Review of ‘Second Movement’
15 Years with 21 Artists at STPI - Creative Workshop & Gallery
By Kristi Lim
For all the diverse mediums, textures and dimensions featured in STPI’ current special annual exhibition, there is one thing these printed pieces do not do: move. ‘Second Movement’, a retrospective featuring 41 works birthed through collaborations with 21 international artists – out of over 100 they have worked with from 2006 to 2021 — finds its movement elsewhere. Curator Khai Hori identifies its presence richly in: the animation of latent printing machines, otherwise “vehicles without journeys”; the extension of ideas, akin to musical motifs from a first movement; the accumulation of innovative, radical experimentation that eventually tips over into a wave, a “movement” as typically understood in art history. Indeed, all of these are testament to the inventive, energetic collaborations between artists and artisans at STPI over the past two decades, whose works act on inertia and change the trajectory of what we understand as possible with print. The curation of this group exhibition is sensitive to formal resonances, and stages works in ways that form dynamic juxtapositions.
“The curation of this group exhibition is sensitive to formal resonances, and stages works in ways that form dynamic juxtapositions. ”
Alongside these aspects of movement, I also noted the energy generated by acquainting works with new ones, with new spaces. The curation of this group exhibition is sensitive to formal resonances, and stages works in ways that form dynamic juxtapositions. Upon entering the space, we are greeted by angular acrylic shapes with patterned sheen in Teppei Keneuji’s ‘Model of Something #9’ (2014), emphatic and rhythmic against the susurrus white curtains dressing the exhibition. This contrast seems to transfer movement into the title printed above, dancing its monochromatic serif into distortion. We step through the opening, and see the dazzling cyanotype and systematic geometry of Kim Beom’s ‘Residential Watchtower Complex for Security Guards’ (2016) echoing the pulsating blue walls erected to enclose three framed selections from Anni Alber’s ‘Second Movement’, the exhibition’s namesake.
‘Second Movement’, exhibition view. Image courtesy of STPI - Creative Workshop & Gallery.
The housing of Alber’s three screenprints within the dimensionality and interiority of blue walls highlights another form of movement: the energy internal to a thing. Close by, three works almost echo Albers’ in a pink triptych: Eko Nugroho’s ‘I Am An Animal Of My Own Destiny’ (2013), enchantingly mystic and poised between Shirazeh Houshiary’s ‘The River is Within Us 6/A’ (2015), a gleaming, soul-stirring monolith, and Zul Mahmod’s ‘Spaces Within Time 2’ (2021), whose brittle, multitone drone lilts alongside our own movements. The latter two are quite literally charged with electrical energy: Houshiary’s with the linen luminosity of LED, Mahmod’s with its circular battery disc, visible in a pleasingly delicate circuit.
Internal energy can also emanate from within static works when placed thoughtfully in space. In two pieces from a total of 10 in Ian Woo’s ‘Soft Elbow’ (2021) installation, dense compressions of paper then leaned light and casual against pillars, are tense with this difference. The tension in this interaction is so strong it almost bursts, bifurcating around the corner into Heri Dono’s similarly internally-contrasting ‘Wayang Zaman Edan’ (2015), four ephemeral paper pulp figures weighted by hunks of copper, and Ryan Gander’s intense, vertiginously-patterned ‘Under-explored’ (2017), leaned yieldingly against the wall. Through this resonance, Woo’s own relatively quiet and clean paper blocks are given a new internal possibility, while Dono and Gander’s works almost acquire an idealised abstract format. Gander’s work, a zipped portfolio, further emphasises this internal energy, animated by the mystery of its contents.
Ryan Gander, ‘Under-explored’, 2014, Screenprint, paint, portfolio case, 67.5 x 93 x 3.5cm. © Ryan Gander. Image courtesy of the artist and STPI.
