Linke - Artinfo

Above, a frame
from Ho Tzu
Nyen’s 2011 video,
The Cloud of
Unknowing. Set in
a low-income
district in
Singapore, the
video takes its
title from a
14th-century
treatise on
monastic
contemplation.
True to its title—itself a denial of discrete nationalities—“No
Country” reveals the region as a complex web of historical and
cultural relationships, with interwoven histories and shared
traditions as well as conflicts. As such, the show is not organized
by nationality; instead, Yap looks to complicate the notion of
origins. For example, in Places of Rebirth, 2009, the Chiang Mai,
Thailand–born artist Navin Rawanchaikul explores his Indian
roots—his parents left Punjab during the 1947 India-Pakistan
partition—in a vividly colored, Bollywood-style poster.
Another diasporic work is the Otolith Group’s Communists
Like Us, 2006–2010, a photo-essay film featuring images from the
family archive of Anjalika Sagar, one of the collective’s cofounders.
The artist’s grandmother was an Indian diplomat who traveled to
Mao’s China, and her photos of exchanges between Indian and
Chinese politicians provide the backdrop for an unfolding dialogue
between two fictional characters.
Many of the show’s artists have been critically well-received
but are not necessarily commercial successes—yet. Their stars
will undoubtedly rise through participation in the show: all of
the works in “No Country” will enter the Guggenheim collection,
along with selected pieces not on view. (The Guggenheim declined
to comment on the precise number of works.) The acquisitions
couldn’t be more timely: according to a Guggenheim spokesperson,
the museum has more than 7,000 works in its collection, but of
these, only 12 are South and Southeast Asian works dating from
the 1970s to the present.
Yap explains that the title “No Country” references “Sailing to
Byzantium,” a poem by William Butler Yeats that inspired the novel
No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy, which in turn was
made into a film of the same title by the Coen brothers. “This
passage from poem to novel, film to exhibition in a way represents
the translation of culture, knowledge, and even histories in the
region,” Yap says. “The themes of cultural achievement, time,
morality, and mortality that are present in all these media—the poem,
the novel, and the film—are also in the artworks in the exhibition.”
Prior to coming to the Guggenheim, Yap worked with
such institutions as the Singapore Art Museum and the Institute
of Contemporary Arts Singapore. She most recently curated
a show by artist Ho Tzu Nyen for the Singapore Pavilion in the
2011 Venice Biennale; his Biennale film, The Cloud of Unknowing,
2011, is included in the Guggenheim show.
After closing in New York, “No Country” is slated to tour
to venues in Hong Kong and Singapore. The exhibition is the first
of three supported by the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art
Initiative, a program designed to highlight global regions that are
underrepresented in the international art scene. The second and
third parts of the project will focus on Latin America and the
Middle East and North Africa, respectively.
Asked if she felt pressure in making her selections for the show,
given the difficulties of representing such a culturally diverse area,
Yap reflects for a moment, then says: “I don’t feel the pressure,
personally. I have tried to look for a spread of countries and a crossgeneration
of artists. This project is not a comprehensive exhibition.
And that’s the nature of exhibitions, really.”
“No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia”
remains on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New
York through May 22.
March/april 2013 | BlouinArtinfo.comAsiA
From top: the otolith group and project 88, mumbai; reza aFisina; navin rawanchaikul. opposite page: russell morton and ho tzu nyen.
cuRATOR’S INSIGHT
June Yap on 5 Artworks
Poklong Anading (Philippines),
Counter Acts, 2004
In 2004, Anading began a significant
series, “Anonymity,” with this work. In
the series, he persuaded people on the
street to be photographed while
holding circular mirrors in front of
their faces. The photographic gesture
of seizing a moment in time, in which
the act of seeing and the nature of
light dictate the visual result, is
doubled and foiled here. The light from
the sun—reflected in the mirror—
obscures the views of both artist and
subject. In the context of the
exhibition, this visual paradox of sight
and obscurity could be a cue for us to
consider how one views Southeast
Asia both from within and outside the
region (from the United States, for
example) and what we think we might
be observing.
BlouinArtinfo.comAsiA | march/april 2013
Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore),
The Cloud of Unknowing, 2011
The Cloud of Unknowing is named after
a 14th-century mystical treatise
intended as a primer for aspiring
monastics on the art of contemplative
prayer. Thoughtful and enigmatic, Ho’s
film—set in a low-income estate in
Taman Jurong (a residential district in
Singapore)—is a visual and aural
interpretation of the representation of
the cloud across Eastern and Western
cultures. In this work, the lines between
the two cultures are blurred, in the
same way that one cannot quite lay
claim to clouds. While “No Country”
presents artworks relating to a region
of Asia, the distinction between East
and West is deliberately left vague.
Hopefully, this enables us to become
more conscious of how we make such
observations and divisions.
The Otolith Group (London),
Communists Like Us, 2006–2010
The Otolith Group is the duo Anjalika
Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. Their work
Communists Like Us contrasts a
dialogue about political action taken
from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film La
Chinoise with images belonging to
the photographic archive of Anasuya
Gyan-Chand, Sagar’s grandmother.
These documentary images depict
encounters between Indian
politicians and activists, and their
counterparts from the Soviet Union,
China, Japan, and other countries in
Asia in the 1950s and ’60s. The
images from the archive are
significant in showing the extensive
nature of diplomatic relations in
postwar Asia, and what such a history
might mean for us in contemplating
the future of the region.
Navin Rawanchaikul (Thailand),
Places of Rebirth, 2009
Rawanchaikul is a truly cross-cultural
example in Asia. In this artwork, he
traces his ancestry from South Asia’s
1947 partition of India and Pakistan
all the way through to his Thai and
Japanese family in East and
Southeast Asia today. Painted in the
style of a Bollywood movie poster, the
diasporic nature of his family’s story is
depicted in images of the artist’s family
and strangers he encountered in
Pakistan, as well as pictures of India
and Pakistan’s historic split. The title
Places of Rebirth suggests the
possibility of multiple origins and
challenges how identity is constituted.
Reza Afisina (Indonesia),
What..., 2011
This video performance shows the
artist reciting the biblical verses Luke
12:3–11, in which Luke relates Jesus’
warnings against hypocrisy and
stresses the importance of truth and
confession. While reciting, the artist
repeatedly slaps himself, emphasizing
the biblical injunction further through
violence upon his own body. The
artist, who comes from a moderate
Muslim family, here examines the idea
of punishment and violence, and the
physical severity of the performance
provokes feelings of empathy in the
viewer. As Indonesia is a secularly
administered but dominantly Muslim
country, the artist’s work presents
an inclusive picture, where the values
of different religions converge in
human empathy.
Left, a frame
from the
Otolith
Group’s video
Communists
Like Us, 2006-
2010; center,
What . . ., a
2001 video by
Reza Afisina.
In Places of
Rebirth, 2009,
below, Thai
artist Navin
Rawanchaikul
depicts
his personal
history in a
Bollywoodstyle
movie
poster.
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