Arts Picks: Paradise Is At The Tip Of A Needle, Web Of Being, two artists at the Esplanade
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Paradise Is At The Tip Of A Needle is curated by Michelle Ho from the collection of Linda Neo and Albert Lim.
PHOTO: PRIMZ GALLERY
Paradise Is At The Tip Of A Needle
Singapore collectors Linda Neo and Albert Lim opened a space in late 2024 in industrial Penjuru Lane. Just a 10-minute drive from their house, the storage area and exhibition room function mostly as a private art haven.
Until July, they are hosting free, private tours by appointment to an absorbing exhibition curated by Nanyang Technological University School of Art, Design and Media gallery director Michelle Ho.
Titled Paradise Is At The Tip Of A Needle, the paintings, sculptures, photographs and large-scale prints on cloth by 14 South-east Asian artists are selected from some 40 works in Ms Neo and Mr Lim’s collection, many of which they had not seen in nearly 20 years.
The selected works are explicitly political and incredibly specific to the regional context. An immediate surprise are the performance relics of Singapore artist Jimmy Ong’s Open Love Letters just next to the entrance: a burnt and broken statue of Sir Stamford Raffles made in Yogyakarta turned on its side to become a grill for kueh kapit, or love letter crepes.
Scan a QR code to watch Ong’s performance in 2018, the smoke from his cooking an ironic “love letter” to, and an exorcism of, the colonial strongman.
There are works by Tang Da Wu – a beautiful ink spread that pulls together former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday and Singapore’s independence year of 1965 – and Leslie de Chavez, whose painting enacts a gory struggle between former Filipino presidents.
But it is the Malaysian artists who steal the show. Minstrel Kuik shreds and folds Malaysian political flags to create a state of the nation in textile; Yee I-Lann’s photos of politicians’ boutonnieres zoom in on the strict hierarchies and inevitable decay of power.
Blink and you will miss the footprint in collective Pangrok Sulap’s impactful commentary on the failed dreams of Sabah, where a villager has stepped on the gigantic diptych to help press the complex print more firmly into the cloth. This is an exhibition to be cherished.
Works by Ian Tee and Jimmy Ong are part of the exhibition.
Where: Primz Gallery, 01-06, Block 1, 40 Penjuru Lane
MRT: Jurong East
When: Till July 6, by appointment only. E-mail info@primzgallery.com or check its Instagram page (@primzgallery) for organised tours
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/ESgE
Web Of Being
Woo Kukwon’s Laura (2023) has been acquired by a hotel in Bali.
This is the last weekend to catch Tang Contemporary Art’s eclectic Web Of Being: The Living Network, the star of which is once more Woo Kukwon. The South Korean artist is avidly collected by K-pop stars, including members of boy band BTS and Rain.
His fairy-tale animals and child characters, rendered with so much dimensionality that they appear sponge-like from a distance before a closer look reveals tubes of paint, make for an apt anchor for the show loosely tied together by humanity’s connections to the natural world.
Some pieces are more problematic. The magic realism of Chilean painter Guillermo Lorca’s hybrid of a nude girl with an egg-laying horse feels unjustifiable.
The animals of Filipino painter Rodel Tapaya – his Bring The Fire casts a fox as a modern Prometheus – and Chinese artist Qin Qi make for more comfortable viewing. This is a pit stop worth making when you are in town.
Qin Qi’s The Lion And Duck (2024).
Where: Tang Contemporary Art, 06-01/02 Delfi Orchard, 402 Orchard Road
MRT: Orchard
When: Till Feb 22, 11am to 7pm daily
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/48AQA
Art at the Esplanade
Stephanie Jane Burt’s works are at the Esplanade tunnel.
The Esplanade is showing works by two Singapore artists, Stephanie Jane Burt and Chen Shitong, in its public spaces.
Burt’s explorations of form in print, sculptures and videos are in the tunnel connecting the Esplanade to City Hall MRT station. Meshes And Teeth delves into the enigmatic and creative feminine – particularly eye-catching are her mixed-media sculptures, leaning towards the viewer and incorporating textiles, stockings, ribbons and a coat hanger.
Chen’s minute drawings of characters on fragments of ceramics are as eye-pleasing as they are challenging to notions of scale and the binary between Eastern and Western art.
His characters are at one with nature, seamlessly fitting into nature’s nooks and crannies. These can be found at Esplanade Mall’s community wall on Level 3.
Chen Shitong’s works are at the community wall on Level 3.
Where: Esplanade – Theatres On The Bay, 1 Esplanade Drive
MRT: City Hall/Esplanade
When: Till May 11, all day
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/wwu3q and str.sg/tXGK
