National Gallery dives into the history of video installation art in new exhibition

The National Gallery Singapore has launched a new exhibition designed to take visitors on a journey back in time through the history of video installation art.

Following the success of its Nam June Paik: The Future is Now exhibition, the new free exhibition, titled See Me, See You: Early Video Installation of Southeast Asia, is a two-part series offering a fascinating look at the pivotal moments when video installation first emerged in the 1980s and 1990s.

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The exhibition brings to the forefront Southeast Asian artists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore who have broken through conventional art forms of paintings and sculptures that were prevalent at that time.

Through experimentation, the artists combined installation, performance and audience participation together with video, leading to a new form of art as a result of their interdisciplinary approach.

To allow visitors to experience these works, the gallery commissioned the recreation of several of these iconic artworks, many of which have been forgotten and have not been exhibited for decades. The exhibition also highlights the new and ongoing challenges of preserving time-based media, ensuring that these pioneering video works are available for future generations to enjoy.

“As a dedicated museum to modern Southeast Asian art, we wanted to highlight the important contribution of pioneers of video art in Southeast Asian art history," said Dr. Eugene Tan, the director of National Gallery Singapore.

"Video installation is commonly found in contemporary art and this exhibition demonstrates how the artists experimented with new video technology at the time, which was not as advanced as it is today. Through careful recreation and staging, these early video works are now available for visitors to experience. We hope that this exhibition will enable visitors to gain new perspectives on the evolution of modern art in Southeast Asia and better understand and appreciate the region's artistic history.”

The exhibition will be located at the gallery's Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery and will feature five Southeast Asian artists with five video art installations in its first edition. 

Some of these works include Choose by Johnny Manahan which may be the earliest surviving video artwork in Southeast Asia with the artist being one of the first Filipino artists to experiment with video as a medium. The work highlights televisions’ association with mass entertainment and the challenge to focus on multiple screens at once. It continues to be relevant today where multitasking and constant stimulation are the norm and serves as a self-reflexive commentary on the medium of video and television through five video segments, showcasing the artist's deep understanding of the medium from his work in the entertainment industry.

Another piece on display will be How to Explain Art to a Bangkok Cock by Thai artist Apinan Poshyananda who makes a return to the gallery with a 2019 version of Apinan’s early work that incorporates LCD screens showing digitised footage from the original video the artist had made. The artwork takes a satirical approach to the iconic Mona Lisa, with Apinan humorously explaining the painting's images to chicks, chickens and turkeys. 

The exhibition will run from 5 May to 17 September with the second edition set to run from 13 October to 4 February 2024.

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