PERFORMANCE ART IN CONTEXT:

A SINGAPOREAN PERSPECTIVE

by

Lee Wen

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Degree Master of Arts (Fine Arts)

LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts

Faculty of Fine Arts
Singapore

May, 2006
 ii

Accepted by the Faculty of Fine Arts,

LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts,

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree Master of Arts (Fine Arts).

Vincent Leow
Studio Supervisor

Adeline Kueh
Thesis Supervisor

I certify that the thesis being submitted for examination is my own account of
my own research, which has been conducted ethically. The data and the
results presented are the genuine data and results actually obtained by me
during the conduct of the research. Where I have drawn on the work, ideas
and results of others this has been appropriately acknowledged in the thesis.
The greater portion of the work described in the thesis has been undertaken
subsequently to my registration for the degree for which I am submitting this
document.

Lee Wen
In submitting this thesis to LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, I understand
that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance
with the regulations and policies of the college. I also understand that the title
and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made
available and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. This work
is also subject to the college policy on intellectual property.

-------------------------------------------------------
Lee
Wen Wen

Wen Lee
Digitally signed by Lee
DN: cn=Wen Lee, o, ou,
email=wen.lila@gmail.com, c=SG
Date: 2011.06.13 01:11:56 +08'00'
 iii

Abstract

Author: Lee Wen

Title: Performance Art In Context:

A Singaporean Perspective

Degree: Master of Arts (Fine Arts)

Studio Supervisor: Vincent Leow

Thesis Supervisor: Adeline Kueh

Month/Year: May, 2006

Number of Pages: 97

Style Manual Used: Modern Language Association (2nd edition)

This thesis will attempt to make a survey of my personal experience

and development working in performance art. In doing so I would also like

to go over my motivations and encounters of working in performance art

and discuss the various issues of performance art as a fine art practice

and medium. My focus will be on the complexities and questions

surrounding the self as subject and use of one’s own body as a visual art

form, material and representation within the specific contexts of cultural

location and time. The temporal and ephemeral nature of performance art

also necessitates examining the problems faced in documenting,

collecting, preserving and archiving.

 Since its appearance in Singapore, the practice of performance art

posed various questions. Why would artists feel motivated to work in a

temporal art form, which does not result in the making of a material art

object? Given the temporal and ephemeral nature of performance art how

does it continue to be represented? For those who had not seen the actual

performances presented in the past how can one continue to discuss the

relevance and contexts of those performances today? Should the temporal

ephemeral works be preserved?

My research will attempt as much as possible to follow an academic

format and research based on published materials. However, it is an

endeavor embarked upon with the foreknowledge that there are very few

comprehensive, analytical texts on contemporary art of Singapore and

especially in regard to performance art. My thesis therefore will also

depend on personal interviews and interactions with the practicing

performance artists as well as based on my own personal work and

experience as a practicing artist.

From this research we may reclaim performance art and its position as

a valid fine art form in relation to more traditional media. It will also

interrogate possibilities for future actions and directions to develop my

work in performance art and its contribution to contemporary art discourse.

 v

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to those who were generous with their time, effort, and support

reading the dissertation drafts and offering suggestions and advise.

To my supervisors: Vincent Leow, Adeline Kueh, and staff of LASALLE-SIA

College of the Arts especially, Milenko Prvacki, Ye Shu Fang, Ian Woo,

Ahmad Abu Bakar.

With special thanks to William Lim, C.J. Wee Wan-ling, Alastair MacLennan,

Boris Nieslony, Helge Meyer, Tang Da Wu, Chua Chye Teck, Lam Hoi Lit,

Jeremy Hiah, Lina Adam, Woon Tien Wei, Jennifer Teo, Koh Nguang How,

Jason Lim, Khairuddin Hori, Juliana Yasin, Ray Langenbach, Lee Weng

Choy, Audrey Wong, John Low, and members of the Artists Village, p-10,

Plastique Kinetic Worms, Black Market international and Command n.

And all my relations

 vi

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Enactments, Documentations

and Re-presentations p. 1

1.1 Introduction p. 1

1.2 Local perspective p. 2

1.3 Performativity and Alternative Media p. 4

1.4 Re-Enactments p. 7

1.5 Global Trends / Marginal Networks p.10

CHAPTER 2: First Encounters: Towards a Conceptual

Framework p.13

2.1 Introduction p.13

2.2 Tang Da Wu and the Artists Village p.13

2.3 S.Chandrasekaran and Trimurti p.16

2.4 Asian Values, State Intervention vs Individual Vision p.18

2.5 Identity: Between Individual and Society p.22

CHAPTER 3: Contexts and Manifestations p.25

3.1 Self, ethnicity and multiculturalism p.25

3.2 Embodiment into Representation p.28

3.3 Persona: contrasts and conflicts p.30

3.4 Journey of a yellow man p.31

3.5 Neo-baba p.33

 3.6 Ghosts Stories p.35

3.7 Conceptualization, Execution, Documentation p.36

CHAPTER 4: Revelations and Representations p.38

4.1 Actions, Signs and Representations p.38

4.2 Memory and the Archive p.40

4.3 Essence of the Performative p.42

4.5 Anthropometry Revision p.45

4.6 Conclusion p.48

Notes p. 52

List Of Figures p. 64

Figures p. 67

Bibliography p. 91
“Whoever knows how to die in all things will have life in all things.”

—St. John of the Cross

The Sayings of Light and Love, no. 160.

What Are You Doing! What Are You Saying!

In modern times a great deal of nonsense is talked about masters and

disciples, and about the inheritance of a master's teaching by favorite pupils,
entitling them to pass the truth on to their adherents. Of course Zen should be
imparted in this way, from heart to heart, and in the past it was really
accomplished. Silence and humility reigned rather than profession and
assertion. The one who received such a teaching kept the matter hidden even
after twenty years. Not until another discovered through his own need that a
real master was at hand was it learned that the teaching had been imparted,
and even then the occasion arose quite naturally and the teaching made its
way in its own right. Under no circumstance did the teacher even claim “I am
the successor of So-and-so.” Such a claim would prove quite the contrary.
The Zen master Mu-nan had only one successor. His name was Shoju. After
Shoju had completed his study of Zen, Mu-nan called him into his room. “I am
getting old,” he said, “and as far as I know, Shoju, you are the only one who
will carry on this teaching. Here is a book. It has been passed down from
master to master for seven generations. I also have added many points
according to my understanding. The book is very valuable, and I am giving it
to you to represent your successorship.”
“If the book is such an important thing, you had better keep it,” Shoju replied.
“I received your Zen without writing and am satisfied with it as it is.”
“I know that,” said Mu-nan. “Even so, this work has been carried from master
to master for seven generations, so you may keep it as a symbol of having
received the teaching. Here.”
The two happened to be talking before a brazier. The instant Shoju felt the
book in his hands he thrust it into the flaming coals. He had no lust for
possessions.
Mu-nan, who never had been angry before, yelled: “What are you doing!”
Shoju shouted back: “What are you saying!”

—101 Zen Stories

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
Compiled by Paul Reps & Nyogen Senzaki
 1

CHAPTER 1

ENACTMENTS, DOCUMENTATIONS AND

RE-PRESENTATIONS

1.1 Introduction

This thesis will attempt to make a survey of my own development

working in performance art. In doing so, I would also like to go over my

own motivations and encounters of working in performance art. My focus

will be on the complexities and questions surrounding the self as subject

and use of one’s own body as a visual art form, production and

representation within the specific contexts of cultural location and time.

The temporal and ephemeral nature of performance art also necessitates

examining the problematics faced in documenting, collecting, preserving

and archiving.

My research will attempt as much as possible to follow an academic

format based on published materials. However, it is an endeavor

embarked upon with the foreknowledge that there are very few

comprehensive written surveys with references to performance art and

performance artists in Singapore art history.1 Except for the discussion of

artists who have had published monographs or critical analyses written

about them, my perspectives will need to be informed by personal

experiences and conversations or interviews via actual encounters with

the artists than on textual readings alone.

 2

Performance art being an ephemeral and temporal phenomena,

questions the validity of the absent critic’s appraisal without having actually

witness the live presentation. A “live” presentation is often seen as a

unique and immediate cultural experience, which dissolves the separation

between the artist and the spectator. However this is contradicted by the

fact that many of our understanding and knowledge of performance art has

been studied and written about from evidential proofs via other media such

as photography in the past and increasingly in film and videos today.

There is no possibility of a completely unmediated relationship to any

kind of cultural product, including performance or body art. 2

The privilege

of being in direct contact, of seeing the “actual” artwork should not override

other deliberations that arise out of the evidence based on documentary

traces of a live presentation. Being there to see the actual “live”

presentation does not preclude others who had not seen it to make valid

critical appraisals. Later evaluation based on documentation, whether in

the form of photography, textual or oral, film or video, with the help of

hindsight and historical distance may lead to a more meaningful and

clearer understanding of the live presentation.

