The Cloud of Unknowing
2011 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
Ho Tzu Nyen
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. In the video, eight protagonists act out their daily lives. The setting is a soon-to-be-demolished public housing facility in Singapore, a country in transition from a mindset of Eastern collectivism to global neoliberalism. These individuals have lived hermetically and absurdly in their apartment space until this moment, when a magical and mysterious cloud appears, connecting their seemingly disjointed lives. It is a story about the tension between solitude and togetherness, privacy and communal experiences. The symbolic cloud embodies both divine illumination and hallucination.
Drawing from historical events, documentary footage, art history, music videos, and mythical stories, Ho Tzu Nyen’s films investigate the construction of history, the narrative of myth, and the plurality of identities. Nyen often collaborates with theater professionals, and the lighting in his films is meticulously orchestrated, the compositions highly aesthetic. Ho also practices painting, performance, and writing, exploring the many possible relationships between stills, painted images, and moving images. His first feature film, HERE , premiered at the 41st Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. He has exhibited widely, including at the Bienal de São Paulo (2004), the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2005), the Singapore Biennale (2006), the Dojima River Biennale (2009), and the Singapore Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2011).
Colors:
Related works featuring themes of: » Collective History, » Contemporary Conceptualism, » Film/Video, » Focus on the Social Margins, » Singaporean
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Vincent Leong
2012The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...
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Vincent Leong
2012The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...
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Joachim Koester
2007Tarantism is the name of disease which appeared in southern Italy, resulting from the bite of a spider called Tarantula...
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Cerith Wyn Evans
2008Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1) by Cerith Wyn Evans takes as its starting point Felix Gonzales-Torres’s seminal work Untitled (Perfect Lovers) , in which two clocks were synchronized and left to run without interference, the implication being that one would stop before the other...
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Zai Kuning
2014Concerned with the early history of Singapore, Zai Kuning spent many years living with and researching the history of the Riau peoples who were the first inhabitants of Singapore...
Related artist(s) to: Ho Tzu Nyen » Anton Vidokle, » Guy Ben-Ner, » Hans Ulrich Obrist, » Vandy Rattana, » Ali Cherri, » Basim Magdy, » Biljana Ciric, » Cao Fei, » Chen Chieh-Jen, » Cosmin Costinas
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Ali Cherri
2017As a discipline born at the same time as colonialism, archeology is struggling to rid itself of this sad context...
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Vandy Rattana
2009Vandy Rattana’s Bomb Ponds series was made following a transformative encounter with the craters left over from 2,756,941 tons of bombs dropped by U...
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Benoît Maire
The series Clouds paintings by Benoît Maire features oil on canvas works in varying format, in which the artist depicts clouds, using a variety of tools, including a spray gun, paintbrush, or palette knife...
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Tia-Thuy Nguyen — Sparkle in the vastness — Almine Rech Gallery, Matignon — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Tia-Thuy Nguyen — Sparkle in the vastness — Almine Rech Gallery, Matignon — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Tia-Thuy Nguyen — Sparkle in the vastness Exhibition Painting Tia Thuy Nguyen, série I, my, me, cloud (2018-2023) Courtesy de l’artiste et galerie Almine Rech Tia-Thuy Nguyen Sparkle in the vastness Ends in 13 days: January 11 → February 24, 2024 “Sparkle in the vastness", Tia-Thuy Nguyen’s first show with Almine Rech presents a suite of more than twenty multi-media paintings from the artist’s ongoing series “I, my, me, cloud” (2018–)...
