The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

SINGAPORE S.CHANDRASEKARAN Installation c.1992 Singapore S. Chandrasekaran, usually known as Chandra, was born in Singapore in 1959. He graduated from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore in 1986with a Diploma in Fine Arts and then gained a Bachelor of Arts from Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia in 1990. Since 1984 the artist has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Singapore including 'Trimurti Exhibition', Goethe lnstitut, 1988; 'Les Extremes se touchent', Six Artists Exhibition, Arts Affairs, 1990; and 'Chitra– Kala', work by Indian artists in Singapore at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts organised by the Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society, Singa– pore. In 1989 and 1990 his work was exhibited in Perth, Western Australia. The artist's work was also selected for the touring exhibitions '5th ASEAN Exhibition of Painting and Pho– tography', 1988 and '25 Years of Singapore Arts', touring the United States in 1991. 'Deconstruction', 'Visarjana', 'Death of a Tree', 'Borobudur', 'Serve the Nature', and 42 'Atman' are some of the titles of installation works Chandra has exhibited in Singapore between 1987 and 1992, and in 1990 his installation 'Yogi' (The Seeker) was shown at Portland Sculpture Park, London, England. The artist has also participated in several performance works in Singapore and most recently in 1992 in Shimane, Japan. In 1989 Chandra was awarded a study grant at Curtin University, Perth and in 1990 won a scholarship grant organised by the Portland Quarry Sculpture Trust, London and the National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore. He currently lectures at the Nanyang Acad– emy of Fine Arts. Chandra constructs his practice on Indian philosophical and artistic traditions. However, he is not concerned with perpetuating, reviv– ing or renovating traditions as such. On the contrary, for Chandra these traditions are dynamic resources for conceptualising his practice; these traditions are prospecting grounds for generating processes by which identity is constructed, tested and then dismantled. Among the issues that currently pre– occupy him are the assertion and negation of physical/psychic entities in time and space, the power of icons and processes entaiif3d in the fabrication of images, and the ritualistic basis for the making and reception of art. These issues are extremely pertinent to and valid in a newly emerging State such as Singapore. Questions regarding traditions and history, cultural separatism and national ethos, private dispositions and public commit– ments, material or pragmatistic imperatives on the one hand and creative/spiritual aspirations on the other are by no means settled. In his work Chandra generates conditions or situations wh ich allow him to negotiate through some of this difficult, shifting terrain. T. K. Sabapathy