1.2 Local perspective

In South East Asia the practice and development of performance art has

become progressively intensive from the 1980’s till today. The recent growth

and diversity of contemporary art in South East Asia remains unconsolidated

due to its diverse social historical situations of rapid changes and emphases
 3

on post-war politics of nation-building and economic development. 3

Within

Singapore’s context, art historian, TK Sabapathy had cited sculptor, Tan Teng

Kee's Picnic event of 1979 as the first evidence of performance art. Tan

created a one-hundred-meters long painting entitled “The Lonely Road”. He

then cut it into smaller pieces and incinerated one of his sculptures at the end

of the event.4 It is doubtful that Tan had actually meant this as performance

art. The description sounded like a social gathering in which the artist had

decided to make some actions towards the destruction of one sculpture. Tan’s

entire range in sculpture is based on abstract modernist mode and had no

evidence of any performative consciousness or intention. 5

The next foray into performance art is that of Tang Da Wu in 1982 when

he presented “Five performances” at the National Museum Art Gallery.

Following this Tang went on to initiate The Artists Village in 1988, an

alternative space and group was set up in the last remaining farms of

Singapore. It was here that various artists, such as Amanda Heng, Vincent

Leow, Wong Shih Yaw, Zai Kuning, Tang Mun Kit and myself began their

experiments in alternative practice and ensued into performance art as part of

their practice during the events and exhibitions. 6 Tang’s first performances in

1982 were performances without theme and were actions improvising with

found objects. They were experimental and demonstrative of the possibilities

of making art via performance. 7

In the later performance works of Tang Da

Wu, there is a narrative feature veering on a proselytizing and pedagogic

aspect at work, which often evokes the “medicine man” selling Chinese

medicines in the street markets as a precedent. However in his practice there

is an ironic twist, which includes the counter-active ingredient in advocating

 4

against the use of these traditional medicines as aphrodisiacs such as

“Rhino’s drink” (fig.1) and “Tiger’s Whip” (fig.2). There is a conscientious

concern to represent an ethical perspective, which critique the effects on

ecological imbalance by a capitalistic consumer culture.8

The artists S. Chandrasekaran, Goh Ee Choo and Salleh Japar also

presented performance art loaded with narrative messages in their exhibition,

“Trimurti” in 1988. The exhibition comprised presentations of paintings,

sculptures, installations and performance art. The works were contemporary

in form but were based on their respective ethnic origins of Hindu,

Buddhist/Taoist and Islamic traditional philosophies. There seems to be a

conscious attempt to show themselves as practicing or using contemporary

strategies yet having an unyielding link to their “Asian” traditions and roots. 9

1.3 Performativity and Alternative Media

There is comparative lack of effort by art and cultural institutions to

represent recent contemporary art practices, which are temporal and

ephemeral. 10 Time-based art, which may take form in conceptual art, land art,

performance art, site-specific installations, happenings, face the danger of

being eroded from our memory in the quick pace of change of recent times.

What are the ways for performance artists to take pro-active steps towards

amending this discrepancy? I would like to trace some possible strategies that

artists have taken in making works that are time-based or temporal in nature

and conveyed in alternative media.

 5

Some performance works have been made strategically and

specifically to include an end document in another media. Artists like Bruce

Nauman and Hsieh Tehching had made works not in front of a live audience

but in their studios and documented them meticulously in videos or

photography to be presented later in exhibitions. The presentations in these

other media seemed fittingly used to ensure the relevance and continued

discourse after the fact of the actual occurrence of the live performances.

Bruce Nauman began working in the 1960s with a mistrust of the self-

contained object. Art for him was to create work based on real experiences.

His sculptures sometimes implicated participation and “performance” of the

viewer by walking and moving around the object’s space. This inspired him to

observe his own movements and to perform in his studio making works such

as “Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk), and “Walk with Contrapposto

(fig.3.1968)” without an audience in order to limit the situation and admitted a

11
mistrust of audience participation. His studio was like a laboratory cum

theatre where works later involved another performer executing tasks under

Nauman’s scripted instructions. Nauman often played with words and puns

and to perform was a self-conscious “act” which made one the “actor”. The

actions captured on videos provide a strange continuous narrative when

12
played over and over.

The focus on him as material and object switched later to the “other” as

performer, which includes the viewer. In “Performance Corridor” (fig.4.1969),

where the installation was a prop which featured the viewer as performer

captured on an attached video camera and transmitted on a monitor as part of

the constructed environment. Like a fun house, which provides the participant
 6

with distortions of various mirrors and corridors, the viewers are made

uncomfortable and disrupted while walking through the installations. In the

1980s, as his work became more political, Nauman’s characters became

overtly theatrical. Clowns, jesters and mimes appeared in his works

commenting on the masquerade of social theater.

Unlike Nauman, Hsieh Tehching had made socially, politically poignant

works while resisting becoming explicitly theatrical. Between the years of

1978 and 1986, Hsieh Tehching made five "One Year Performances," and

then continued with "Earth," a thirteen-year performance that stretched from

the end of 1986 to the end of 1999. Each of these performances involves

making a vow to follow as closely to the conditions, which he will adhere to for

a year. The conditions include a particular constraint or mode of being, which

he will go through while documenting it meticulously on various media like

photography or video. The documentation have been compiled and can be

13
viewed on a computer via website or DVD-ROM. (fig.5. 2000)

His last thirteen years performance ended on January 1, 2000 with a

presentation where he revealed in a public announcement that he did not do

any “art” work during that 13-year period for this performance and “kept

himself alive”. Thus making a paradoxical situation of making art without

actually “doing” art. The enigmatic Hsieh have not made any performance art

work since his last “Earth” piece. However he had exhibited the documents in

the form of posters, photographs and videos. He also gives lectures about
14
these past works.

Vito Acconci created performances in the 70’s, which were well

documented on photographs and videos. Although he had stopped

 7

performance for more than twenty years, he presents his past works with

elaborate installations providing possible new readings based on his variable

presentations. An exhibition in 2004 presented a large selection of works

made from 1969 to 1973. The presentation looks like a large room of flow

charts comprising photographs, typewritten paper, notes on paper and cards,

connected by broad red line or tape accompanied by videos and installations.

15
It gave a sense of an artist re-invention and re-discovery of his past

performances. (fig.6. 2004)

1.4 Re-enactments

Marina Abramovic has made various performances in which she later

represent them in various media. Some of her works are re-presented as

photographic objects, reframed and modified with texts or drawings to

become artworks in themselves although images are based on performances

done in the past. A series of works were made in 1994 based on various

performances done in the 1970’s.

“The Lovers” was the performance she did in 1988 with long time

collaborator, Ulay setting out to walk from opposite ends of the Great Wall of

China for 90 days and meeting in the middle. They had planned to marry

when they meet however due to an unexpected twist, and they separated

instead. A set of color photographs with unique drawings on the border,

together with a new video installation was presented in an exhibition in 1997.

16
The photographs and video footage were taken during the 1988
 8

performance they could be re-worked into becoming accessible in a gallery

and revitalized after a good period of 9 years after. (Fig.7.)

Unlike other artists committed to performance art having various

qualms of re-presenting live works in other media, Abramovic took it to the

extreme of re-staging historically iconic performances recently with her

“Seven Easy Pieces” at the Guggenheim Museum (November 2005). The

performances she chose were five iconic works in performance art history

done by other artists in the past and one by her. She performed works based

on Bruce Nauman’s “Body Pressure (1974) ”, Vito Acconci’s “Seedbed

(1972)”, Valie Export’s “Action Pants: Genital Panic (1969)”, and Gina Pane’s

“The Conditioning, first action of Self-Portrait(s) (1973) Joseph Beuys’ “How to

Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965)” and her own “Lips of Thomas

(1975)”. She wanted to do Chris Burden’s “Trans-fixed (1972)” but she was
17
turned down when she solicited Burden’s permission. (fig.8. 2005)

According to the Guggenheim Museum’s press release, the re-

enactments were done on the premise that there was little documentation that

exists during the early critical period of performance art. Abramovic also

wanted to examine the possibility of redoing and preserving an ephemeral art

form. 18
One can see that she did re-interpret the performances based on the

original but it would hardly be a true repeat or preservation of the original.

What is interesting is that it provided a bridge to the performances of the past

especially for an audience who may not even be born yet at that time. Her

performance was well documented with video and photography to be

preserved but it is her work that is being preserved. As the artist’s, body,

place and time is different, therefore even the re-doing of a performance is

 9

altogether another performance and cannot be the same as the original even

if she did it exactly the same.

Although there have been many criticisms on Abramovic’s “Seven

Easy Pieces”, one can appreciate the challenges she brought out in the

attempt at preserving or at least re-examining an ephemeral art work.

Abramovic had done a performance, which had been provocative and

unconventional, perhaps running the risk of parody or pastiche of the earlier

performances rather than its preservation. Looking at the list of artists she re-

enacted, Abramovic is the only one still working directly in performance art.

Presentation in the prestigious Guggenheim Museum looked like a triumphant

canonization of herself.

The idea of re-enacting performance art has its precedents. The

Whitechapel Art Gallery in London held 'Short History of Performance – Part

One' in 2002 featuring artists’ re-enactments by Carolee Schneemann, Stuart

Brisley, Bernsteins, the Kipper Kids, Hermann Nitsch, Bruce McLean, and

Jannis Kounellis. 19
This was followed by a second part in November 2003

featuring artists using lectures format to question ideas of authority and truth.

