the three-second recap of things i saw this week (with stephanie c.).1. grey projects: night of desirable objects. melissa lim’s interactive installation of metal pins on a cylinder, their form corresponding to casts of found rocks from different areas of singapore. when turned by the viewer, the cylinders revolve and the pins pluck on a steel comb (exactly like the interior of a music box) producing a short tinkling melody that is bright and surprising — the sound of rocks of orchard, bukit timah, bedok… in the next room bruce quek’s video projections: aerial photography of artificial light sources in singapore, manipulated into layers of moving images, like star maps not of the night sky but of the city, what the stars see when they look down on us. the ever-helpful gallery manager, nicole, gave us a sneak peak into the studio of the current resident korean artist.
2. intersections: inkmagination: contemporary abstract forms with chinese ink, and the exquisite syv bruzeau (i’ve never been able to take my eyes off her when she dances) performing on-site. (the site being the actual unoccupied third-floor walk-up tiong bahru flat — my unfamiliarity with tiong bahru’s system of unit numbering, and a certain overenthusiasm, led me first to walk into and then beat a hasty retreat from an astonished australian man’s home (in my defence, his door was unlocked and i could see he had an awful lot of framed photos on his wall; if you knew you were looking for a third floor flat-turned-studio you might have made the same mistake. (american friend with me: “we actually went into someone’s house!” me: “you mean, if we were in the US, someone might have shot us already?) some of june lee’s strokes remind me of toko shinoda. next week, same exhibition different performance: question your teaspoons.
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