The most obvious type of internality is the cavernous room sitting behind the blue Albers heart of the exhibition, as if lungs. Fittingly, Ririkrit Tiravanjia’s ‘WHEN THE TOBACCO SMOKE ALSO SMELLS OF THE MOUTH WHICH EXHALES IT THE TWO ODORS ARE MARRIED BY INFRA SLIM-MD’ (2013), cones of stainless steel bold and brilliant as brass horns, are airily hollow. Rimming these cones are precise etchings of a phylogenetic tree, grace notes that also embellish, as a glimmery screenprint, the flat foil circle in ‘Second chapter: be sure to pack the toothbrush, eat Curry noodles through the wormhole’ (2013). Both works, for reasons of silver and scale, mirror each other, and almost function as forte refrains metres apart. Besides being a humorous touch, the bowl of noodles displayed regally in the latter, complete with chopsticks, further extends the question of dimension by being a three-dimensional print.
Rirkrit Tiravanija, ‘WHEN THE TOBACCO SMOKE ALSO SMELLS OF THE MOUTH WHICH EXHALES IT THE TWO ODORS ARE MARRIED BY INFRA-SLIM M.D. ‘(detail), 2013, etched stainless steel © Rirkrit Tiravanija / STPI. Image courtesy of the artist and STPI.
Rirkrit Tiravanija, ‘Second chapter: be sure to pack the toothbrush, eat Curry noodles through the wormhole’, 2013, screenprint, metal foil, cast paper, STPI handmade paper, stainless steel pedestal, 3D printed object, Paper: 269.5 x 269.5cm (4 sheets); Pedestal: 100.5 x 23.5 x 20.5cm; Object: 12.5 x 24.5 x 20.5cm. © Rirkrit Tiravanija / STPI. Image courtesy of the artist and STPI.
The spacing between these two striking works, as well as the nature of three-dimensional printing as a method, brings our attention to another feature of movement. Beyond considering its location – between works, within works – Hori’s curation also calls attention to differences in its nature – whether the movement is simultaneous, or linear. This difference is emphasised in light of Albers’ artistic career, which revolved tightly around weaving prior to her encounter with printing, a “second” technique for her as with many of the artists featured. While Albers’ screenprints transfer their patterns from one surface to another with a relative simultaneity, weaving is linear, gradual, its design materialised thread by thread. Three-dimensional printing, with the slow accumulated tracing of resin, is more similar in process to the linearity of weaving than traditional printing’s simultaneity.
The implications of this on us viewers, the most mobile components internal to the space, is that it comes across as an invitation to navigate the exhibition with both simultaneity and linearity. While the translucency of the curtains enables us to peer through and into demarcated sections of the exhibition simultaneously, and works placed within the same space engage themselves in a natural conversation, works with strong formal similarities have also been syncopated across space. Notably, the exuberant sprawls of colour in Kaneuji’s ‘The Eternal (Singapore) #1’ (2014) that begin the exhibition later contract themselves into a pianissimo in ‘The Eternal (Singapore) #2’ (2014). An echo of its rhythmic ribbons then appears splayed flat against black onto Trenton Doyle Hancock’s bold and magnetic ‘New Breed’ (2010).
‘Second Movement’, exhibition view. Image courtesy of STPI - Creative Workshop & Gallery.
These spacings draw prominence to formal features and similarities with a pleasing musicality. And the invitation to experience these linearly feels strengthened by the musical motifs in the show, especially considering one of music’s distinguishing features from most visual art to be its linearity across time, versus its simultaneous presentation in space. As extensions of the distinct musical referent of the title ‘Second Movement’, the titles of individual works announce themselves on walls like track listings, and are listed in the booklet in a manner reminiscent of a CD sleeve. These cues also draw attention to the sounds we hear upon first entering the space: underneath Cageian feet shuffling and soft conversation, the unmistakable, lilting hum of Mahmod’s work already cuts through, a further collapsing of distinctions between space and time.
Zul Mahmod, ‘Spaces Within Time 2’, 2021, screenprinted, engraved and laser cut acrylic sheets with sound and sculptural wire elements, 44 x 44 x 4.5cm. © Zul Mahmod / STPI. Image courtesy of the artist and STPI.
