SINGAPORE – Dissatisfied with past presentations of Our Children, a collaborative performance inspired by a story of a boy coming across a suckling baby goat, Singapore art rock star Tang Da Wu is doing it over.
As befits his belief in constant experimentation, the 81-year-old is staging a new iteration during Singapore Art Week, running from Jan 19 to 28, in the hope this will throw up a more “interesting” audience.
The last outing made with art school students in 2017 was too “entertaining”, he says in a recorded video that will be included in the new show.
He adds: “I didn’t like it. So I’d like to make this one more experimental and leave the audience plenty of space to question.”
Our Children, based on a parable from a Teochew opera, has occupied Tang’s artistic consciousness for at least a decade.
The image of a goat kneeling in front of its mother for nourishment crystallised for him messages of filial piety and the importance of the transmission of cultural values.
In 2012, Tang’s galvanised steel and glass sculpture of the boy’s vision – complete with a bottle of milk atop mama goat that calls to mind a Chinese domestic ancestral altar – was acquired by the Guggenheim collection in New York.
In line with his penchant for “live art”, Tang then turned the idea into a collaborative stitching of woolly goats upon a canvas in 2017, with volunteers receiving embroidery instructions from him before getting their first taste of performance art in a devised performance.
The devised performance element has now been tweaked to involve “light role-playing” and the song No Charge by gospel singer Shirley Caesar, which begins with a boy asking for payment from his mother for running errands – “For mowing the yard $5 and for making my own bed this week $1”.
Volunteers will also have latitude to interpret Tang’s instructions during the stitching this time around. His art is not intended to be didactic.
“I’m not qualified,” he says in the video. “But I do educate myself. Every day, I realise I have certain shortcomings and bad habits. Art practice helps me to go forward.”
In defiance of an era of contemporary art where theory often supersedes practice, he adds: “The story is one thing, but the performance is more important. Although we borrow the story, we are not really (just) trying to illustrate it.”
Tang’s performance takes place on Jan 20 at Carpark B at arts precinct Gillman Barracks and should draw a healthy crowd.
His solo exhibition titled 3, 4, 5, I Don’t Like Fine Art at ShanghART Gallery in 2023 attracted a full house of curious, mostly young visitors, as he live-painted a snake constricting a boat directly onto a gallery wall.
To accompany this re-run of Our Children, organiser Art Outreach has curated a small exhibition that includes five works by other artists on the themes of tapestry and craft, as well as the parent-child relationship.
Tang founded experimental collective The Artists Village, Singapore’s first art colony, in 1988.
A pioneer in performance art, his works frequently engage with social issues, such as Tiger’s Whip, performed in Chinatown in 1991, which drew attention to the plight of endangered tigers hunted for their penises as an aphrodisiac.
Ms Eve Hoon, director of programmes and partnerships at Art Outreach, says Tang bucked trends at a time when the local arts scene leaned towards conservatism and modernist, abstract paintings and sculptures.
“Da Wu played a pioneering role by introducing innovative art forms and movements,” she says.
“His work opts for a process-focused approach that encourages questioning rather than providing definitive answers.”
Book It/Our Children by Tang Da Wu
Where: Art Outreach, 01-06 Gillman Barracks, 5 Lock Road
When: Jan 12 to Feb 4, 11am to 7pm daily; performance on Jan 20 at Gillman Barracks Carpark B, 6 to 7pm
Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/fLDD
