Late last week the market was incredibly slow and I was incredibly bored. Although I detest it, and have jotted down pages of notes about why it's such a lousy arts center, I visited the nearby Esplanade Arts Center. On the way back, in one of the underground tunnels that link the building to the subway, I finally saw some decent art.
There were several artists presenting along the long hallway. Emily Chua Hui Ching claimed the most wall space, and justifiably so, because hers was the only body of work that wasn't the typical buffoonery the Esplanade fobs off on ignorant Singaporeans.
Mostly she showed ink drawings. Admittedly some of it, especially the pencil sketches, came across as disorganized doodle rubbish, but the bigger pieces, particularly the five panel ink + coffee watercolor had a very pleasing aesthetic quality. Even some novelty art, produced by recirculating patterns through a Xerox machine was quite nice, bonding the other, stronger works.
Emily must be a very focused and deliberate girl, because that's the only way someone could finish the tedious marker work she did in several pieces. Somehow the monotony-with-noise-variations she creates are very compelling to look at.
My favorite pieces (most were unnamed) were
The All Knowing One couldn't find any trace of poor Emily. All the Esplanade said was that she was a young Singaporean artist living in America. Good for her, she has nice work that is nice to look at.
The same cannot be said for her peers presenting in the same hallway. Seng Hui Kiang was the closest to having something nice. A few of his photos had an Edward Tufte quality to them, composing multiple points-of-view of the same object on one large page. An interesting treatment, but his subjects and colors were washed-out..
Ho Tzu Nyen's presentation, "Things one can do with food other than eat it," should have thought of something other than photographing people pretending to be parts of chicken sandwiches or plates of spaghetti. Not nice, not art.
I was equally bored by Lim Kok Boon's '"Fast Food, Fast Play." In good Esplanade fashion, this was nothing but Buffoon Origami -- photographs of fast food wrappers twisted and ripped into shapes of car, boats, and planes. *yawn*
It makes me happy that an obscure artist, with a simple toolset and simple art, can produce the nicest art I've seen at the ludicrously expensive $600 million Esplanade. Hope to find out more about Emily Chua Hui Ching in the future.
Posted by Nils Blutig at July 11, 2003 11:23 PM | TrackBack