There were key presentations of artists re-enacting their own performances by

The Atlas Group, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Inventory, Robert Morris, Martha

Rosler and Carey Young. 20

The problematics of re-enactments and documentations have seen

different responses from artists. Some artists have made appropriations of

past performances, which at the same time look at memorializing or critique a

well-known performance art work and sometimes update it using new

technology.
 10

MTAA (M. River & T.Whid Art Associates) uses the internet as a

medium for public art and updates Tehching Hsieh's one year performance to

re-contextualize in the present art scene. 21

Although this is an interesting

variation of a performance with new media, or could be a way to memorialize

an iconic work, it comes across more like a parody through the use of

technology than a serious live performance art piece. The work does not have

the intensity of someone actually making a live action. (fig.9. 2004)

Other artists question the idea of framing and contextualizing of

performance art through documentation and archiving. Hayley Newman, in

her photographic project, “Connotations-Performance Images 1994-1998”

featured various photographs of performances that she faked and

meticulously providing details thus addressing facets of authenticity and

counterfeits. 22
Newman was able to make a gender and feminist twist while

making references to past iconic performance art works. In “Meditation on

Gender Difference” using pink makeup, she faked sunburn on herself the

parts usually covered by a bikini, referencing Dennis Oppenheim’s 1970

“Reading Position for Second Degree Bum”. (fig.10. 1996)

1.5 Global Trends / Marginal Network

Performance art seems to be always a marginalized form of

mainstream contemporary art practice. Art museums often do not represent

performance art in their permanent collections and not many countries would

have performance art represented in their biennials, annual art festivals and

international art events. Besides the need to convince unadventurous curators

 11

to accept it as a valid fine art medium, performance art as a temporal and

ephemeral form needs to find ways of presentations autonomously. There is a

growing network, albeit a marginal one, over the years where artists are

initiating their own events and exhibitions, contributing to its proliferation,

promulgation and evolution.

Based on my personal involvement with some of the artists initiated

events, I would like to also analyze and perhaps also speculate how these

independent events affects contemporary art practice. Some artists who

actively promotes international performance art networks include Seiji

Shimoda, who organizes “Nippon International Performance Art Network” in

Japan,23 Richard Martel who co-ordinates the Center for Contemporary Art “Le

Lieu” in Quebec, Canada and publishes “Editions Intervention,” since 1982 24

and Boris Nieslony in Cologne, Germany who organizes out of ASA (Art

Service Association) European e.V. 25

In Chapter 2, I will outline my first encounters with performance art in

Singapore, which gave the impetus for me to embark on working in

performance art. I will also explore institutional responses and prejudices in

re-presenting (or excluding) performance art especially the different

acceptance and reception of “Trimurti” as compared to biases against Tang

Da Wu and “The Artists Village”, which I believe creates an anxiety amongst

practitioners to actively be involved with their own documentation.

In Chapter 3, I will identify some of the contextual frameworks and

methodologies of my works in the past. Based on my own practices, I also

hope to explore the complexities and questions surrounding the self as

 12

subject and use of one’s own body as a visual art form, material or

representation within the specific contexts of cultural location and time.

In Chapter 4, I will look at the representation in performance and

contiguous problems of archive and documentation. The historically identified

possibilities of photography, film, videos, mixed media installations, re-

enactments and electronic technology, poses questions of accuracy,

relevance and authenticity. Can documentation and archiving actually

represent an ephemeral work, which is intended to be transitory? What are

the motivations to intentionally create works that are ephemeral and should

they be preserved? In asking these questions I hope to reconcile the

discrepancies of preservation and documentation to performance art as

regards to its temporal ephemeral nature. From these discussions I also hope

to find new directions.

 13

CHAPTER 2.

FIRST ENCOUNTERS:

TOWARDS A CONTEXTUAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Introduction

My first encounter with performance art was through the work of Tang

Da Wu and S. Chandrasekaran. Other Singapore artists such as Amanda

Heng, Vincent Leow, Wong Shih Yaw and Zai Kuning also began to work in

performance art when we held our exhibitions and experiments in the Artists

Village, an informal alternative art group started in 1988. However the scope

of this essay requires my narrowing down to the works by Tang Da Wu and S.

Chandrasekaran. There are various overlaps in the methodology and

approach, which I used in the beginning of my work when compared to that of

Tang Da Wu and S. Chandrasekaran. I will attempt to make a comparative

study with reference to my own practice. 26

My encounter with performance art

per se also was the beginning of my questioning the ephemeral phenomenon

of performance art and its problematic relation to its documentation.

2.2 Tang Da Wu and The Artists Village

My first works, which could be seen as performance art, was through

reading my poetry, which served as a textual background for a narrative and

making some actions based on them in 1989. 27

I wanted to approach it from

personal practice based on drawing, painting and sculptural background. I

 14

had published a book of poetry and drawings, “A Waking Dream” in 1981. 28

This was an attempt in combining a textual narrative to the drawings I had

made. Through the “poetry actions” I was beginning to make images in

actions based on the poetry. The works in Tang Da Wu and S.

Chandrasekaran were also narratives although differing in subject, context

and methodology.

Tang Da Wu had started to make performances in the UK just before

presenting his first performances in Singapore. The first performances were

not based on any subjects and were improvisations with body, material and

environment. He presented his first performances in Singapore when he

made “Five days of performances” at La Salle College of Arts and the

National Museum Art Gallery in 1982. 29

In 1988, he presented his first of a

series of narrative performances during the Second Singapore Art Festival

Fringe at the former St. Joseph Institution building, which was soon to be

renovated into the present Singapore Art Museum. The performances “In the

case of Howard Liu” and “Superman” presented were commentaries about the

power relations between artists and institutions within the art world in

Singapore. 30

It was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which moved Tang to a more

socially conscious narrative. “In the end, my mother decided to eat Cat food

and Dog food”, was first performed in 1988, Orchard Road, a main shopping

area in Singapore. It was based on contaminated food due to nuclear

radiation. This was the beginning of a series of works based on ecological

themes that followed such as, "They Poach the Rhino, Chop off his Horn and

Make this Drink", (fig.1. 1989, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore),
 15

"Tiger's whip", (fig.2.1990, Chinatown, Singapore; 1991,National Museum Art

Gallery, Singapore, also other venues). 31

Various different themes were also

dealt with usually based on Tang’s strong feelings towards current affairs

such as “Open the Gate”, (1989, Artists Village, Sembawang) as a response

to Tian An Men incident in Beijing, and “Death of a Filipino Maid”, (1990, Shell

Theatre, Singapore) concerning the issue of maid abuse in Singapore. Tang

was making performances based on his observations of current issues and

situations in society. The performances were responses that were specific to

the situation in which he was presenting them. In a museum exhibition like

that in the “Rhino Drink” he would make an elaborate installation and tell his

story around the installation. The installation would be left like a relic of the

performance for exhibition. Whereas in a performance on the Tian An Men

incident or that of “Death of a Filipino Maid” the performances were staged for

a shorter duration appropriate to a site-specific location. For “Tiger’s Whip” he

showed the versatility of doing the performance in a museum gallery as well

as in open public spaces in Chinatown. He also showed spontaneity in

responding to reactions from the audience and was sensitive to unexpected

occurrences. In “Death of a Filipino Maid”, for example, he asked me to buy a

leg of raw mutton but I arrived late at the performance stage as I had difficulty

finding it in the market. He was able to improvise with a borrowed pair of

shoes from a member of the audience. He slipped in and out of them,

changing his tone of voice while alternating with his own shoes as if changing

between the persona of the maid and her master as he changed the shoes.

When I arrived to put the meat on the front of the stage he picked up the piece

of meat and began to talk about the abuse of the maid by laying it on a chair
 16

and hitting it violently. Tang was able to continue the performance seamlessly

and the unsuspecting audience thought that the late arrival of the prop was all

part of a premeditated plot.

The performances were presented with ordinary objects related to the

context of the performance and Tang would be in a simple costume but

different from his normal dressing. The most elaborate ones would include

some sculptural objects and used during the performances. For example in

“Rhino Drink”, he presented the performance with an installation of a huge

rhinoceros lying on its side surrounding by numerous bottles of the “rhino

drink”. His face is powdered white with Chinese opera powder and he is

dressed in a costume, which he made himself. The performance had various

tense moments of silence in between which he would deliver a simple yet

moving narrative of the subject concerned.

2.3 S. Chandrasekaran and Trimurti

In 1988, S. Chandrasekaran, Goh Ee Choo and Salleh Japar held the

multi-media exhibition entitled “Trimurti” at the Goethe Institute in Singapore

showcasing works in drawings, paintings, installation and performance. An

effort was made to use traditions as a starting point and using contemporary

means of art to renew an identity and connection back to their traditional

values. The three artists used symbols and themes based on the mythology of

their ethnicity and religion. “Trimurti” means “having three forms” representing

the triad aspects of the “Supreme Being” and the Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu

and Shiva, is re-interpreted as a secular symbol, neutralized and equated as

 17

natural forces of “Creation”, “Preservation” and “Destruction”. A religious belief

is appropriated and “naturalized” for nonaligned acceptance or revitalization.

