Art Stage Singapore Returns With Stronger Southeast Asian Identity
Jakarta. The annual Art Stage, Southeast Asia's leading contemporary art fair, returns to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on Jan. 12-15.
During a media gathering in Jakarta on Tuesday (06/12), founder and president of the fair, Lorenzo Rudolf, said Art Stage Singapore aims to be a leading platform for the region's modern art. Beside the fair, the organizers will also hold the Southeast Asia Forum to discuss how geopolitical issues affect the Southeast Asian art.
"Our second Southeast Asia Forum, an exhibition and series of lectures, will be even more important to the way we position ourselves as an engaged art fair that looks beyond the markets," Rudolf said in a statement.
The forum's theme, "Net Present Value: Art, Capital, Futures," is meant to examine the relationships between the value of art, imagination, progress, and money. "Net Present Value" is a popular measure of profitability used by banks and corporations.
Rudolf has noticed how art galleries struggle to survive. According to him, both galleries and artists should reflect on global issues, gain new perspectives and rethink their strategies.
"We have today art production like never before, but how many of these artists do you want to remember and see in museums in 50 years? The world and economy are changing. You cannot always surf, and when you can't, you must swim, but to be able to swim, you have to know how to," he said.
Artworks by Indonesian artists Tintin Wulia, Eldwin Pradipta, Jim Allen Abel and Yudi Sulistyo will be among the highlights of the forum's exhibition.
In her most ambitious sound installation to date, "Untold Movements Act 1: Neitherland, Whitherland, Hitherland," Tintin explores language, oral storytelling and poetry through 32 channels of synchronized recordings of her interviews with refugees, migrants and the displaced, including Indonesian poet and writer Sobron Aidit, brother of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) leader, Dipa Nusantara Aidit. Sobron lived in China after the 1965 anti-communist purge and moved to Paris in 1981. He died there in 2007.
The sixth Art Stage in Singapore will see 126 exhibitors from 27 countries, the majority of whom are returning participants. The Indonesian art establishments at the fair will include Can Gallery, Fantastic Gallery, D Gallerie, Nadi Gallery, Roh Projects, Srisasanti Syndicate, Zola Zolu Gallery and Lawangwangi creative space.
Since its inaugural event in 2011, the Art Stage has expanded to other countries, including Indonesia, with the Art Stage Jakarta event at the Sheraton Gandaria City Hotel in August.