No country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia

Dr June Yap is a curator, art historian, and Director of Curatorial, Programmes and Publications at the Singapore Art Museum. She is the author of Retrospective: A Historiographical Aesthetic in Contemporary Singapore and Malaysia (2016) and curator of the Singapore Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). In April 2012, Yap was selected as Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia. This led to the exhibition No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia that was also presented at NTU CCA Singapore between May and July 2014.

The subject of Sheela Gowda’s Loss is Kashmir, a region bordered by India, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan. Historically a locus of exchange and syncretism, where Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam flourished in the wake of South Asia’s partition, it is now fraught with violence and uncertainty as border disputes and armed encounters persist. Originally photographed by Kashmir resident Abdul Gani Lone, these six scenes show the path taken to a burial site by the bodies of youths from his village killed in the continuing conflict. Tentatively painted over with watercolour in a subtle accentuation of their subjects’ plight, these prints express the tragic irony of deadly geopolitical struggle unfolding in a place described since the Mughal period as “heaven on earth.”

Amar Kanwar is an artist and filmmaker. Kanwar has distinguished himself through films and multimedia works, which explore the politics of power, violence, and justice. His multilayered installations originate in narratives often drawn from zones of conflict and are characterised by a unique poetic approach to the social and political. Kanwar’s long-term research project, The Sovereign Forest (2012–ongoing) was presented at NTU CCA Singapore in 2016.

Arin Dwihartano Sunaryo is dedicated to painting, pushing its boundaries with innovative techniques, and distilling his passion for comic books, science fi ction, and Japanese manga into abstract compositions. His paintings capture shifts between solid and liquid, static and animated, synthetic and natural, and are rooted in the embrace of chance. Acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection, Sunaryo’s Volcanic Ash Series #4 (2012) was made using a combination of resin and, as pigment, volcanic ash from the 2010 eruption of Gunung Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia. Sunaryo has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Asian International Art Exhibition, Ayala Museum, Manila (2005); and Marcel Duchamp in Southeast Asia, Equator Art Projects, Gillman Barracks, Singapore (2012). Sunaryo lives and works in Bandung.

Bani Abidi’s early engagement with video led her to performance and photography. The Guggenheim acquired three works by Abidi, The Boy Who Got Tired of Posing (2006), The Ghost of Mohammed Bin Qasim (2006), and This Video Is a Reenactment (2006), which include installations of video photography, and text. Through these elements, the figure of Mohammad bin Qasim, considered Pakistan’s early colonial founder in state history, is brought to life in a lighthearted and candid portrayal that provides an opportunity to reflect on the history of the South Asian nation. Solo exhibitions of Abidi’s work have been presented at the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom (2011); and Experimenter, Kolkata (2012–13). Important group exhibitions include: Making Normative Orders: Demonstrations of Power, Doubt and Protest, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2012); and Documenta 13 (2012). Abidi lives and works in Karachi and New Delhi.

Navin Rawanchaikul works in various media including sculpture, painting, performance, photography, and film. Rawanchaikul’s Places of Rebirth (2009) was inspired by the artist’s first visit to Pakistan, the birthplace of his ancestors. Purchased for the Guggenheim’s collection, the painting narrates his family’s migration to Thailand in pursuit of new opportunity during the aftermath of 1947’s partition of South Asia. In 2010, Rawanchaikul was awarded the national Silapathorn citation from the Thai Ministry of Culture in the field of visual arts. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at MoMA P.S.1 in collaboration with Public Art Fund, New York (2001); Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (2008); and Valentine Willie Fine Art, Singapore (2011). He represented Thailand at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and has participated in numerous group exhibitions around the world. Rawanchaikul lives and works in Chiang Mai and Fukuoka, Japan.

Norberto Roldan’s work offers a commentary on the social, political, and cultural conditions of the Philippines via assemblages of object, text, and image. Roldan’s F-16 (2012), acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection, draws a relationship between the colonization of the Philippines and events on today’s global stage. In 1986, he founded Black Artists in Asia, a Philippines-based group focused on socially and politically progressive practice. He is also the cofounder of the Manila gallery Green Papaya Art Projects. Roldan has had solo exhibitions at Now Gallery, Manila (2011 and 2012); and Vulcan Artbox, Waterford, Ireland (2012). He was also a finalist for the Philip Morris Philippines Art Award, Manila, in 1996, 1997, and 1999. In 1998, he was selected as Juror’s Choice for the same award, as well for the Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition. Roldan lives and works in Manila.

Pokong Anading began as a painter, but has expanded his practice to video, photography, and process-oriented sculpture and installation. In 2006, he received the Ateneo Studio Residency Grant in Australia, and a Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists Award. The Guggenheim acquired Anading’s Counter Acts (2004), a group portrait photograph in which the subjects hold mirrors up to the camera, reflecting a blinding constellation of light toward the viewer. Anading’s works were presented in the two-person exhibition Between Signs at Silverlens Gallery in Makati City (2011). Anading organized and participated in Room 307: Inkling, Gutfeel and Hunch at the National Art Gallery in Manila (2008). He has been included in notable group exhibitions including the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2002 and 2012). Anading lives and works in Manila.