Chandrasekaran was of Indian descent and a Hindu, Goh was Chinese and

used symbols of Taoism and Buddhism and Salleh Japar, a Malay Muslim

related to Islam with an inclination towards Sufism. Amongst the three, S.

Chandrasekaran was the only one who continued to primarily work in

performance art. 32

S.Chandrasekaran titled his works with Sanskrit Hindu vocabulary and

reinterprets or re-enacts his interpretations visually through the objects,

installations and performances. In his later solo works Chandrasekaran

continues to cite various Hindu concepts while reframing them in his personal

quests as an artist spiritual journeyman. “Yogi” (1990, Portland Sculpture

Park, performance, installation) which means the seeker of spiritual truth is

reframed as his personal search. In performances such as “Kala Chakra

(Wheel of Time) and “Atman” series (1992, copper, enamel on clay tablets),

the soul or life principal became a time-based process. 33

(fig.3)

Chandrasekaran makes his drawings, paintings, objects and

installations rendered with an earthy, pastoral sense of allure linking

traditional Indian aesthetics and Hinduism. His drawings are meditative

spontaneous doodling, which he develops in stages of increasing complexities

of paintings, objects, installations and performances. He installs himself in the

installation as an immobile, durational performance, undergoing a process of

what he calls “aesthetic hybridization” of traditional Hindu philosophies. The

spiritual search he embodies in his performative installations seem to covet a

catharsis in a personal quest, which is not easily assessable for the non-
 18

believer. Beyond the exotic gaze of his Hindu ethnic traditional origins, one is

also susceptible to an awe of his physical endurance when the performances

are of longer durations.

2.4 Asian values, State intervention vs. Individual vision

Although Tang Da Wu and the Artists Village, which he founded in

1988 has been widely recognized and respected in Singapore as well as

internationally, yet neither he nor the Artists Village had ever been given a

retrospective at the Singapore Art Museum to date in Singapore. Tang had

been one of the first contemporary artists working in Singapore who have also

exhibited internationally and was awarded the prestigious Arts and Culture

Prize of the 10th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes in 1999. Various leading

Singapore artists such as Amanda Heng, Juliana Yasin, Han Sai Por, Chng

Seok Tin, Vincent Leow, Zai Kuning, Wong Shih Yaw and Tang Mun Kit, were

associated with The Artists Village. The Artists Village had been continuously

producing various pioneering, innovative projects in Singapore and

internationally. They were invited to the exhibition, “Situations”, featuring

alternative art groups from Berlin, Sydney and Singapore in the Museum of

Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2005. The Artists Village have continued to

renew and re-invent themselves with new generations of artists such as

Jeremy Hiah, Kai Lam, Woon Tien Wei and Lisa Adam and have continued to

initiate younger generation artists into their ranks. 34

In the catalogue “Trimurti-Ten Years After” there is a consistent

repeated strain of arguments to separate the working methodology and

 19

conceptual framework from that of Tang Da Wu. In the arguments there seem

to be a demonization of Tang’s methods as being “foreign and westernized”

and the “Trimurti” artists being of “Asian roots” and regional extraction.

S.Chandrasekaran says: “Tang Da Wu’s performances are not rooted

in elements from this region even though the issues are. The body gestures,

materials, space understanding didn’t come from this region. They were

Western-oriented body language which I thought did not work.” 35

Ray Langenbach identified that the arguments put forward by

Chandrasekaran and Goh Ee Choo in “Trimurti” exemplified a “desired Asian

language of embodiment, clear boundaries, limits to freedom and

responsibility, all anxious values explicitly espoused and constantly reiterated

by the PAP government”, a reflection of the state ideology. 36

These

articulations together with the accompanying texts advocate “Trimurti” to be

Nanyang regionalists, formalists, a necessary “harmonious” alternative to

Tang Da Wu and the Artists Village who are deemed to be “foreign-

influenced” therefore “un-Asian”, who are provocative, confrontational and “do

not preclude aggressive forms of artistic transgression and activism”. 37

Other than their subjects and themes in their performance, there is a

formalistic strain similarly applied in both artists’ working methodologies. Tang

and Chandrasekaran still find the traditional media of drawing and studio

practice essential to their work. They also have consistently made paintings,

sculptures, and installations besides working in performance.

Tang welcomes interactions with the audience. He often emphasized

more than the subject matter or issue, that as a performance artist, the most

important thing for him is executing a definite skill, which is necessary when
 20

spontaneously responding to a live audience. He finds it challenging to get

immediate responses and this motivates him as he finds that the traditional

media like painting and sculpture takes a longer time before they are shown to

an audience after completion. He even admits that there is a risk involved and

sometimes he submits to the vulnerability of ending up feeling foolish. 38

The performances of Chandrasekaran were less interactive with the

audience physically. His is often an immobile body in an installation or site,

almost sculptural. They were usually time-based and durational, putting his

body within an installation, which were imbued with symbols based on Hindu

mythology or philosophy. Chandrasekaran uses his body to incarnate a

symbolic meaning in a ritual, which tests the body’s endurance. The process

he goes through also arouses transformations in him. However they are

spectacles meant to provoke a reaction: “I want my art to provoke, even

disturb the audience. I want them to go out thinking. That’s what I want art to

do.” 39
Although his performances may not explicitly arouse direct physical

interaction with the audience, there is often a desired implicit semiotic

interaction instigated by the artist’s presence within his designated condition.

In looking at the two artists works, Langenbach’s reading of Victor

Turner’s discrimination between taxonomical linkages from that of the

symbolical, in discussing how artists communicate alliance with social

structural positions would be useful here. 40

Both Tang and Chandrasekaran

often talked about their work in relation to mythology and the use of traditional

beliefs reframed within contemporary contexts. However, Tang’s

performances in comparison to Chandrasekaran’s tend to promote openness

towards individual responses via dialogue and inquiry. Chandrasekaran may

 21

suggest an individual interpretation of Hindu traditions however he used them

in a metaphorical way, which accepts unquestioningly traditional religious

ideals and neutralizes economic, social or political positions and ideological

implications. The Singapore government introduced the “White Paper on

Shared Values” to the Parliament in January 1991 advocating and

institutionalizing core “Asian” values. 41

In comparison to Tang, the concept of

“Trimurti” and Chandrasekaran supports comprehensive replication of

traditional religious values in contemporary art terms, which is compliant with

state ideology of “Asian” values outlined in the white paper issued in 1991.

Notions of ‘harmonious multi-culturalism’, ‘re-invented traditions’ and

‘Asian values’ lend credibility to the Singapore Art Museum’s retrospective to

“Trimurti” in 1998. This privilege of a retrospective by a trio of young artists

who exhibited together only once ten years before seemed to be at an

unusual accelerated pace. Singapore Art Museum’s curator, Ahmad

Mashadi’s description of “Trimurti” as an “inclusionary strategy” 42

is arbitrary

and suggested administrated prioritization and legitimatization by a state

institution. 43
The “Trimurti” prestigious retrospective as compared to the

omission of Tang Da Wu and the Artists Village from any high profile

exhibition up to now, exposed the Singapore Art Museum’s partiality in

privileging artists whose strategies aligned with Singapore government’s

policy of asserting “Asian values”.

 22

2.5 Identity: Between Individual and Society

The earlier works I presented while working with artists from The Artists

Village from 1989 to 1990 were done out of curiosity, experimental spirit and

the natural need for personal growth as well as exploring different media,

dimensions and possibilities. Art was seen by those of us who worked at the

Artists Village as too much concentrated on decorative and illustrative

purposes in Singapore. We wanted to work beyond that. This does not imply

that decorative art cannot be meaningful. However we were seeking a

language that can reflect the experiential realities of our time and the

experimental results does not necessarily prioritize the decorative aspects of

art making.

I was less concerned about the social dimension and philosophical

context than that of exploring a form, which was new and relevant to the time

that I was working in. Just like Tang Da Wu and Chandrasekaran, I saw

contemporary art practice as a remaking of mythological narratives. The

incident during an event I helped to organize in 1994 and its aftermath gave

me a different perspective. Josef Ng was charged and found guilty of

committing an obscene act in public for his performance, “Brother Cane”. The

performance was centered on the sentencing and caning of 12 men caught

for homosexual soliciting in public in 1993. The men found guilty were

revealed in name, ages and occupations in the newspapers together with

graphic descriptions of the operations where police officers disguised

themselves as gay solicitors in order to entice them. Josef Ng’s performance

was simple yet poignant as a show of protest of the strict laws against
 23

homosexuals in Singapore. The last few actions he made included cutting his

pubic hair, which was deemed to be a criminal offence. The well-executed

work was removed from its context and sensationalized in the newspapers

where the controversy focused on it being an obscene act of pornography and

the dangers of performance art towards internal security and disruption of

public order. 44

This controversy strongly impressed me towards a social and political

understanding as an artist and stirred a political perspective of the untimely

eviction of the Artists Village from the original site in Sembawang in 1990. The

eviction forced us to participate in the 1990 Singapore Arts Festival in various

public sites throughout the city. 45

Besides presenting solo works, I made

numerous performances in collaborations with the other artists from the Artists

Village. The theme of our project mooted by Tang Da Wu was “C.A.R.E.” an

acronym for “Concerned Artists for the Environment”. Although it was one of

the most exciting and fruitful experiences for experimenting, learning and

organizing an art event in public spaces, it was a heavy undertaking of mixed

feelings, given the situation of the loss of the land that we used to operate in. I

was asking many questions during the eviction which we had no time for

resolution as we were busy participating in the Arts Festival soon after. Some

questions that were churning inside me include: What is the position of art and

artists in society? Were we evicted because we had the privilege of holding

events at the village without license? 46

During the time when the Artists Village was occupying the last

remaining village farms in Sembawang, it occurred to most of the artists

participating that we came together in a natural way that it appeared inevitable

 24

for the state to support its continuation as we were contributing to the cultural

growth of a new society.

