhood, along with its associations with eroticism, gender stereotypes and identity.
Titarubi's Shadow of Surrender installation of wooden benches, chairs, books and framed charcoal drawings highlights the cycles of life and learning, as well as Indonesia's colonial legacy.
The piece, commissioned for the Indonesian Pavilion at the 2013 edition of the Venice Biennale, uses wood as its primary medium ' from the pulp used to make the blank book's pages to the benches and the charcoal drawings in the background. It encourages the viewers to construct their personal lessons and observations.
Other works on display at the exhibition come from Asian countries like Cambodia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.
Lingham said many of the exhibited artworks behave in genre- bending ways ' a painting may slide into video or performance, while a video may play like a drawing.
In the process, the works, which may appear unusual or unconventional, highlight the complexities of contemporary art while triggering conversations about the nature of contemporary art practices.
'The conceptual art movement also dematerializes the art object to encompass the ephemeral and non-physical, such as sound, language, text and pure idea,' she says.
