From 18 May through September, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) at Tanjong Pagar Distripark will present three new contemporary art exhibitions by local and international artists that will invite unique art encounters for all. Audiences can look forward to Lila: Unending Play by Jane Lee, the well-established Singaporean artist’s solo exhibition exploring the nature and limits of painting; the inaugural presentation of a new biennial project, SAM Contemporaries: Residues & Remixes, where emergent practices and generative trends in Singapore’s contemporary art landscape are explored through the works of six Singapore-based artists, as well as Hito Steyerl: Factory of the Sun, the internationally-renowned artist’s landmark video installation that connects audiences to the virtual world. The three exhibitions will experiment with scale, perception, and presentation formats to offer visceral art experiences that reflect significant topics and practices in contemporary art. 

Eugene Tan, Director of SAM, says: “The three new exhibitions showcase the breadth of presentations at SAM as we continue to profile contemporary artists from Singapore and beyond. Through varied exhibitionary formats that appeal to different audiences, SAM invites visitors to reconsider preconceived notions of art while engaging with the multisensorial installations that introduce new perspectives on a range of issues. From the acclaimed video installation by Hito Steyerl that contemplates the role of contemporary media to presentations by Jane Lee and six Singapore-based artists that shine a light on ever-evolving artistic practices, we hope that SAM’s diverse and immersive art experiences will offer new opportunities for audiences to encounter the boundless world of contemporary art.”

Exhibited in Southeast Asia for the first time, one of the most influential artists of today—Hito Steyerl, whose prolific practice is known to occupy a highly discursive position between the fields of art, philosophy and politics—presents the landmark video installation Factory of the Sun. At the centre of the installation, the titular film dissolves the distinctions between truth and fiction through a montage of YouTube dance videos, drone surveillance footage, video games, fictitious news segments, and actual documentation of student uprisings. First presented at the German Pavilion for the 2015 Venice Biennale, the immersive installation connects the physical space of the gallery to the virtual world of Steyerl’s film, inviting the viewer to question the role of contemporary media in constructing our reality. 

Jane Lee’s first solo exhibition in a museum embodies its title Lila, a Sanskrit word meaning play and spontaneity, where visitors can expect to immerse themselves in Lee’s world and her playful process of creating and presenting her works. Lee is famed for her material and conceptual explorations of the essence of painting, engaging with ideas of painting beyond its typical gestures and forms to transcend the space of painting into its immediate surrounding. Featuring three new commissions, Lila: Unending Play by Jane Lee showcases the artist’s long-standing experimentation and expands the possibility of what a painting exhibition can be. 

The works in the exhibition encapsulate Lee’s search for the nature of what painting is: as surface, as an object, as body, as an interplay of spaces and sensations. New commissions including Lila (The Ultimate Play), Hollow and Empty, and a new work as part of Lee’s well-known Fetish series, In Praise of Darkness, experiment with space, light, reflection, and shadows, pushing the boundaries of what a current-day painting practice could be. Alongside the new works, audiences can also experience a selection of earlier works by Lee, including Status, The Object I, The Object II and Fetish – White II.

Driven by close collaboration and sustained conversations between artists and curators, SAM Contemporaries is a biennial project that spotlights emerging practices and generative trends in Singapore contemporary art. A platform for experimentation, collective research and engaged criticality, each edition will feature six to eight artists and art collectives paired with one or more SAM curators, who will co-develop programmes and presentations in various formats. The inaugural edition, titled Residues & Remixes considers the impact of historical remnants on the present as well as the influence of new technologies on how we see, experience and understand the world. It features six Singapore-based artists, Yeyoon Avis Ann, Anthony Chin, Fyerool Darma, Priyageetha Dia, Khairulddin Wahab and Moses Tan, who have worked closely with SAM curators to review their current interests and present moments in their artistic research.  

Visitors can expect artistic experimentations that expand our grasp of the world by revisiting interpretations of the past and reflect on experiences of the present. Yeyoon Avis Ann’s A Collisional Accelerator of Everydays (A.C.A.E.) contemplates everyday experiences as opportunities for random but meaningful encounters through the explosion of objects including cups, toothbrushes, and chairs, resembling collisions in a particle accelerator. a caveat, a score by Moses Tan comprises found objects and furniture, photographic prints, drawings, video and polymer clay sculptures fashioned after botanical and zoological forms. Coming together as an installation reminiscent of a set design, the work explores the complexities of identity through a wide dis-array of allegorical references and symbols. 

Two new works by Anthony Chin examine the complex history of iron ore mining in British Malaya and its entanglements with Imperial Japan in the early 20^th century. From Silver to Steel reflects on the exploitation and weaponisation of this raw material by subverting the image of a shin guntō – a modern military sword produced with steel from Malaya, which ironically returns to its place of origin as an invader’s weapon. Acknowledging the historical passage of iron ore through Singapore’s ports, South Sea Ore is an augmented reality sequence that visualises the scale of the movement of this resource against the backdrop of the Tanjong Pagar port. Priyageetha Dia’s LAMENT H.E.A.T continues her exploration into the histories of plantations in British Malaya. Composed of rubberwood and latex, the multimedia installation in the form of an enclosed sanctuary becomes a site for gathering and contemplation, honouring the nonhumans and indentured labourers whose oppression should not be forgotten.

Residues & Remixes will also feature Fyerool Darma and his evolving work, Total Output featuring Aleezon, berukera, billyX, Jasim, Lee Khee San, Lé Luhur, and rawanXberdenyut. Created in collaboration with a group of artists and designers, the work experiments with patterns as glitches, drawing from archives, visual and material histories in daily life. Finally, examining the historical shifts in our relationship with the land is Khairulddin Wahab’s Landscape Palimpsest, an installation of paintings that questions the conception of our land as a total, unified and stable “terra firma”, and proposes an understanding of landscapes as a process of writing and co-creation.

Beyond SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, audiences can also experience two other artworks by Yeyoon Avis Ann and Fyerool Darma on SAM’s hoardings along Bras Basah Road and Queen Street. These two artworks complement the artists’ respective presentations at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, renewing perspectives of the sites as they respond to the histories of the area. 

“SAM Contemporaries is a platform that supports artists in discovering new modes of artistic creation while further developing their practice. It reflects the museum’s commitment of presenting critical practices of our time and connecting such contemporary works with our audiences. SAM Contemporaries is also a space for deep curatorial conversation and collaboration to expand upon visual vocabularies and introduce new aesthetic experiences. We hope that visitors will be inspired by this suite of exhibitions at SAM with their thought-provoking art encounters,” says Dr June Yap, Director of Curatorial & Collections at SAM.

Images courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Hito Steyerl: Factory of the Sun, Lila: Unending Play and SAM Contemporaries: Residues & Remixes run from 18th May to 24th September 2023 at SAM @ Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Works from SAM Contemporaries: Residues & Remixes will also be displayed at SAM hoardings along Bras Basah Road and Queen Street from 18th May to 29th October 2023.