There were speculations that some paintings exhibited were too raw

and explicit. Our visitor’s book was usually filled with praises but there were

the occasional rude comments, accusations that some works were

pornographic or blind “aping” of western culture and various negative

responses. The many reports in the newspapers and magazines seem to

show the Artists Village received encouraging public reception. Yet we could

not find any recourse in terms of alternative space when we were served

eviction notices. Another speculation was that we were not even legal entity,

as we were then not registered as an organization or a legally legitimate

“society”.

The rapid social, political and economic transitions and recent shifts in

culture and technology, affected by diaspora and globalization makes it

increasingly important for individual visual artists as cultural workers to play

an active role to interrogate the meanings, effects, and consequences of

identity formation in contemporary society. Individual artists are social actors

who have a possibility to activate on their own beyond the state’s institution

agenda.
 25

CHAPTER 3.

CONTEXTS AND MANIFESTATIONS

3.1 Self, ethnicity and multiculturalism

The representation of the human self after post-modernity’s multi-

faceted perspectives of identity-formation is both problematic and complex.

Self and its formation may be seen as a matrix of configurations of human

experience through the domains of science, morality, art and religion. 47

In

bringing together the legacy of modernity in confrontation with strategies of

post-modernity, a revised narrative of the “self” may be suggested. A

redesigned portrait based on discourse, engaging in action, situated within

community in order to moderate towards transcendence.

In response to various criticisms that performance art for Singapore is

yet another example of blind derivative of Western art, I began to investigate

the comparison of self-representation in Chinese painting and Western art.

Performance art is usually used as a term to describe a practice within the

visual art whereby the actions of the individual artists, sometimes together in a

group partake in the work itself. This is often seen to be alien or overly

egoistic to some in Asia, who are used to referring themselves more to a

social group rather than as unique or outstanding individuals. To be too

outstanding is usually frowned at as in the Chinese idioms, not to be like “a

camel in a sheep’s pen” or “outstanding nails are to be knocked down”. In

comparison to Western culture, it would be difficult to find similar emphases

 26

on portraiture and especially self-portraiture in the corresponding periods of

history in Chinese painting. 48

In his four-volume study of world religion and myth “The Masks of

God”, Joseph Campbell traced human cultural history unfolding like a

continuous evolutionary journey. 49

Themes were compared and developed,

through variations and distortions and reasserted into a grand theory of the

evolution of human culture and consciousness. Culminating in its last volume,

“Creative Mythology” anticipated the emergence of a great movement of

advancement and climax for human culture. One could inference the

relevance when looking at the historical and cultural comparisons of the

relative later emergence of performance art in Asia as compared to the West.

Considering that in Chinese art history, Taoism and Buddhism was the

philosophical background whereby the mastery in painting was in landscape

and nature rather than in the realistic representation of the human form. At the

same time caught in the midst of post-colonialism and entrenched in

economic under-development there was a less tendency to accept the

changes based on Western philosophy.

In China the first foray into performance art began in the mid 80’s

however there were not many who used performance art principally compared

to other avant-garde practices.50 In 1992 artists like Zhang Huan, Ma Liu Ming

and Zhu Ming settled in the eastern edge of Beijing and organized various

“underground” performances in private events. They soon became known to

use performance art as a main form of practice. 51

This could be seen as a

parallel history to the dates in Singapore where performance art also became

conscious manifestations of the artist’s body as artwork. 52

 27

Like S. Chandrasekaran, Zhang Huan uses traditional mythology to

create the scenario for a personal transformation and re-interprets them in

contemporary contexts. However, unlike Chandrasekaran, he did not use

them unquestioningly and thereby neutralizing economic, social or political

positions and ideological implications. Zhang Huan’s earlier executed

performances were based on the social conditions in the post-Tian An Men

incident (1989) in China and his Buddhist background. His earlier

performances such as, “12 Square meters” (fig.4.1994) where he sits naked

covered with honey and fish oil in a filthy toilet and “65 kilograms” (1994) in

which he suspended himself from a ceiling and tested his ability to endure the

harsh conditions in which neither he nor the audience could escape. His later

migration to New York led to various explorations into his new surroundings.

However there is still a strong reference to his Chinese identity and Buddhist

philosophy background. 53

I had found it necessary to assert the social and political difference of a

descendent of Chinese diaspora outside of China and specifically in a

Singapore multicultural and post-colonial context. 54

It would be too

pretentious for me to merely persist in the old religious or philosophical

traditions and yet it was problematical to deny my connections to the same

ethnicity.

Stuart Hall acknowledged that there are two kinds of identity. Identity

as “being” which offers a sense of unity and commonality and identity as

“becoming” which is a process of identification and shows the discontinuity in

our identity formation. The first one is necessary and yet it is that of the
 28

second, which is closer to those who come from a postcolonial society and a

history of diaspora. 55

I decided that the only way to deal with my unique Singaporean identity

with a postcolonial, displaced history of diaspora was with a playful and

ambiguous interrogation of the stereotyping and exoticization of identity via

ethnicity and history. I also found it necessary to work in series as a way to

cope with the anxiety of incomplete process and complexities of issues

involved within a single performance work. There is also a conscious desire to

overcome the social constraints of disseminating a marginal form and

temporal ephemeral performance work more widely. At the same time it was a

respond to artists working in series within the modernist and minimalist frame

of attempting to use a quasi-mathematical inference. 56

This was the

contextual framework for considerations before initiating three series of my

works: “Journey of a yellow man” (1992-2004), “Ghosts Stories” (1995-1997)

and “Neo-Baba” (1995-1997).

3.2 Embodiment into Representation

In my series of works “Journey of a yellow man” (fig.13. first performed,

1992, London), “Neo-Baba” (fig.14. first performed, 1995, Tokyo) and “Ghosts

Stories” (fig.15. first performed, 1995, Tokyo) I had set out to offer a narrative

discourse based on actions that create communicative images and to situate

myself in a local as well as international community. They are based on local

contexts of an individual’s struggle within the cultural location of Singapore but

with view to universal socio-political themes. These works were initiated and
 29

were part of another phase for me after residing and researching in London

for 2 years from 1990 to 1992. Prior to that, my works were done in the spirit

of experimentation with the Artists Village. The time spent in London allowed

for wider perspective and research into a more individuated practice within

global concerns.

The body may be the most obvious site, source and sense for identity

formation. Yet it may not be as natural, absolute and stable as it appears to

be. The biological body in itself as ground for our identity is placed within

variable experiences based on history, culture, race, and gender, amongst

other complexities. However, self-representation through performance allows

for fluidity and openness to confront stereotypical perceptions and

preconceived conventions. Verification nevertheless is necessary by creating

a range of different ways of performance and presentations. Self-

representation via performance art is never completely autonomous and

requires a reframing through the view of the audience and society.

Each performance in the series of “Journey of a Yellow Man”, “Ghosts

Stories” and “Neo-Baba” differs in length, format and has a different sub-

theme. They have been performed in a variety of audiences, different

countries and diverse venues. Some are short performances of thirty minutes

whereas others may be involving an installation, which incorporated long

durational performances. The performances have been conceived based on

site-specificity and also responding to the nature of the event concerned.

There is also relationship to the time of enactment which influences the work

manifested with regard to my own personal physical, mental, emotional and

psychological state. The use of the body in the production of self-

 30

representation as performance art is both a vulnerable and potent strategy. As

57
Tang Da Wu said, we run the risk of making a fool of ourselves. At the

same time, self-representation in performance art as Peggy Phelan said,

58
“always shows more than it means”.

Between these tensions the body has a special possibility of showing

itself visually via actions with multi-layered representational variations. In

“Journey of a Yellow Man” series, the yellow colored painted human form

distorts its pre-conceived expectations and arouses awkward uncomfortable

reactions ranging from awe to disgust. In contrast to that of the “Journey of a

59
Yellow Man”, “Neo-Baba” is a clownish, stand-up comic. The masquerade

takes the form of either a formal attire of office worker or mis-matched

costumes. “Neo-Baba” also frequently portrays a multi-cultural hybrid that

makes fun of his own perplexed identity and social situation. The persona in

“Ghosts Stories” however is usually a clear-headed and solemn one. “Ghosts”

are often depicted as haunting the living by some supposedly dissatisfied non-

corporeal manifestation of the dead until their desire is met or some grievance

was settled by the haunted. However my series of “Ghosts Stories” used it as

a metaphor for repressed anxieties resulting from living in hyper-rational and

over-administered controlled authoritative societies.

