Boo Junfeng, Liao Jiekai bag PYT awards

Film came up tops at tonight’s President’s Young Talents ceremony as Boo Junfeng and Liao Jiekai were announced winners of the PYT Credit Suisse Artist Commissioning Award.

The two will receive S$25,000 each to present a work at the 2013 Singapore Biennale in October.

Boo’s work, Mirror, is a two-channel video installation shot at Bukit Brown Cemetary, a kind of time-warping piece featuring a soldier in a sequence of events that loops in on itself.

Liao’s Brothers’ Quarter, meanwhile, transforms a section of the Singapore Art Museum building into a kind of altar of sorts in reference to its past as the former St Joseph’s Institution, featuring silent interviews with alumni projected using 8mm film.

The other PYT artists are: Zaki Razak, Ryf Zaini, Grace Tan and Zhao Renhui.

The curatorial committee who selected the winners had also served as the six artists’ mentors. They are: Ahmad Abu Bakar, Cheo Chai-Hiang, Shirley Soh, Tay Swee Lin and SAM curator Tan Siu Li.

According to the release, the considerations included “how each artist acquitted himself or herself over the course of the commissioning process; translating initial concept into realised works… juggling budgets and timelines… (and) the potential for future development of each artist.”

According to SAM director Tan Boon Hui: “Ultimately, the curator-mentors were impressed with the creative agility and resourcefulness demonstrated by the two winners.”

Curiously enough, the artistic merit of the pieces themselves doesn’t seem to figure that much in the selection of the winners (or at least not as overtly as the other considerations. Perhaps it’s indicative of the kind of award that was given — a commissioning award that already looks forward to a future end-product rather than a, well, award award based on the work shown.

That said, congratulations to the winners (and the rest of the PYT artists, as well, while we’re at it) and we’re looking forward to their works for SB2013.

(The Presidents’ Young Talents exhibition runs until Sept 15 at the Singapore Art Museum.)