The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

SuzannllCTIR Lives and works in Singapore Since 1992 Suzann Victor has advanced her practice along a dual trajectory, one of which homes into the heart of the painted image. This is a trajectory which propelled her into prominence in Singapore; her pictures were hailed as presaging a new vigour and urgency and as signalling a revital– isation of the practice of painting. She continues to paint in order to instigate and support the second of her trajectories. Victor describes the connection between the two in terms that are disarmingly prosaic and bitingly purposeful: 'I continue to fund my installation work by producing paintings as commodity [sic]. Ideologically, it may be perceived as the undermining of one art practice by another'. 1 In and of itself, such a strategy is not new; what is relevant is that it continues to be generative and, in this instance, pointedly so. In the context of art practices in Singapore, Victor is not alone in espousing or pursuing such ends-although very few would or could cast the relationship between two such distinct and disparate intentions in reciprocal terms. Be that as it may, over the past ten years, young and emerging artists have set about anchoring their thinking and production of art in interrogative premises. They have questioned the conventions ahd challenged the norms that are apprehended as underlining art activities in Singapore with a semblance of orthodoxy and His mother is atheatre I 1994 Installationcomprising baby rocker, fabric, bread,apom gualis, human hair, lights Collection:Singapore Art Museum normative power or aura. Installation, in these circumstances, is seized upon as an operational means and domesticated to suit particular or preferred ends. Victor has already acclaimed the purpose of installation as a corrective strategy, whereby her practice of painting is invalidated. There is yet another purpose, and this is how she elucidates it: 'It is intrinsically a negotiation with the spatial dynamics and context of the space. I like the symmetry of this relationship, and I like the relation– ships I derive from it'. 2 The act of defining and redefining space is a requisite aim in installation strategies and for this reason, such an assertion is unsurprising; however, the claim made for symmetry is intriguing. The notion of symmetry functions as a formative, controlling principle in Victor's thinking and production of art, and consequentially, features in the project developed for the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial. The genesis of this project is to be found in the productions developed over a short, intense period of nine months (from August 1994 to April 1995). During this time,Victor crystallised her conceptions of the female body in three presentations: His mother is a theatre /, Promise and Six chambers. All these have been critically yet sympathetically 104 ART I STS : SOUT H AND SOUT H- EAST ASI A considered by Susie Lingham in the only sustained account of Victor's works to date. Lingham asserts that: Theoretically, and consistently, whether with vegetative matter, perishable material or mechanical devices, Suzann Victor's installations, in particular, the objects in the installations, are visual metaphors.This associative substitution of body parts and bodily processes is a display of the tendency towards exhibitionism latent– in varying degrees-in most persons, both male and female. But the results are far from gratuitous. Instead, the objectification of sexual differentiation-the images of genitalia as sculpture-is disturbing, heightening both a sense of the uncanny and the ridiculous-in a nervous sort ofway. 3 This is an astute reading; Lingham's interest is in constructing meaning chiefly through interpretation of the symbolic dimensions of these productions (that is, their content). One of the outcomes of her interpretation is a sense of nervousness. This sense is also generated by the formal construction of these productions, and it is in this context that the notion of symmetry is most palpably apprehended. The acts of seeing, gazing and beholding are dynamic processes in Victor's practice, entailing active, deliberate complicity between the spectator and the work.The female occupies centre-stage in these processes. In the context of varied, immanent expectations and experiences from situations in Singapore, the body as female (and conversely the female as body) is foregrounded in a number of circumstances, scrutinised in parts, and read in relation to topical textual implications. These are complex and demanding conceptions. In dealing with them congruently, Victor insists upon clarity of both conception and realisation. She crystallises this insistence in arrangements in which symmetry is the cardinal, controlling force. Matter, materials and devices are displayed so that they achieve balance and even equilibrium. Such designs lead to discernible patterns which operate in rhythmic movements that are repeated in predictable units and signal the performance or observance of rituals. Symmetry imbues the production with a semblance of coherence, whereby entities are interlocked with one another. Even though symmetry is employed to such ends, it does not necessarily ensure coherence in the domain of meaning. Herein is yet another source for nervousness, one which leads to a consideration of ambiguity. TK. Sabapathy, Art Historian and Lecturer in the Historyof Art and Architecture, National University of Singapore Suzann Victor, 'dialogue' in New Criteria Ill, The Substation, Singapore, 1995, p.47 Victor, p.47. Susie Lingham, 'suzann victor:body by proxy' in New Criteria Ill, The Substation, Singapore, 1995, p.24.