Exhibition venues: City Hall, South Beach Development
Reviewers: Daniel Ang, Annabelle Bok

Our experience of Wonder: Singapore Biennale 2008 was rather truncated in comparison to the 2006 event, as we hurried through the two large (paid) venues within a single afternoon. However, contrary to some recent comments/reports in the Straits Times, we felt that this year's Biennale was significantly less satisfying than 2006's. While we did find the majority of the exhibits interesting, sufficiently (for some) provocative and comparatively more accessible to the general public, we also felt them far less aesthetically stunning and thought provoking.

We found two exhibits particularly disappointing and unfulfilling-- Pham Ngoc Duong's Maggots and Heman Chong's Teardrop (Inversed). While it may be true that large numbers of people do find these artists' works intuitive, intriguing and ironic (to quote the guidebook), we found Pham's giant maggots more laughable than grotesque and Chong's black-paper-strewn floors and sticker-covered walls ineffectively communicative. It is our opinion that these works betray a lack of proper thought on the artists' parts. We detected no sense of artistic passion and sacrifice whatsoever.

Thankfully, there were more than a few pieces that we did find refreshing, fascinating and provocative in various ways.

Zadok Ben-David's Blackfield
Our knee-jerk reaction to seeing 10,000 tiny aluminium cutouts displayed across 100 square metres of white sand was, "What on earth?" Closer inspection of the filigreed pieces impressed us with Ben-David's careful attention to detail-- each sculpted plant's species is clearly recognisable.

But as mesmerising as the individual pieces were, the experience was nothing compared to that of standing upright in the middle of the length of the 'field'. Standing thus, the view is neutral; but to one side is a sea of black and to the other, a riot of colour. And because the sculptures are 2-dimensional, the visual effect is a stunning gradation of intensity-- it is no wonder that curator Matthew Ngui comments in the guidebook that Ben-David's use of colour is most likely a combination of the symbolic and the spiritual.

For us, mindful of the fact that Scripture typifies humanity as plants of various kinds, it seemed like a subtle reminder: Not only do good and evil, life and death, light and darkness co-exist in each individual soul, but each of us bears the burden of choice. Click here to view a short video clip that shows the perspective described above.

screenshot from The Wreck of Men

E Chen's Tropicana
E Chen put up beautiful, somewhat whimsical yarn (yes, yarn) sculptures that were gradually unravelled by attached motors over the period of the exhibition. Artistic director Fumio Nanjo commented in the Biennale guidebook, "Although it is said that art is immortal, in fact nothing is permanent, and that idea is symbolically proved in this installation," and we agreed.

We were struck by the thought that humanity, typified as plants of various kinds in Scripture, is a similarly slowly unwinding artwork-- not because God is in any way capricious, but because our fallen state is precisely that: the work of man and not of God. The lovely thing about it is that Chen's unravelled mounds of yarn can be salvaged and reused, if requiring some hard work. Mankind, after all, is not a lost cause-- that's a point that was driven home when Christ died at Calvary.

Tropicana

Kiran Subbaiah's Blind, Hello I am, While the mouth is still full, Reality and the mirror and Flight rehearsals
Based on the responses of several other Biennale visitors, Subbiah's work is not immediately attractive or interesting. Given chance, however, his short films reveal a subtle, self-referential humour (we're not quoting the guidebook, it just came out similar) that make his philosophical musings a lot more accessible than they would otherwise be.

We came away from this exhibit pondering life in the context of our modern world-- this environment full of cameras and images. How much of what we see of others, of our closest friends and loved one, and even ourselves, is absolutely pure, unedited and unabridged? How does this affect our concept of an omniscient God? We've not resolved these questions, and the lingering effect of Subbiah's work will doubtless haunt us for quite some time.

Joshua Yang's Impossibility of the Superstring Theory
While it appeared somewhat frivolous on the onset, especially when one notes its inherent futility (in essence a failed attempt to fill an entire room with one unbroken line), we couldn't help but feel an odd sort of kindship with Yang's project. Perhaps it's our peculiar notion of eternity and the life of faith. If you take God at His Word, at face value, you get the idea that there's no limit to what a person can achieve/receive on earth if he has the faith for it. But no one is ever going to be able to do so-- even the best of men can't because, well, they're men.

Yang's amusing comments in the midst of his linework add an interesting twist as well-- a reminder not to take whatever we do in this life too seriously. After all, it's only temporal, and bound to fail, isn't it?

Detail: Impossibility of the Superstring Theory

All in all, it was an afternoon more than well-spent at the Singapore Biennale 2008. We are eagerly looking forward to the 2010 event, at which we may have a changed view of things. After all, we are all works-in-progress by the Master Artist and tomorrow we will not be the same people that we are today.