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Singapore Biennale takes every step in the right direction

The sixth Singapore Biennale features 150 works by 77 artists and art collectives from 36 countries and territories, including Indonesia, in various locations across the city-state until March next year.

Carla Bianpoen (The Jakarta Post)
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Singapore
Wed, December 25, 2019

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Singapore Biennale takes every step in the right direction Train of thought: Installation view of Hafiz Rancajale's 'Social Organism' (2017-2019) is on display at the sixth Singapore Biennale, which runs until March next year. (Courtesy of Singapore Art Museum/-)

The Singapore Biennale, which marks its six edition, opened on Nov. 22 and will run until March 22 next year.

It is led by Philippine Patrick Flores, professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines and curator of Vargas Museum in Manila, together with Andrea Fam and John Tung, assistant curators at the Singapore Art Museum; Goh Sze Ying, assistant curator at the National Gallery Singapore; Renan Laru-an, a Manila-based independent curator; Anca Verona Mihulet, an art historian and Seoul-based curator; and Vipash Purichanont, a Bangkok-based curator.

Titled "Every Step in the Right Direction", the 150 works by 77 artists and art collectives from 36 countries and territories are displayed across various locations, including the National Gallery Singapore (NGS), Gillman Barracks, Lasalle College of the Arts and other historic and public spaces.

The biennale’s title is inspired by Filipino revolutionary Salud Algabre, the central figure of a 1930 peasant movement that did not appear successful in its protests against large landowners. But when she was later asked about its perceived failure, she reasoned that no movement fails: “Each one is a step in the right direction”.

The same sentiment is expressed in Singapore’s preeminent performance artist Amanda Heng in her seminal performance Let’s Walk (1999) series, which she revisits and developed into her current work, Every Step Counts (2019).

Interestingly, the title implies the curators’ wish for the artwork to inspire taking a step for the betterment of a “troubled world”.

The result, it seems, is what someone playfully called a cabinet of curiosities, with works by artists that this part of the world may have never heard of, and with works that sometimes engage with historical, and at other times are infused with the social and political, while in-between  ethnographic, archaeological or anthropological notions fill in the gaps.

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