Linearity emphasises continuity, a feature of “second” that Hori emphasises in his curatorial essay in relation to a first, as an expansion of its original ideas. But, just as space, and traditional methods of print, are discrete and simultaneous in transferring impressions from one distinct surface to another, I think interesting angles can also emerge when we consider first and second as discrete, and distinct. This distinction is fair of the works in this group show, which were transferred as formal impressions from a distinct exhibition within which they were conceptualised. It would be ambitious to determine a common narrative thread in this selection of works by 21 incredibly original artists out of over 100. While I deeply enjoy the expansion of many formal ideas in and between these works, I could only speculate about what some arrangements hope to say in this new space, or whether they aim to say anything at all, if I am hoping unnecessarily for meaning. Some of this may perhaps be the latent effect of an undiscussed meaning of “movement”, that of social movements, a resonance that would not fail to resonate with the political tones of some artists’ independent oeuvres.
Some traces still exist; some may have been accidental, although I am equally unconfident about committing to this assertion. Stepping through the curtains and into the central space, Kim Beom’s ‘Residential Watchtower Complex for Security Guards’ (2016) greets us. Its theme does not feel entirely neutral in a Singapore where surveillance and social policing is prominent and contentious, most recently surfacing in public debate with TraceTogether App data. This comment feels yet more stark when foregrounded by Jason Lim’s ‘Grain of Sand (Orange)’ (2021), a piece birthed in response to the pandemic, and whose glowing neon barricades emphasise restriction. I wonder if I imagine this, and then look directly across to see Manuel Ocampo’s evocatively titled “Trigger Warning: Your Ideas Don’t Have Rights” (2018).
But it is hard to determine how this idea could extend: to its right, Haegue Yang’s enthralling but differently political leaf imprints, and across from these, the earthy, richly textured but narratively abstract ‘UNIVERSE REVOLVES ON (IV)’ (2008) by Hema Upadhyay, whose connection seems stronger in colour than in content. Does oversensitivity to meaning on my part dull attention to deeper formal resonances between the former two pieces, a greed that overlooks the more obvious dialogue emerging from the brilliant interplay of white and blue?
Kim Beom, ‘Residential Watchtower Complex for Security Guards’ (detail), 2016, cyanotype on paper; Inkjet print on paper, (Left to right, top to bottom) 126 x 81cm, 36 x 51 =cm, 36 x 51cm. © Kim Beom / STPI. Image courtesy of the artist and STPI.
Manuel Ocampo, ‘Trigger Warning: Your Ideas Don’t Have Rights’(detail), 2018, screenprint and archival print collage on handmade cotton paper, 107 x 121cm. © Manuel Ocampo / STPI. Image courtesy of the artist and STPI.
But perhaps they are not exclusive. The fluidity of possible meanings, accidental or otherwise, is healthy, and healthily expressed in the lack of captions on the wall: an open invitation for viewers like me to co-construct interpretations. One danger this runs, especially when works are brought out of their original context into new interactions, is additions and subtractions of meaning that affect the integrity or core of a work. The political possibility of Kim Beom’s work feels lost when seen in the original context of its conception: an experiment in cyanotype alongside more light-hearted and neutral models like ‘A Floor Plan for Public Toilet’ (2016) or ‘Schematic Draft of Disconnected Under River Tunnel’ (2016). Inversely, the sharp, ironic political observations on Singapore society made in Eko Nugroho’s solo exhibition is simmered down to only the text in the titles ‘Do We Know Ourselves’ (2013) and ‘I Am An Animal of My Own Destiny’ (2013), which, out of context, lose the opinionated edge of the original show.
“These containers of time, discrete, enrich the internal energy of each work more wholly, confer meanings and possible meanings to their interactions, keep our readings alive and fluid, and above all, contribute to the constant transformation of our sense of all that is possible with print.”
Yet, we have access to most works’ original context in a manner fuller and less directed than any caption could provide, through books. Sitting quiet alongside Tiravanija’s bold cones, these records of past exhibitions are complete with critical essays, interviews, and a fuller listing of the works that once sat alongside those currently displayed, encouraging an open expansiveness in our processing of them. These containers of time, discrete, enrich the internal energy of each work more wholly, confer meanings and possible meanings to their interactions, keep our readings alive and fluid, and above all, contribute to the constant transformation of our sense of all that is possible with print. With all these possible entry points and interactions, ‘Second Movement’ makes dynamic not just our perceptions of these prints, but the way we form these perceptions.
This review is produced in partnership with STPI - Creative Workshop & Gallery.
