Converting is a piece about the Orang Laut, often called Sea Nomads, that inhabited the Riau archipelago. They were Christians and pagans that were often oppressed by the majority Muslims in the Riau community and were eventually forced to convert to Islam. Zai conveyed this history in Converting through the stark contrasts of red, white, black. Bound together by an island-like black earthy mass, white bubbles resembling clusters of embryonic cells or a sack of seeds marked with different religious symbols in blood red in the center, some with Christian crosses, some with Islamic crescents, with others remaining indecipherable or blank. The protective medium of beeswax forms a translucent layer on the painting’s surface, indexing the way nature ensured Riau’s survival of disasters caused by outside factors beyond their control.
Zai Kuning is one of Singapore’s leading avant-garde practitioners. He refuses to categorize his work, and his output crosses multiple disciplines including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, film and video, experimental sound, and performance. His practice often examines the concept of the “tortured body,” and many of his pieces explore the relationship between somatic experiences and language. He founded the Metabolic Theater Laboratory (MTL) in 1996 to examine the relationship between physical movements and language in Southeast Asian rituals. After disbanding the MTL in 2001, he returned to individually defined practices such as solo performance, writing, sound, and research. His most recent work responds to histories of indigenous people in Singapore and Indonesia including the Orang Laut and Dapunta Hyang Jayenasa.
Telescopic Pole is an adjustable telescopic pole that extends vertically from floor to ceiling and is held up by its own internal pressure...
His Deck Painting I recalls the simplistic stripes of conceptual artist Daniel Buren, or the minimal lines of twentieth century abstract painting, but is in reality a readymade, fashioned from repurposed fabric of deck chairs...
The series West (Flag 1), West (Flag 3), and West (Flag 6) continues da Cunha’s ongoing exploration of the form’s various vertical, horizontal, and diagonal stripes...
Ben Shaffer’s Ben Deroy (2007) is part performance, part self-portrait, and part spiritual vision...
Towhead n’Ganga, enclosed in darkness, lorded over by the sexualized folded high priestless form reflects many of Kelley’s works, in both its compositional and semantic qualities...
This untitled work from 2012 is a print originally made as part of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art’s artist limited edition series...
Sign #1 , Sign #2 , Sign #3 were included in “Found Object Assembly”, Copeland’s 2009 solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco...
Iron Sorrows (1990) brings together what are for Alexis Smith common motifs and materials such as scavenged and repurposed metal, and street signage...
Kwan Sheung Chi’s work One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills...
The Possibility of the Half by Minouk Lim is a two-channel video projection that begins with a mirror image of a weeping woman kneeling on the ground...
Itch explores the relationship between technology and daily human experience with a motorized arm that extends from within the gallery’s wall, moving up and down while holding a projector that shows a desperately scratching pair of hands....
Federico Herrero’s energetic paintings reflect his experiences on the streets of his native San José, Costa Rica, and in the surrounding tropical landscape...
The Cloud of Unknowing (2011) is titled after a 14th-century medieval treatise on faith, in which “the cloud of unknowing” that stands between the aspirant and God can only be evoked by the senses, rather than the rational mind...
Reeder’s works often start with language—and his Pasta Paintings are no different...
Hand Palm Echo 1 is a digital animation based on Christine Sun Kim’s staircase mural at The Drawing Center in New York (10 March – 22 May, 2022)...
Unlike many of his earlier films which often present poignant critiques of mass media and its deleterious effects on American culture, EASTER MORNING , Conner’s final video work before his death in 2008, constitutes a far more meditative filmic essay in which a limited amount of images turn into compelling, almost hypnotic visual experience...