Employing video, performance, and installation, and often using his own body in his work, Reza Afisina explores the manifestations and meanings of physical and emotional pain. Afisina’s early experimental work What . . . (2001), part of the Guggenheim’s collection, records a performance by the artist in which biblical verses about truth and confession are referenced, and are underscored with an act of violence. Afisina has performed and screened his work in such group exhibitions as Simple Actions and Aberrant Behaviors, PICA, Portland (2007), Jakarta Biennial (2009); Move on Asia: The End of Video Art, Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong (2010 and 2012); and City Net Asia, Seoul Museum of Art (2011). Afisina is a member of the artists’ collection ruangrupa and lives and works in Jakarta.

Shilpa Gupta’s mediums range from manipulated found objects to video, interactive computer-based installation, and performance. Acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection, 1:14.9 (2011–12), features a hand-wound ball of thread accompanied by a small plaque reading “1188.5 MILES OF FENCED BORDER – WEST, NORTH-WEST / DATA UPDATE: DEC 31, 2007,” poetically representing the geopolitical division of India and Pakistan. In 2011, Gupta was the recipient of the Bienal Award, Bienal De Cuenca, Ecuador; in 2004 she was the recipient of the Transmediale Award, Berlin, and the Sanskriti Prathisthan Award, New Delhi. Canada’s South Asian Visual Artists Collective also named her International Artist of the Year. A 10-year survey of her work, Half A Sky, was presented at the OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria (2010). Gupta lives and works in Mumbai.

Through performance, installation, painting, sculpture, and drawing, Tang Da Wu explores social and environmental themes including deforestation, animal endangerment, and urban transformation. Acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection, his three-part sculpture Our Children (2012) references a story from Teochew opera in which a young boy experiences illumination at the sight of a baby goat suckling at its mother. Tang is credited as the founder of the Artists Village, a collective that has become synonymous with experimental art in Singapore. In 1999, he was awarded the 10th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in Arts and Culture. He has had solo exhibitions at Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur (2006); and Goodman Arts Centre, Singapore (2011), and was featured in the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Tang lives and works in Singapore.

Tayeba Begum Lipi makes paintings, prints, installations, and videos. Lipi cofounded the Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh’s first artist-run alternative arts platform, which has extended its reach beyond Bangladesh through exhibitions, residencies, talks, collaborations, and exchanges. Her 2012 work Love Bed, acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection, addresses themes of female identity, and references the double bind of political and gender-specific violence. Lipi was awarded the Grand Prize at the Asian Art Biennial, Dhaka, in 2004, and was the commissioner for the Bangladesh Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). She has had solo exhibitions at Alliance Française (1998 and 2004) and Bengal Gallery (2007) in Dhaka. Notable group exhibitions include the Venice Biennale (2011) and Colombo Art Biennial (2012). Lipi lives and works in Dhaka.

Tran Luong’s practice spans painting, installation, and performance art. The artist came to international prominence as part of a group of artists called the Gang of Five, and was responsible for leading the development of contemporary art in Vietnam in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection, Tran’s video installation Lập Lòe (2012) features the red scarf—an item of historical and political significance associated with communism—waving, floating, and being snapped against the artist’s body. Tran is a member of the curatorial team for the 2013 Singapore Biennial, and has participated in notable group exhibitions including Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia 1991–2011, Singapore Art Museum (2011). Tran lives and works in Hanoi.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen (Vietnam) graduated in Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine (1999) and received his MFA from The California Institute of the Arts (2004). His work investigates the body as site and as moment of resistance in public space, exploring the impact of mass media. Nguyen has exhibited at international exhibitions and film festivals, having works in the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery; Carre d’Art; the Museum of Modern Art; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He is co-founder and board member of Sàn Art, an artist- initiated exhibition and educational space in Ho Chi Minh City. In 2006, he founded the art collective The Propeller Group, which has participated in numerous exhibitions including the New Museum Triennial (2012); Los Angeles Biennial (2012), New Orleans Triennial (2014), and the Venice Biennale (2015).

Sopheap Pich left Cambodia with his family as a refugee at the end of the Khmer Rouge’s reign, settling in the United States in 1984. Memories of his childhood and a desire to reconnect with his home country drew the artist back to Cambodia in 2002. He began working with local materials—bamboo, rattan, burlap from rice bags, beeswax, and earth pigments gathered from around Cambodia—to make sculptures inspired by bodily organs, vegetal forms, and abstract geometric structures. The strength, durability, lightness, and incredible malleability of rattan allow Pich to create organic forms that have become a signature of his practice. Pich holds a BFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1995), and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1999). In 2013, Pich presented a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, entitled Cambodian Rattan: The Sculptures of Sopheap Pich. Selected group exhibitions include the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); the Moscow Biennale (2013); Documenta 13, Kassel (2012); the Singapore Biennial (2011), among others. His work was presented at NTU CCA Singapore as part of Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative’s No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia (2014), curated by Dr June Yap.

Vincent Leong’s practice often concentrates on the production of nation and culture across media including photography and video. Acquired by the Guggenheim in 2012, Leong’s pair of portrait photographs, Keeping Up with the Abdullahs (2012), assembles family members from two minority ethnicities in Malaysia—Chinese and Indian—addressing the subject of assimilation in a multiethnic country. Leong’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur (2007 and 2012), and Sculpture Square, Singapore (2007). The artist has also been featured in the following notable group exhibitions: Some Rooms, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong (2009); Our Own Orbit, Tembi Contemporary, Jogya, Indonesia (2009); and Tanah Ayer: Malaysian Stories from the Land, Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2011). Leong lives and works in Kuala Lumpur.