The works of eleven emerging and established Thai and Singapore artists will be shown together for the first time in Singapore, at Sundaram Tagore Gallery, as part of Anthropos. This exhibition is curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani, an independent art curator and part-time lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts.
Anthropos (a Greek word for human), investigates how boundaries between the physical and psychological spheres of the human body converge. The show also explores the cultural and artistic exchange between Thailand and Singapore.
The human body has been a universal theme for artists for millennia and continues to fascinate artists today. In this exhibition, the body, which is subject to constantly shifting perceptions and social, cultural and political conditioning, is appropriated as a collective visual and intellectual motif. The participating artists present paintings on canvas, graffiti and mixed-media installations that address themes of identity, cultural belonging and social rituals.
The fact that there has not been an openly explored/ declared synergy thus far between Thai and Singapore contemporary art highlights in itself the uniqueness of this project.
These two countries, quasi neighbors within the SEA region, have not yet featured their respective contemporary art scenes on the same platform. This is the power of Anthropos where artists from Thailand and Singapore come together for the first time.
Tawan Wattuya’s oil series produced for Anthropos relates to the body as a physical entity in relation to social conditioning. His remarkably intimate and tactile paintings depict orgies, bodily rituals, and life and death activated by society or by the individual.
The idea of the body as archetype of aesthetic perfection is challenged by artist Jason Wee in his ongoing watercolour series Self-Portrait. As a master crafting new shapes, the artist looks at unnatural forms, marginal histories and bodily traumas that are rejected by conformist standards.
The video projection Do It Yourself Chivalry by artist Ana Prvacki, encompasses all the nuances, depths and recesses of the human nature investigated in Anthropos. Prvacki’s long practice in performance scrutinizes the way human bodies interact in any society tackling moral and social codes we are thought to follow. Yet, does following these protocols make us good people?
What Will You Leave Behind? ceramic installation by artist Nino Sarabutra functions as a disturbing yet fundamental memento of the human legacy. The work, presented in part as an interactive floor installation, invites the audience to step on innumerable miniature human skulls moulded by the artist and her community.
Exhibition dates: September 13 – October 13, 2013
Sundaram Tagore Gallery
Gillman Barracks
5 Lock Road #01-05
Singapore 108933
Article by Tan Hwee Hwee
