Premise

This is an exhibition that is seemingly about the banana but is in actuality an exploration of different interpretations of art and related assumptions about standards.

An open call was put out in April and closed in June for artworks done in any style and form, so long as it responded to the banana. The works range in form from:

• The stand-alone works - like “classical” paintings, drawings (Kim Hyesu, Koh Junwee, Jessie Lim, Marla Bendini, Saiful Abu Bakar), photographs of things or performance or composites (Izzati Faisal, Yang Junwei, Ong Xiaoyun, mei), and other forms of digital presentations like videos (Anonymous, Joey.spl), audio (Lynx Ng), and writings (Benedict Lim).

• To series of artworks (Oanh on Art, Muhammad Iwan Himawan), to images/materials that make up zines or books (Kozue, Finch S.) and even a self-contained online exhibition (Lija Markus).

30 artists submitted at least 32 artworks (depending on how they might be defined) and all were considered and are presented.

There was also an accompanying open call for curatorial collaboration. This curatorial approach logically follows from the premise about diverse interpretations of the works. Eventually 10 persons, from different backgrounds and experience level, agreed to take part. It was then designed that each curator would be free to propose their curatorial take on the artworks, presented as a self-contained online exhibition(s), or take part in others’ collaboratively. In other words, multiple, concurrent narratives could be presented. These narratives may overlap or intersect, or they may not.

Befittingly, this project thus experiments with some advantages of the online presentation format. Not with coding sophistry and multimedia fireworks, but the fundamentals of the online format, for instance, by simultaneously repeating presentations of some works, or web-links that allow for rhizomic, circular, non-linear dynamicism. Procedurally, as well, since editing online is relatively easy and cheap compared to print, the process and timeline for the project is also not strictly linear, and allows for a more experimental approach.

These are echoed in the range of artworks, more so with their conceptual content, but for ease of reference and illustration, at least in their forms as explicated above… which posits, in case it is still not quite obvious, that altogether, there are multiple “mise-en-abyme things” going on, and that perhaps, this (these) exhibition(s) and website(s) are “artworks” as well.

We invite you to observe the intricacies that lie between the conceptions and meta-connections, and most of all, to make and share your own interpretations.

Exhibitions

Please click on images or titles to access galleries. Listed in ascending date of almost completion.