Failure
February 5th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
In the realm of art, failure has a different currency. Failure, by definition, takes us beyond assumptions and what we think we know. Artists have long turned their attention to the unrealizability of the quest for perfection, or the open-endness of experiment, using both dissatisfaction and error as means to rethink how we understand our place in the world. The inevitable gap between the intention and realization of an artwork makes failure impossible to avoid. This very condition of art-making makes failure central to the complexities of artistic practice and its resonance with the surrounding world. Through failure one has the potential to stumble on the unexpected. When the conventions of representation are no longer fit for purpose, failure can open new possibilities. The judgement involved in naming something a success or a failure is symptomatic of the time and place, and contingent on the critical apparatus one uses to define it. While speculative thought strives for ever-deepening levels of understanding in search for content, irony asks questions, not to receive an answer but to draw out of content and form yet more questions. The ironist deals with the how of something being said rather than the what, paying a distanced attention to the surface of statements so as to identify gaps in knowledge and productive miscommunication. Where we embrace the irony of bad taste, we distance ourselves from the assumed natural order of things.
– FAILURE Documents of contemporary art
Formalism
January 26th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
In general, the term formalism describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its form, that is, the way it is made and its purely visual aspects, rather than its narrative, content or its relationship to the visible world. In painting, a formalist critic would focus exclusively on the qualities of color, brushwork,form,line and composition. Formalism as a critical stance came into being in response to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in which unprecedented emphasis was placed on the purely visual aspects of the work. In 1890 the Post-Impressionist painter Maurice Denise wrote, ‘Remember, that a picture, before it is a picture of a battle horse, a nude woman, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colors arranged in a certain order.’Denis emphasised that aesthetic pleasure was to be found in the painting itself, not its subject. Writer Clive Bell formulated the notion of ‘significant form’, that form itself can convey feeling. All these led to Abstract art, an art of pure form.
– The Tate guide to Modern art terms
We must create(1922)
January 15th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Excerpts from Huidobro’s Manifestes(1925) which provoked thoughts in me today, over a cup of yoghurt with honey cashews
Vicente Huidobro was a cosmopolitan Chilean poet, exponent of the artistic movement of Creacionismo, which held that artists of any stripe should ‘create’rather than ‘imitate’, that is to say invent or ‘add to the facts of the world’.
We must create. That is the sign of our times.
Inventing is making things that are parallel in space, meet in time or vice versa, so that they present a new fact in their conjunction.
The totality of the diverse new facts united by a single spirit constitutes the created work. If they are not united by a single spirit, the result will be an impure work with an amorphous look, resulting from a fantasy with no laws.
The study of art throughout history shows us clearly this tendency of imitation to move towards creation in all human productions.
In art the power of the creator interests us more than that of the observer, and besides the former contains in itself the second, to a higher degree.
David Hockney
January 4th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
“It’s a little insulting to craftsmen,” he said. “I used to point out, at art school you can teach the craft; it’s the poetry you can’t teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft.” He quoted a Chinese proverb that to be a painter “you need the eye, the hand and the heart. Two won’t do.”
Red is the color
September 21st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
the young Yeo Hung Teo. doing what he does best
embroidered lanterns! from Taiwan
printed graphics on cardboard then folded to give wingssss
monster hand! for a larger than life figure at a festival
bamboo structure
sticking gold paper onto sides of boat
handwritten characters by the boss
boss Yeo Hung Teo
A visit to Yeo Swee Huat paper agency which produces various objects for Chinese festivals n rituals, mostly hand-made using paper, wood and a few other low cost materials. The current boss Yeo Hung Teo, specialises in writing Chinese characters and drawing imagery on huge lanterns. Not many craftsmen can do both jobs. He is also Teochew. I knew it.
Reflection
September 14th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Just as I started to feel a teeney bit of despair crawling into my life, talking to someone changed everything in an instant. The encouraging voice on the other side of the phone did not say You must persevere, it only said, in a somewhat stuttering but kind voice, Yes come in the afternoon for a chat. Researching on lost art in ‘small’Singapore takes a lot, well, research generally does. and at a certain point you start asking yourself, what am I doing this for. It’s a choice, not imposed. why put yourself in all this shit, blood n sweat. I don’t want to look back. I fear that the basis for which I started this, the very reason/feeling/both, is starting to diminish. Just keep looking ahead. And it’s all these people whom I have to interview, who time and time again, through their willingness and passion to share, that has kept me going, whether it’s me stuttering along, crawling or trying to pull myself to get up and keep going.
I had a chat with the owner of Yeo Swee Huat today, a business which deals with funeral objects, hand-making decorations for processions, festivals like mid-autumn etc, and the boss hand paints Chinese lanterns. perhaps speaking to older people makes you feel less bad-tempered/angsty/in a rush. you have to be patient and listen. you also have to know the right questions to ask– practical intelligence they term it. I realised it’s really impt that you ask the right and precise questions to get the very essence in the answers. knowing how to precisely pick out the crux through questioning, or should I say, allow the crux to surface naturally. unlocking the key, because sometimes the interviewee will not know what to say too. until you ask precisely! well this I am learning and I’ll say it’s pretty challenging. and exciting. it’s like having to think quickly on the spot once you sense something interesting, on your toesss! hehe. I’m not a very sociable person ya knw~
perhaps it’s also because I’m doing all this pretty much myself at this stage, and having to go around Singapore on public transport, especially to search for someone, is a trying task indeed. So the strategy is, whenever despair starts coming close, pick up the phone, dial the number and talk. it’s the first big step that’s the most difficult. but arghhhhh!! gotta do it. sometimes you gotta think and not feel. that’s how it is.
Tay Guan Huat continues. . .
September 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
present day joss sticks
airbrushed joss sticks w typical symbolic neon colors
joss sticks originally reached for the skies but were eventually restricted in height due to the pollution it was causing
hand sculpted woodclay figurines
demo
woodclay– from the wild cinnamon tree
So it was that I spent a few hours speaking to a 2nd Teochew counterpart, and I learnt that there are three kinds of Teochew, the terms I cannot quite remember :x Amos(above) was the only brother of the three who could speak fluent English and he told me about how his family’s local joss stick business started when his grandfather came from China to Singapore before WWII. He learnt the tedious craft from his father after school hours and this was how he came naturally to take over the business, which he does not see any future with the next generation. Tay Guan Huat’s current business runs in the production of joss sticks, clay figurines and workshops conducted with schools & museums. Clients include locals and expats, the latter being very fond of his hand sculpted clay figurines of images of old Singapore. Amos said he does not know how long the business can continue but he will put his head down to work and keep at it until. . .
Dec 2010 – Delvey art & design fair
December 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Pao was at Abney public hall, Stoke Newington parading his stuff. Did you catch a peek of him? aha
click on image for more photos
