Study on veiled power wins art prize

FEW SURPRISES AMONG the Singapore Art Prizes last month as Singaporean Ho Tzu Nyen’s complex video installation “Pythagoras” won the S$60,000 (Bt1.5-million) grand prize and Indonesia’s Melati Suryodarmo’s intense 12-hour performance “I’m a ghost in my own house” took a Jurors’ Choice Award.

Suryodarmo spent half the day grinding hundreds of kilograms of charcoal, which was meant as a symbol of life’s energy.

The second S$15,000 jury award in the competition hosted by the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation went to China’s Liu Jianhua for “Trace”, a commentary on social ills rendered in calligraphy and porcelain.

The $10,000 People’s Choice Award, based on online voting, went to Taiwan’s Yao Jui-chung + Lost Society Document’s “Mirage – Disused Public Property in Taiwan”. 

“Golden Teardrop” by Thai Arin Rungjang won no awards but was acquired by the Singapore Art Museum for its permanent collection, as was Ho’s “Pythagoras”.

Committed to an artistic residency in Berlin, Ho was unable to be on hand for the awards presentation at the Singapore Art Museum, at which Culture Minister Lawrence Wong presided. But Ho said in a message read aloud that just being nominated “was already a big deal for me”, given the high quality of the entries. 

“I am greatly encouraged by the judges’ affirmation of my work,” he said. “I was asked by the Michael Janssen Gallery to ‘do something crazy’, and it ended with months of continuous work with a team of friends and collaborators too numerous to name, but I dedicate this to them.”

His video installation has four different pieces that “react to one another”. Viewers are drawn to explore the concept of unseen power and its concealment through the use of veils and curtains. The work’s title evokes Pythagoras of Samos, the Greek philosopher whose disciples had to listen to his lessons in absolute silence from behind a veil. 

The Wizard of Oz, Fritz Lang’s Doctor Mabuse, Stanley Kubrick’s Hal 9000 and Jean-Luc Godard’s Alpha 60, for all of whom the voice was essential to achieving their goals, make appearances in the installation.

The jury called “Pythagoras” “a post-modern synthesis of image and sound, theatre and spectacle, and it is this multimedia quality that adds to the true wonderment of this piece. 

“Sound in particular is used to guide you through this visual tempest, with some screens appearing very grand and contemplative in their narrative, while others are in a state of constant flux.” The resulting anxiety that viewers feel, it said, make this “a work that truly captures a contemporary moment”.

 

SEE FOR YOURSELF

The Signature Art Prize 2014 Finalists Exhibition continues through March 15.

For more details, visit www.SingaporeArtMuseum.sg.