3.3 Persona: contrasts and conflicts

The works often begin with recognizing some core anxieties and

concerns that arose from my personal experiences as well as my reading of

some issues in contemporary society. My response is also based on the

 31

various critiques given from different philosophical arguments on the state of

contemporary art. There have been shifts of perspectives amongst artists

since the 1960’s in response to the social function of art and emphases of art

as a commodity sustained into an investment of aesthetic beauty for the sake

of the market. The protests and resistance of the avant-garde became less

important and faced obliteration within a global market consumer culture

60
where artists were divided between image-making and social concerns. My

works straddle between these polarities as a visual artist. I still try to see

image making as a priority, however I could not work without a concern for

context in a world of conflict and changing values. There is also an element of

pedagogy involved where I usually take the stance of asking questions in

order to provoke some thinking for these concerns and not necessarily

advocating a particular position. By providing images of contrast and conflict

in performance based on personal history, performance art can serve as a

tool for cultural discourse and constructing identity. 61

3.4 Journey of a yellow man

One of the anxieties I faced of being a Chinese Singaporean in London

was that of often being mistaken for being from mainland China. Even

mainland Chinese would usually expect me to be well versed in Mandarin

language and knowledge of Chinese culture. Although I am familiar with the

language and culture still they would frown on my lesser capacity and

competence. At the same time, being first time away for a longer period than
 32

before, there is a greater sensitivity of prevalent racism when living in a

predominantly “white” society.

To the West, “the other” is often seen not only as exotic, erotic or

primitive but also inferior and subject to colonization. Edward Said’s

evaluation of “Orientalism” is seen by many to be the founding work on

postcolonial theory.62 His writings have made us more aware of the perceptive

bias of the West towards the East. Said was critical of what he found as

various false assumptions by Western attitudes towards the East. Societies

like Singapore having undergone colonialism face the dilemmas of developing

national identity after colonial rule. The self-image of the colonized is that of

an abject, subordinated people used by the colonizers. Postcolonial societies

struggle in grappling with a binary opposition between the subordinated

inferior Oriental and the ruling superior Westerner. The postcolony however is

chaotic and pluralistic but has its own internal coherence. 63 There is a need to

continue to investigate and engage with contemporary realities and to open

up various questions of representations of postcolonial identity.

In the search for a visual image as a starting point to explore this issue

I found the most stereotypical image of the “Asian” in the history of biology.

The Swedish scientist and botanist, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is said to be

the father of taxonomy, the scientific classifications of animals and plants now

used in biological sciences. He even made some differentiations among the

human race in four categories. These included Native Americans (Homo

Sapiens Americanus) were seen as "red," "ill-tempered" and "subjugated."

The "European" category (Homo Sapiens europeaeus) was "white, serious

and strong." The Asiatic (Homo sapiens asiaticus) is described as “yellow,

 33

melancholy, and greedy” lastly the African (Homo sapiens afericanus) was

depicted as "black, impassive and lazy." These categories are explicitly racist

stereotypical perceptions, which even today helped scientists to categorize

and interpret with these observations. 64

These contexts along with earlier explorations on identity, helped to

initiate my series of “Journey of a yellow man”. Painting the body yellow

alluded to various issues on my ethnicity and was also like putting on a full-

body mask. When working at the Artists Village and Tang Da Wu, we talked

about putting the Chinese opera white powder on the face as a mask to

signify embodying another persona in performance. The mask also helps to

overcome our shyness of revealing ourselves as well as anxieties of stage

fright when stepping in front of an audience.

Etymologically, “mask” originated from the Italian “masca”, which

describes an evil, hideous character. The Latin form of “persona” also implied
65
a mask as in a role or a person. The yellow man persona was an over the

top mask which wishes to address various issues at the same time projecting

a visually strong image. It accentuates my difference as an Asian “other” and

at the same time ruptures the stereotypical perceptions of identity and renders

an entirely different gaze.

3.5 Neo-Baba

Neo-Baba is another series of work, which is a reference on identity

with regard to social realities within a local context and an effort to relate to an

international, global community. (fig.14) There was a self-conscious attempt at

 34

laughing at one’s self and situation. “Neo-baba” is a pun on the anti-art

movement of “Dada” and the derogatory term, “baba” used to describe Straits-

born Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.

Although not wearing a mask, the handling of a comic persona to me

was another way of putting on a masquerade in a different way. The Neo-

Baba persona was often well dressed in a formal office worker’s attire of

necktie and white long sleeves shirt but sometimes mis-matching costumes to

show a disparity in one’s constituent personality indicating a hybridization of

66
cultures. Neo-Baba also spoke in various different dialects, languages and
67
colloquial Singlish, which showed evidence of my multi-cultural background.

I did not expect audiences to understand what I was saying, especially when

performing outside of Singapore. The use of slang, dialects and colloquial

languages peculiar to Singapore were deliberate to throw light on a unique

hybrid identity based on a plural and multi-cultural environment.

Some objects I have used in the Neo-Baba series is a pair of boxing

gloves sewn together with an opposing pair. When I wear them they insinuate

an invisible opponent or fighting with a missing opponent depending on the

perceiver. Chewing gum is also used in various ways and actions were made

with the gum after an over consumption of it. This was a reference to the

exceptional ban of the sale and import of chewing gum in Singapore.

Neo-baba was also used as a platform to question conservative

assumptions of art and culture, which often generalized what aspects of

culture should represent the larger society. At the same time it was also an

acknowledgment of the complexities involved in our post-modern world of

pluralism and global market capitalism. The use of laughter has its social
 35

function and is useful in helping us keep an emotional distance to the object of

68
laughter. These are often tongue-in-cheek self-deprecations with the hope

that the criticisms made will be more easily palatable when seen in a lighter

vein.

3.6 Ghosts Stories

I began the series of “Ghosts Stories” (fig.15) after making the

observation that ghosts stories easily make their mark on the best sellers lists

both in Singapore and Japan. On personally encountering Japan for the first

time, comparisons with Singapore seems to suggest that the popularity of

ghosts stories in both societies may be symptomatic of a nostalgia for the

irrational in a hyper-rationalized society. Both countries have roots in

Confucian culture and tend to be rigid, hierarchical with discernible social

control under well-ordered paternalistic family and social codes, though

differing in structure and history. The popularity of ghosts and horror stories

seems to express a need to release repressed tensions arising from living

under these conditions, which may lead to a paranoia and censorious

disposition under an authoritarian and suppressive society. 69

In this series I also sometimes use a black cloth over my head as a

mask, however it is not as distinctive element in the work as the “yellow man”.

The emphasis here is to create a “chilling” effect based on the scenario

created by objects, sound, lighting and the actions as well as the concealed

intimidator within a ghostly image. Some of the objects used repeatedly

include golden eggs, sometimes made of painted plaster sometimes from

 36

stones. I also used blocks of ice, military blankets.

The Chinese idiom, "Kill the chicken to frighten the monkeys"

(Mandarin: sha ji xia hou) is used repeatedly. It connotes a typical

authoritarian attitude of punishing the deviant scapegoat as a means for social

control. I used this as a visual metaphor for the extreme punishment of

political detention without trial, which is the most extreme form of repression

and social ostracism. It is sometimes used as the basis for some of the

objects for installations or actions in performance of the series.

3.7 Conceptualization, Execution, Documentation

I like to identify a generalization of three main stages of art production

process in my experience. This may be a simplified reading but it could prove

to be useful for our discussion. The three major stages are, ideation and

planning, followed by its enactment or performance, and finally its completion

as an object or documentation. The conceptualization and planning may take

form in writings such as drafts, proposals, scripts, manifestoes or drawings of

diagrams, sketches, which may leave lasting evidence as a documentation

item. The execution of a performance or event in itself can take varied forms

depending on the actual situation. The final execution may differ from its

original ideation stage of intention due to unexpected occurrences or even

lapses of the artist as the real situation may differ from one imagined during

its planning stage. Items to be collected for documentation may include that

from the two preceding stages the bulk of which may be products of recording

technology produced as audio recordings, photography, video, film or digital

 37

technology. It could also include others like critical reviews and public media

coverage.

From the readings of Jackson Pollock’s action paintings as a result of

performative actions, one could just as well see the process of paintings as

the performance itself where the painting product, which hangs in the art

gallery or museum, is actually a documentation item in an archive specializing

70
in collecting such forms of documentation. These three stages maybe

delineated differently depending on our philosophical inclination, historical

distance or contextual changes, of how we define where the artwork is

manifested, where it begins or ends. In fact if we look at art objects such as

painting and sculpture in a performative way the paintings and sculptures may

be seen as documentation items for a performance in its second stage of

production.
 38

CHAPTER 4.

