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Art Review: The Collectors Show and President’s Young Talents | 3/5

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SINGAPORE — What’s the distance between promise and success? At the ongoing President’s Young Talents (PYT) and Collectors Show exhibitions, it seems but a few steps away. The Singapore Art Museum’s two-in-one opening salvo for 2013 could be, as museum director Tan Boon Hui remarked, an “articulation” of the institution’s simultaneous local and international thrust. On one hand, you get commissioned works by six emerging Singaporean artists selected for the fifth edition of PYT. On the other, the latest instalment in a series featuring works by Asia-Pacific artists loaned from collectors. The Collectors Show has apparently found its bearings. While this year’s selection has significantly fewer blaring marquee works of big-name artists by big buyers, it has a stronger sense of coherence. This quieter and comparatively lower key Collectors Show finally gets around to the business of telling us something. In this instance, it’s various notions of history from pop culture, with Taiwanese Tu Wei-Cheng’s intricate cabinet of pre-cinema moving images gadgets and Filipino Kawayan de Guia’s horse sculpture comprising toy trumpets made of celluloid films of discarded B-grade movies; to historical events and personalities — Chinese Li Songsong’s painting of a humane Adolf Hitler visiting a wounded soldier and Australian Tony Albert’s installation of souvenirs and works questioning the persecution of aborigines in his country. Somewhere in the mix are three Singaporean artists, Tang Da Wu, Francis Ng and Vertical Submarine. Incidentally, the latter two are alumni of the President’s Young Talents (in 2003 and 2009, respectively). And their presence is nonetheless a shrewd link between both shows that otherwise would have very little to do with each other. Where Collectors Show trumpets the triumphant partnership of the market and aesthetics featuring ideas and a finished product by artists who’ve “made it”; the President’s Young Talents is almost its antithesis, with emerging artists who are mostly under the radar. For now. It’s a show with no theme, and more a hit-and-miss showcase of works commissioned from scratch. Although that’s not to say it’s not an interesting show. Boo Junfeng’s first museum foray is a double-screen short film about a soldier that blends past and present beautifully. Ditto Liao Jiekai’s haunting 16mm retro “silent” film about the museum’s scholastic past via its alumni (it used to be St Joseph’s Institution). Fashion designer-turned artist Grace Tan creates a cloud-like canopy made of plastic loop pins; but the liveliest of all works is Ryf Zaini’s installation comprising lamps that rhythmically switch on and off — based on morse code patterns of quoted text, it’s a visual bombardment of information for anyone who sits within their midst. And given such a presumably open environment to unleash potential, you’d expect a certain kind of brashness or vigour from the artists to push the boundaries of their art-making. However, there is a kind of predictability here. There have been more compelling works shown elsewhere by some of the artists in this show. Still, like the aforementioned PYT alumni, one could also imagine some of them eventually finding their way into the Collectors Show. And it’s in this light that the final work stands out all the more: Zaki Razak’s piece is a tent that will house a nine-month “alternative” art night school holding lessons on theatre, food, classical studies and more. You can’t buy it, you can’t collect it; heck, it’s not even inside the museum, but out on the lawn. In a museum space hosting two shows that, seen together, reveal that it’s possible to transition from emerging talent to collected talent, here is a work that stubbornly dismisses that dialogue outright. President’s Young Talents runs until Sept 15 while The Collectors Show runs until May 5 at the Singapore Art Museum. For details, visit http://www.singaporeartmuseum.sg.

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