Biennale '08- City Hall

Kid's Biennale


For kids..........

Where is your PROCESS??!!
Starving Artist Arbin, pls donate generously..

and Buang Penguin(2nd from the right above)

Maggots, 2004

Pham Ngoc Duong

These are giant maggots the size of adolescents wriggling their way up into City Hall's former well-appointed restaurant. It is a piece more cynical than it's playful. These maggots are mutated into giant monsters, like viewing under a microscope. Their presence signifies the rotting of their host's body, leading to the theme of corruption.

Despite all its negative connotations I find this piece really cute and somehow "interactive". The maggots look pretty blur and innocent, and we got to rearrange a few too. Nice opening to the rest of the exhibit.

Troppicana, 2008
E Chen


Vespa?! Everything is made using wollen yarn, which is soft, flexible and expandable. In contrast to the original qualities of the material presented, the installation projects the fact that art is not immortal, and nothing is permanent. One interesting aspect is that the ends of the yarn are hooked up to a motor in the ceiling which slowly raises the sculpture, slowing revealing it. But at the end the whole sculpture will disappear, proving its point in a conclusive and poignant manner. The best about this artwork is the knitting are really nice even though the objects are complicated!



Evolutional Mythology, 2007
Han Jong- Gun

It's hard to comprehend but this artist has actually hand "crafted" these gourds everyday to make them resemble the human faces as we see it. He took a year to carefully plant, nurture and shape them, which became some kind of organic sculpture. The faces are haunting and I kind of get this feeling that they are dead foetus being kept in cylindrical preservation containers.


El naufragio de los hombres (The Wreck of Men), 2008
Charly Nijensohn

centre

This is a video work that was filmed earlier in the salt desert of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, a vast landscape 13,000 feet above sea level and thought to contain 10 billion tonnes of salt. It was the rainy season and the salt desert were filled with water, like a flat mirror.

Left

His images and video captured are not digitally manipulated but true "takes". He will go to far reaching places and work with the local community to realise such projects. Here the sky meets the reflection without noticeable separation.

Right

"Exposed to the erosion of time, they vanish into the emptiness. In silence and isolation, they are testimony of an existence which, in disappearing, becomes a declaration of principles."

The people he worked with in these images belonged to the Aymara community of the village of Colchani. Sometimes no one, just the scenery, is the shown while other times a few or just one person are standing there, unmoving. The images and the scenes are really sublime and intriguing, which reminds me of nirvana or maybe the idealised heaven..



Families Ask Why and We are All Americans, 2006
Farhad Moshiri

"You are the fearless rose that grows amist the freezing wind."

"We ARE ALL Americans."

His works have combined Iranian popular culture with traditional styles. Through digital manipulation, these images of daily products are given a new critical meaning.

I find them really sacarstic and even more critical when infused with daily objects.



The Yellow Mountain, 2004
Su-Mei Tse

This is sth which looks like sunrise but is not.Her objective is to disrupt the anticipation of audience. We see egg yolk right from the beginning.

Arbin: "The masking is buang lei.." very funny...



Bachelor- The Dual Body, 2003
Ki-Bong Rhee

This special copy of Lugwig Wittgenstein's only book-length work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicous (1921), is thrown into the closed aquarium. It dances playfully in the water due to the currents.

This installation caught me by surprise as it was such an ethereal image that I thought it was not actually there, as in present as an actual object. The blue light washes over the viewer as if one is pulled into it, immersed with the book...thoughts flowing with the book.



Xteriors I, II, IV, VIII, 2001-2007
Desiree Dolron
Kodah endura prints


These are not paintings! It's a series of photographic portraits of anonymous models. It gives the impression of oil painting, with quality that is reminiscent of works of Vermeer. I really love the composition and the quality of light.



Wall of Paint

This is the wall of paint which is really impressive. The artist sure used quite a lot of it, and it reminds me of the wall of paint in Lucian Freud's home.

Btw..his paintings are sold in the millions and he is still alive!


Blackfield, 2008
Zadok Ben-David

This piece comprises of 10,000 plant patterns etched out on metal. These "plants" are "planted" on the large field of sand. Viewing from the back of the installation, the cut-out plants are all painted black.
The front are all painted in a myriad of colours which became a stark contrast with its back. The details of each of the cut-outs are very intricate and one can spend quite a amount of time admiring them. I rather like the scale of the whole installation and the contrast between the colours and the black, which also reminds me of the relationship between death and the living. The former dark, sinister while the latter vibrant, and cheerful. It is the duality of nature.


I'm Not Expensive, 2008
Lee Yong Deok

This piece is pretty interesting as it's 3-dimensionally reproduced on the wall by creating negative spaces. When one moves the figures and objects seems to move in space.



Singapore, 2008
Wit Pimkanchanapong

This is a huge google map of Singapore which was spread out in one of the court rooms. Stickers were provided so one can find landmarks to tag and make notes with. We found adm and lots of funny stickers on it and I also managed to find my place..after a teadious find. At the entrance to the map somebody left a whole line of sticker saying:" ERP ERP ERP.." very creative.


Teratoma II: War of the Worlds, 2008
Leeroy New

The idea was drawn from the sci-fi novel War of the Worlds, 1898 which talked about utopias and aliens arriving on earth. Using the idea of "blobject" (coined by Karim Rashid), he created the so-called "structural discomfort" to this classical building. It gives a sense of foreign invasion and almagamation of certain alien qualities with the original structure in the present context.

I wonder how he constructed it..the materials, the techniques used etc.


Last but not least..

Dessert Time
When it's after 9, it's gotta be Cafe Cartel..

2 Guys 1 Cup, and 1 Cake

Nothin' provoking..

and the cake is delicious..haha



The Multi-faceted artist, sculptor, designer wannabe..

Kat