REVELATIONS AND RE-PRESENTATIONS

4.1 Actions, Signs, and Representations

Symbolic representations practiced by social actors giving social

meanings are the keystone to human culture. Representation is the

characteristic response of human nature in attempting to imagine the real. 71

Artists who engage in performance as an art form also knows that its use as a

form of representation via the self as embodiment in specific space and time

ultimately ends in disappearance. Performance art being an ephemeral form

and medium as opposed to other practices which produces a tangible object

like painting or sculpture, poses various problems for its continued discussion

in contemporary art history and theoretical discourse. Performance itself is

seen as an “essentially contested concept” and this essence is built into itself.
72
These characteristics make it even more problematic when we consider art

museums and cultural institutions’ inability to represent performance works

from the historical past. Any visit to art museums permanent collections will

show the imbalanced if not lack of representations of performance art in visual

art history for exhibition. The exhibition “Out of Actions”, which started in the

Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 1998 and toured Vienna,

Barcelona and Tokyo there after, was one of the rare exhibitions by a cultural

institution, attempting to focus on performance art comprehensively, showing

the possibility of exhibiting and collecting objects involved in and arising out of

performance art from the past. 73

 39

David Medalla’s “A Stitch in Time” (1968-72) was an interactive project

that resulted in an installation. (Fig. 16) The installation requests visitors to

stitch something on a fabric provided, as it also provides the impetus for

dialogue and conversations as they do so. The process, albeit re-staged

without the artist’s physical involvement could still be continued in the

exhibition held two decades after the initial occurrence.74 Genpei Akasegawa,

one of the co-founders of Anti-Art (Han-geijutsu) performance group, Hi Red

Center, was famous for his trial for forging counterfeit 1,000-yen notes, even

though the notes were printed only on one side. He turned his trial into an

exhibition of sample performances and invited various friends who were

artists and critics to appeal on his behalf. Several of his objects wrapped in

the printed 1,000-yen notes that were seized during the trial have been

included in the “Out of Actions” exhibition. (fig.17) 75

Although there were substantial objects and installations arising from

performances, a large part of the exhibition featured photographs, film and

videos made by the artists themselves from documentation materials. There

can never be any completely clear accounts to live actions, performances and

events which are multi-layered, open and fluid as well as attaining the same

ambiguous and complex subtleties. Such records can show what transpired

but can never be full renderings of the momentary. Gina Pane is known for

inflicting pain on herself, such as mutilating herself with razors in

performance. Her work, “Les Corp Presenti” (1975) comprises photographic

documentations put together as aesthetic representations. (Fig.18) They may

not completely capture all elements of the live actions; nevertheless they

provide a collage of images requiring our imaginative participation. This can

 40

be seen as the final realization of an artwork based on the photo

documentations, in line with her artistic process of a search for a language or

sign from which the performative actions of inflicted wounds are the origin. 76

4.2 Memory and the Archive

Perhaps the power intrinsic in performance is the blurring between art

and life but it also arouses various conflicting desires. We can neither repeat

our past nor leave it behind. The desire to integrate art and life has been a

subject frequently proposed since the 1960s. Allan Kaprow created

“Happenings” as a means of blurring the line between art and life where he

celebrated the everyday experience of life as art. His ideas were based on his

reading of John Dewey’s “Reading Art as Experience” where he proposed an

experiential nature of art as well as the Abstract Expressionist, Jackson

Pollock, whose action paintings he saw as art events.77 There have been

precedents such as the writings of the inimitable poet, playwright, theater

director and innovator Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) who was the first to call for

a theater with the disappearance of the stage proscenium to knock down its
78
false reality. Dada and Surrealism also had the inclination to critique the

institutionalization of art and advocated art as social praxis by sublating

79
aestheticism into life. Artist and composer, John Cage whom Kaprow

studied under, introduced him to the avant-garde movement of Fluxus, where

he later became a major contributor to their historical “art/life” events. The

blurring of art and life subjecting itself to being time-based and momentous

would also involve the use of light, sound, and easily decomposed materials
 41

such as food and other raw natural materials. These would prove to be

impossible to conserve or represent completely in any documentation media.

The objects of art making fulfills a human desire to outlast our mortality.

As Hippocrates (c.460-357 BC), the Greek philosopher said: “Ars longa, vita

brevis", usually rendered in English "art is long, life is short." The ephemeral

quality of performance art at once makes contradictory claims towards its

validity as an art medium. However, discourses continue to be made based

on documents in various media for archiving purposes. The relationship

between truth and authority is necessarily a practical concern for the

performance artist when considering conservation within the archive. In

“Archive Fever”, Jacques Derrida investigates these complexities within the

80
concept of the archive in terms of Freudian psychoanalysis.

Derrida draws attention to the fact that the prefix “arche” is found both

in “archive” and “architecture”. It represents in the ontological sense a point of

commencement or origin as well as in a nomological sense its commandment

or authority. The archive is an institutionally structured database of memory

and records. As a data architecture structure it organizes and re-organizes

memory. The Freudian psychoanalytic survey also reveals that the desire to

maintain an archive is convoluted with hidden contradictions. There is a

disjointed division between an aggressive and destructive “death drive”

(Greek: thanatos), and the fear of loss, which is imbued with the contradictory

impulse towards the destruction of the archive and yet integrates its

preservation. 81
The archive is provoked into conserving what had passed and

sustaining it as the present. The collection and storage of documentations

inside the shelves of an archive, however also highlights the fear of loss that
 42

leads to inertia and amnesia, the destruction rather than representation of

memory. It is necessary to go beyond the destruction of memory by provoking

a transformation and construction of memory and to suggest the archive as a

live process. The archive has to operate more than a depository but also as a

medium that leads to an active process of appropriation of and from the

outside. This involves an internalization of that which is “outside” where that

which is being archived commenced. Which leads us back to its “originary”;

the commencement of memory and records based on historical occurrences

is subjected to surveys, analysis and authoritative selection into shifting

narratives, in order to convey the value system and beliefs of the prevalent

society. It indicates a decisive option of perspectives for reviewing, re-

imagining and recreating individual, personal as well as social, collective

identities and memory.

4.3 Essence of the Performative

Together with artists working in conceptual art, process art, land art

and other time-based art forms, performance artists, actually acknowledged

and consciously chose to participate in the temporal and ephemeral nature of

the time-based medium as an intrinsic value in itself. The idea or context of

the work became of utmost importance more than the resulting material form

or object, which was usually “secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap,

unpretentious”. 82
Some even consciously resist commodification and defy the

collection of their works in permanent forms of relics, photography, film, video

and documentation. Veteran performance artist Alastair MacLennan, based in

 43

Belfast, usually makes long durational performances he calls “actuations”. He

prefers the use of photography to video documentation as he feels that video

might give the false impression to the viewer that they have seen the actual

live performance itself. Adina Bar-On, a pioneer performance artist of Israel

would like all documentations to be destroyed when she dies. However there

have been exhibitions of their works where photographic and textual

83
representations were exhibited accompanied by publications.

These assertions could be dismissed as radical idealism and a desire

to remain pure to the point of self-defeat in a global capitalistic market

economy. Even if no commodity is produced in order to be detached from a

market economy, there is always the struggle for viability by performance

artists resorting to a second income--earning job at the same time. Organizers

of such art events are suppose to remain viable through some philanthropic or

arts endowment sponsorship if not through the sale of tickets if not other

means of fund-raising. However the excessive commercialization of the art

market sometimes distorts the value of a work of art with its high prices

through the profit-motivated speculations of investors at auctions and other

market mechanisms. Our perception of the work’s value is no longer based on

an aesthetic experience but the awareness of the prices, where works with

higher prices are deceptively equated to be the superior art. 84

The alternative strategy via embodiment of art in the self and body

exacerbates a commodification of the body. The body becoming “prostituted”,

reduced to a commoditized status, liken to a marketed, industrialized, serial

body. The excessive commercialization of art and other extravagant

indulgences are symptomatic of a relative disembodiment in consumption.

 44

This has not eliminated the body, but instead aestheticize the body into

artifact. 85

In order to reclaim its purposeful directions, performance artists

persevere to re-embark on a subjective tactical representation as conscious

response and resistance albeit in an opposition between authentic cultural

discourses of what art can actually mean versus the tyranny of market

commodification of how art can make profit. Until the 1980s Western White

patriarchal heterosexual male had always dominated performance art or even

the art world in a global sense. 86

Multi-cultural, feminist and homosexual

artists finding themselves on the marginal situation of the art world have since

found a way to intervene through the use of body in performance. Rebecca

Schneider traces the artist’s explicit body as a contested but potent arena with

the ability to expose power relations by re-enacting social traumas to re-

negotiate cultural differentiations and the insistent refusal by the marginal to

be occluded by the dominant society. 87

Just as Derrida had said about the archive, and I would include art

objects in museum collections, as they may also be seen as a documentation

of sorts, that ultimately the archive or art produced is not just a compilation or

record of the past but a remembering of the beginning which holds a promise

and a responsibility towards future directions. For performance art to recover

its authenticity, its potency it needs to continuously look to its origin of

idealization and motivation of using self-embodiment as process, ritual and

strategy to re-invigorate the radical cultural project of art. 88

Interventions in performance art need to relentlessly re-invent tactical

incursions in order to respond to the market’s ability to persistently

 45

appropriate avant-garde strategies back into falsity and shallowness as well

as the discrepancies of representations of cultural institutions and the art

world at large. In the light of this, I recently coordinated two major projects;

one is my solo series of work, “Anthropometry Revision” and the other a

continuation to organize together with other Singapore artists, “The Future of

Imagination 3”, an international performance art festival. 89

These projects are

the culmination of my researches and consolidate my findings into new

subsequent directions.

