ABOUT THE ARTISTS

DADANG CHRISTANTO (B. 1957)

Dadang Christanto’s oeuvre engages with collective history as well as personal trauma, influenced mainly by the haunting events surrounding the 1965 political and ethnic purge in Indonesia. He was amongst the first Indonesian artists to enter the international art world in the early 1990s, notably featuring in the first and third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (1993 and 1999), as well as the Bienal de São Paulo (1998). Christanto was also featured in other major art exhibitions worldwide including the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2000), Venice Biennale (2003), and Yogyakarta Biennial (2003).

His latest solo exhibition Wuku (2021) was held at Wei-Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. His works are held by major collections around the world including in Australia (National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery); Japan (Fukuoka Museum of Modern Art, Japan Museum of Contemporary Art); and Germany (Magdeburg Museum).

FX HARSONO (B. 1949)

FX Harsono is a seminal figure in the Indonesian contemporary art scene. Since his student days he has been an active critic of Indonesian politics, society, and culture, always updating his artistic language to the current new social and cultural contexts.

Harsono’s own biography and family history are often the basis of his art, pointing at the disconcerting situation of minorities, the socially underprivileged against the backdrop of Indonesia’s own history and political development. This intersection of the personal and the political is particularly evident in his most recent works. Furthermore, his oeuvre can be seen as a constant questioning and reflection of his own position as an artist within society.

FX Harsono studied painting at STSRI ‘ASRI’, Yogyakarta (Indonesia) (1969—1974) and at IKJ (Jakarta Art Institute) (1987—1991). Between 2005 and 2013 the artist was a lecturer at the Faculty of Art and Design, Pelita Harapan University, Tangerang (West Java). Harsono is also an active art critic, regularly writing about social questions and the development of contemporary art.

He was awarded the 2014 Prince Claus Award, from the Prince Claus Fund, Netherlands and the Anugerah Adhikarya Rupa 2014 Award, from the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia. The artist also received the 2015 Joseph Balestier Award For the Freedom of Art, from the Embassy of the United States of America and Art Stage Singapore.

KEN MATSUBARA (B. 1949)

Ken Matsubara is a Japanese artist who primarily works with video art. Using photos, movies, objects and collages, Matsubara’s work addresses memories and histories to which we can all relate, regardless of our backgrounds, statuses or age. He incorporates photographs, videos, object installations, and collages to bring forth the past and to converse with future generations. The artist sees human consciousness as recollections of the same ancient knowledge that transcends the individual, passed down through generations and across peoples, at a microcosmic level. By recollecting shared memories, Matsubara believes that we can overcome individuality.

LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN (B. 1985)

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a Lebanese-British independent investigator or Private Ear. His investigations focus on sound and have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, as advocacy for organizations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International and presentations at the UN security council. Abu Hamdan received his PhD in 2017 from Goldsmiths College University of London and in 2021 completed a professorship at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz where he developed his research, airpressure.info. Past fellowships have been held at the University of Chicago, in 2017/18 he was a guest of the DAAD artist in Berlin program and from 2015/17 a fellow at the Vera List Centre for Art and Politics at the New School in New York.

Abu Hamdan was exhibited at the 12th Berlin Biennale, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, the 58th Venice Biennale, the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the 13th and 14th Sharjah Biennial, Witte De With, Rotterdam, Tate Modern Tanks, Chisenhale Gallery, Hammer Museum L.A and the Portikus Frankfurt. His works are in the collections of MoMA, New York, Guggenheim, New York, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Kunsthaus Zurich, and Tate Modern, London. Abu Hamdan’s work has been awarded the 2019 Edvard Munch Art Award, the 2016 Nam June Paik Award for new media and in 2017 his film Rubber Coated Steel won the Tiger short film award at the Rotterdam International Film festival. For the 2019 Turner Prize Abu Hamdan, together with nominated artists Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, formed a temporary collective in order to be jointly granted the award.

SEAN LEAN (B. 1981)

Sean Lean’s work unapologetically grapples with fragmented identities, East versus West, tradition versus popular culture. National history is explored with characteristic introspection and humour, carefully tracing regional socio-political and religious tensions. Dissecting identity, history, and ways of being forms a thread running through his work. He has similarly examined what it means to be Chinese, questioning its criteria as it shifts and dilutes through the generations. Lean continues this narrative albeit with a guiltless sense of play in these recent times. More experimental and metaphorical, he plays with colour and materiality using steel and unexpected palettes, all while tying his subject matter back to his disparate cultural upbringing. In his process, the artist leans toward ‘industrial’ methods akin to techniques used in automotive painting. This is a deliberate statement in favour of exploring the use of ‘mechanised’ methods more reflective of our present time.

In 2018, he was one of 6 artists commissioned by KENZO, Tiger Beer, and WWF for the Rare Stripes project, which was a collection of garments inspired by real wild tiger stories. Lean’s design, ‘Kamrita’, featured three sets of paw prints in different colours, symbolising the Himalayan tigress with her cubs. Kamrita, adopted by WWF, became a symbol of hope for her species. The limited-edition collection debuted at the Ginza Six KENZO store in Tokyo. He was also commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar for a cover in 2017.

SUZANN VICTOR (B. 1959)

Suzann Victor is a Singapore-born, Sydney-based installation artist. She graduated with a B.A. Hons. (First Class), an M.A (Hons) and a Doctorate at the University of Western Sydney in 2008, after gaining an Associate Diploma of Fine Arts from the LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts in Singapore.

Being one of Singapore’s leading figures in contemporary art, her participation in and contribution to visual art in Singapore has always been much valued. She has garnered significant accomplishment for her ability to articulate complex ideas into grandeur forms, often incorporating kinetic mechanism and technology in her installations.

In 2001, Suzann Victor was selected amongst other 4 Singaporean artists to participate in the 49th Venice Biennale, marking Singapore’s first participation in the world’s most renowned biennale and becoming the first woman artist to represent the nation in this event. In 2009, Victor was also awarded the New York-based Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellowship following the completion of her doctorate on an Australian Postgraduate Award at the University of Western Sydney.

WEI LENG TAY (B. 1978)

Wei Leng Tay is a Singaporean-born and Hong Kong-based photographer and artist, whose practice spans various multi-media including photography, audio, installation, and video. She focuses on how representation is used in image-making and how differences can be negotiated through perception/reception, and the materiality of photographs. A recurrent theme in her works is the notion of displacement, where she highlights the emotional and psychic uneasiness of migration in relation to agency, home and belonging. Through her work over the years, Wei Leng Tay learns, unlearns, understands, and opens herself up to different ideologies, beliefs, histories and realities through the people she meets and situations she navigates. While working through understanding and communicating the complexities of familial and societal ties and rifts are important, equally so are how these ideas could be articulated in the aesthetic form and its presentation. This aesthetic process functions as an extension, projection and documentation of the processual encounters.

Tay has collaborated with art organisations and institutions in countries such as Japan, Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan to produce works intimately linked to ideas of identity, displacement and the self. Her work has also been featured in numerous exhibitions in venues such as ARTER Space for Art in Istanbul, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, the NUS Museum in Singapore, Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina in Kosovo, and the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space in Bandung, Indonesia. Her photographic works are in public and private collections across Asia (Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan , Singapore Art Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, Hong Kong Heritage Museum.)