September Round-Up Part 2

Richard Koh Fine Art, The Factory and Bangkok Citycity Gallery etc. 
By Vivyan Yeo

Presented in two parts, A&M’s September round-up features 10 new exhibitions featuring Southeast Asian artists. As restrictions ease across the region, galleries are active in organising exciting physical shows, encouraging audiences to experience art face to face. Here is Part 2 of our round-up, featuring exhibitions taking place internationally. For our special edition on Indonesian exhibitions, take a look at Part 1 of our round-up.

Sarah Radzi, ‘Safety Blanket and Memo #3’, 2020, acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on canvas, 152 x 122 cm; 76.2 x 61 cm (diptych). Image courtesy of Richard Koh Fine Art and the artist.

Locating Malaysian Contemporary Art: The Echo Boomers
Presenting works in a wide variety of mediums, this exhibition pays tribute to the resourceful members of Generation Y, also known as Echo Boomers or Millennials. This generation has been impacted by monumental cultural phenomena such as the tremendous growth of the internet, the increasing fear of terrorism, as well as the economic downturns sparked by the Great Recession and Covid-19. With 14 artworks from Malaysian artists Faizal Yunus, Izat Arif, Joshua Kane Gomes, Lee Mok Yee, Mark Tan and Sarah Radzi, this showcase encapsulates the Echo Boomers’ characteristic practice of observation and self-reflection, along with their simultaneous experience of hyper-connectivity and detachment.

Richard Koh Fine Art, 19 August to 12 September 2020.

Dhanut Tungsuwan, ‘Day trip to Zion park’, 2020, oil on canvas, 200 x 150 x 2 cm. Image courtesy of the Artist and BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY

MEMORY MACHINE
This solo exhibition by artist Dhanut Tungsuwan treats memories as a gateway to unfamiliar territories of the mind. Based in both Bangkok and London, the artist paints as a form of remembrance, as if embarking on a mental time travel to places he cannot fully recollect. The immense profusion of images and knowledge in today’s digital age further add to the complexities of memory; they initiate moments of the past but fail to give an accurate account. Tungsuwan both reminisces on and edits these moments through a depiction of a metaphorical space, using a colour palette suggestive of the underwater realm and outer space. 

BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY, 22 August to 3 October 2020.

Hương Ngô, ‘Proposals for a Translation’, 2017, newspaper, installation variable; poster: 84 x 56cm (each). Image courtesy of the artist.

Lost From View
A solo exhibition by Vietnamese artist Hương Ngô, ‘Lost From View’ challenges stereotypical depictions of female strength and resilience. Referring mainly to archival documents, literature and photographic images, her artworks hint at the existence of forgery, coercion and concealment, all of which are currently dominant methods of surveillance and warfare. Ngô’s conceptual works are devoid of heroic imagery. Rather, they present printed texts that are purposefully made legible through fragmentation and obscuration. Using materials such as invisible ink, embroidery and performance, the artist encourages viewers to reevaluate their gendered perceptions of society. 

The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, 19 June to 30 September 2020.

Studio of Danh Vo. Photo by Nick Ash. Image courtesy of White Cube Bermondsey.

Danh Vo
A major solo exhibition by Vietnam-born artist Danh Vo, this showcase by White Cube Bermondsey continues the artist’s incisive investigation of questions concerning history, identity, politics and society. Vo assumes control of the entire gallery, foregrounding collaborations and the daily lives of his close ones. In the past few months, the artist has been developing fresh work inspired by the pastoral environment of his farmhouse in Brandenburg, Germany. Gaining insight from subject matter such as forests, wildflower meadows and firewood, he interrogates the relationship between our inner selves and external forces.  

White Cube Bermondsey, 11 September to 2 November 2020.

Riaz Ahmad Jamil, ‘Tugu (Wajah)’, 2019, mixed media on canvas, 43.5 x 41 cm. Image courtesy of The Backroom KL.

RASA RAHSIA
The Backroom KL presents ‘RASA RAHSIA’, Malaysian painter and printmaker Riaz Ahmad Jamil’s first solo exhibition in two decades. The show mark’s Riaz’s exploration of “rasa”, literally translated as “taste” from Malay, displaying works that express the subjectivity of emotions. Likening his painterly practice to the traversing of the “wild jungle of the world”, the artist also elucidates instances of clarity through gleams of red amidst brown and blue paint, or in the rendering of a figure surfacing from sinuous lines of ink. His paintings endeavour to capture the vibrating world-jungle of objects, feelings, ideas and people, resisting simple interpretation and explanation. 

The Backroom Kuala Lumpur, 15 August to 13 September 2020.