S’pore to fall under South-east Asia platform at Art Stage 2014

SINGAPORE — A joint showcase by young artists Sarah Choo and Jolene Lai and a ten-metre work by Jane Lee will be shown at next year’s Art Stage Singapore.

But you won’t find these at a Singapore platform because there won’t be one. Instead, it will now have to share space with its neighbours in a South-east Asian platform.

The SEA regional platform — which will also include Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and the Philippines — will be the biggest of eight special sections focusing on specific countries and regions at the fourth edition of the art fair, which will be held from Jan 16 to 19 at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

Said fair director Lorenzo Rudolf: “We think we can position Singapore stronger within a South-east Asia platform.”

The fair proper will comprise around 100 galleries out of which 29 are based in Singapore.

Last year, the fair received some criticism regarding the focus on Indonesian art via its special country pavilion.

Rudolf described it as an “exceptional situation” saying that some Indonesian artists had asked for it to be set up and admitted it was an “experiment” that “hardly covered the cost”.

The new platform features will also include those for China, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and Central Asia.

The platforms, which cover a total of some 2,000 sq m or 20 per cent of the fair, will be in the form of curated sales exhibitions that will see galleries working with curators in featuring commissioned work from artists.

“There are many Asias. (Many) national, regional art scenes and art markets,” said Rudolf.

Citing the two big art events of Art Basel and Venice Biennale, he also pointed out how the art world now moves into two opposing directions: The highly commercial and the academic-driven.

Including curated shows within a fair will enable the various Asian art scenes to “have an understand about each other”.

“People buy what they know. The Indonesians buy Indonesian art, for example. They’re not looking left and right,” he said.

Aside from Choo, Lai and Lee, other artists featured in the various platforms include: Chun Kai Feng, Haslin Ismail, Justin Lim, Soe Naing, Mark Justiniani, Kamin Lertchaiprasert, Lu Zhengyuan, Zhang Xuerui, Liao Fei, Nobuhiro Nakanishi, among others.

The curators include: Aaron Seeto (for Australia), Huang Du (China), Bose Krishnamachari (India), Mami Kataoka (Japan), Kim Sung Won (Korea), Rudy Tseng (Taiwan), and Charles Merewether (Central Asia).

For the South-east Asia platform, the curators are: Roger Nelson (Cambodia), Jim Supangkat (Indonesia), Simon Soon (Malaysia), Isabel Ching (Myanmar), Patrick Flores (Philippines), and Gridthiya Gaweewong (Thailand).

There is, surprisingly, no curator for the Singapore selection. Instead, the fair has consulted informal “advisors”, around five to six Singaporeans “from museum directors to curators,” said Rudolf, citing the “politics” involved in choosing one particular curator.

Among the auxiliary events are talks to be organised by the Centre For Contemporary Art and LASALLE College of the Arts, and a Singapore Art Week organised by the National Arts Council, Economic Development Board and Singapore Tourism Board.

Art Stage Singapore 2014 will be from Jan 16 to 19, 2014. Tickets from S$28 to S$53 (early bird sales from Nov 18 to Dec 20, 2012) and S$33 to S$63 from Sistic and Marina Bay Sands ticketing counters and website. For more information, visit www.artstagesingapore.com.