4.5 Anthropometry Revision

In some recent performances, I worked with a loose structure in order

to respond more spontaneously to different situations and contexts depending

on the event or exhibition, which I executed them. The free-form nature allows

me to play with an open-ended vision of identity and social relationships. The

actions provide an image for contemplation where some of the actions are

repeated at the different situations and improvised to fit into a new structure

composed for the specific situation. For example the performance, “Self-

portrait”, which I presented in Dresden 2005, had an action, which is based on

some actions I began by using the shoes I was wearing, symbolic of an

invisible authority. (fig.19) This action was first initiated in Mexico (from which

there was no apt documentation) have been recreated in different variations

within diversely structured performances. 90

I have decided to use this image

with the shoes on my bare back as a starting point in the new series of work

“Anthropometry Revision”.
 46

From its Greek roots, “anthropometry” literally means the

“measurement of humans”. In anthropology it refers to the measurement of

human individuals for the study of human physical variations for comparison

and classifications. The French law enforcement officer, Alphonse Bertillon,

credited to have given this name in 1883, used this identification system

based on physical measurements to identify criminals. Today this exercise

has been supplanted by fingerprint identification. In the early 19th Century it

was linked to Anthropological Criminology, and had various misconceptions,

such as wrongly associating criminal characteristics to primitive humans,

monkeys and apes. Anomalies and defects in the human form or severe

difference in physiological characteristics were also seen as evidence of

physical inferiority or psychological disposition of a born criminal. 91

These

historical misunderstanding of early anthropometry and marginalization of

physical abnormality serves as contextual historical background to a series of

photographic, video and performance works.

With direct reference to my own body, distorted at birth by scoliosis,

they critique the aesthetic of the pose for consumption, within a society with

conflicting desires and aversions of a body longed for and yet repudiated.

These still images presented in photographic prints and video incorporates my

deformed body in various poses of disclosure and masquerade are self-

reflective and repetitious. (Fig.20-22) The minimal differences in poses are

appearing as obsessive repetitive performances adding up into dramatic

effects. They acknowledge an artificiality of the pose as disfigured ideal in

adaptation and disguise, exaggerated through self-conscious repetition. Self-

conscious reflexivity should not be seen as self-absorbed narcissism. To

 47

know our identity via one’s own bodily representation is to undermine the
92
received image of those who dominated and imposed on us.

With historical distance, I also revisit Yves Klein’s “Anthropometries”

series. (Fig. 23-26) Klein himself was interested in reviving forgotten aesthetic

philosophical idealism of the past. His enthusiasm to embrace the “flesh” was

motivated by a consciousness of oppressive burden borne by the body and

his desire to create a new departure towards transcendence. Dressed in suit

and tie, with white gloves, his own body remained “untainted” and distant as if

avoiding contamination and the abjection of the social and individual body,

which his female models were subjected. In contrast Kaprow’s “Happenings”

embraced dirt as nature and fertility. Klein’s latent criticism of the failure of

institutional avant-garde advent into abstract paintings seems incomplete. 93

The use of women’s bodies as “paint brushes” while remaining himself

“clean”, and producing the “framed and pedestal” art objects were evidence of

his own misogyny and failure, caught in the prevalent domination of the

bourgeoisie mentality.

Despite the contradictions in its aristocratic ironic way, Klein’s work was

a complex negotiation in extending Jackson Pollock’s performative “action”

legacy, which Kaprow also acknowledged. Its expression makes it impossible

94
to look at paintings in the same way again. “Anthropometry Revision” does

not intend to re-enact Klein, hence becoming “farce” in repeating history (sic.

Marx). My intention is to continue a committed somatic discourse based on

documentary evidences in the archive of art history and to interrogate a past

performance work relevant to my own surveys and position.

 48

CONCLUSION

Performance art continues to be a valid open-ended, contested and

vital form of art practice, which is also expanding in a wider range of possible

manifestations. 95
The increase of intensity in this practice has also seen

diverse interventions responding to various questions facing its own intrinsic

problematical ephemeral distinctiveness. The anti-commodification stance

also remains to offer alternative propositions and cross-examine what art and

culture can really mean, do or represent.

In the creation of other art forms such as painting or sculpture, the work

is preserved in itself. Performance art may be an ephemeral form but its

memory can be preserved in other media. The essence of its mark in passing

into another media such as photography, film, and video, however becomes a

memory of the actuality and can never be the same experiential phenomenon.

There are no possibilities for an unmediated relationship in cultural production

even if it were a direct face-to-face live encounter. The discourse of

performance via other media such as photography, film, video, new media

CD-ROM and websites are as equally valid for the sake of continuous

discourse in contemporary art. 96

Hence even the live re-enactments done by

artists may recall the original performance but it can only be a renewal in a

new scenario and a bridge to the actual past experiences.

An art museum’s permanent collection and its program of exhibitions in

some ways are like an archive of representations of cultural history in a

society. The art museum’s program of exhibitions and collection imposes and

exposes particular alignments and associations between different trajectories

 49

of cultural consciousness as records, and promotes particular influence and

agenda, which are open to discussion and interrogation.

In Singapore, there had been attempts at self-organization and

documentation by independent artists to overcome the inconsistencies our

museums and cultural institutions, which of better resources, are failing in

accomplishing the cultural mission with balanced representation. “Open ends”

was an exhibition of performance art documentation held at the Substation in

97
2001 organized by artists led by Amanda Heng. It was a valuable effort

involving various interviews between the concerned writers and artists, which

fulfilled a dire need. The fragments of the past recorded in these

documentations are also vital parts of the present and if not also the future.

Koh Nguang How has been the sole archivist of The Artists Village in the

years prior to 2000, before the new generation took over the main activities.

His documentation of the Artists Village was given a first showing in Sydney’s

Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005. 98

Various artists have been instrumental in opening new inroads to a

more diverse practice of performativity in Singapore, which are not yet

collated. Ray Langenbach had made several textual cum action presentations

in lecture format such as “The Performative Indoctrination Model: Colonialism

99
without tears”. Charles Lim and Woon Tien Wei explored pioneering ideas

in virtual and internet performances. 100

Bernd Behr attempted a tongue-in-

cheek re-enactment of Yves Klein’s “Leap into the void” at the same site

where the original took place in Paris suburb and exhibited it as a looped

video of the artist failing to take flight and falling on the ground.101 Koh Nguang

How researched into the errors printed in past art publications and exhibition
 50

catalogues. 102
Lim Tzay Chuen’s conceptual multi-layered works could be

seen as performative interventions such as proposing to tear certain pages

from the Sydney Biennale’s catalogue and moving the Merlion to Venice. 103

Ho Tzu Nyen’s recently produced “4 x 4 – Episodes of Singapore Art” as a

series of four television programs, exploring and re-telling the stories of four

milestones works by four artists in Singapore’s art history. 104

Dana Lam re-

enacted Amanda Heng’s “Let’s Chat” a dialogical installation exhibition. 105

Khairuddin Hori had presented some bold interventions such as “Die Faustus

Die!”, a Rock opera executed on the third-storey facade of The Substation art
106
centre. Juliana Yasin was the central organizer of “Fusion Strength”, first

presented at Plastique Kinetic Worms in 2001, a collaborative interactive

performance and installation group exhibition involving interventions of

artworks by the participating artists. 107 The Artists Village have over the years

organized various events and happenings including public art projects such as

“AIM: Artists Investigating Monuments”, interventions at public monumental

sites and B.E.A.U.T.Y., a project cum exhibition to find a good home for

challenging artworks which have failed to get exhibited in the past and have

been rescued from secluded storage. 108

Although attempts have been made, the suspicion remains that cultural

institutions can never give a complete, adequate and balanced representation

to performance art that artists begin to self-organize exhibitions, events and

festivals. This partly contributed in motivating me to organize and direct the

“Future of Imagination”, an international performance art event held three

times in Singapore since 2003. The event also hope to introduce more diverse

art practices from different countries and backgrounds acknowledging a

 51

globalised situation of contemporary cultural interactions. It also appeals for

109
changes towards an expanded intensified discourse.

As a response to “Out of Actions: Between Performance and the

Object, 1949-1979” organized by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,

the exhibition “Art Action 1958-1998” was organized by Richard Martel, in

110
Quebec. Martel invited artists and historians for a conference during the

performance event and published an alternative account of performance art

history left out by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles exhibition

and catalogue. Some of the artists featured also include other artists who also

organize like Boris Nieslony from Germany, Seiji Shimoda from Japan and

Chumpon Apisuk of Thailand.

Boris Nieslony since 1978, have through the years collected and

maintained the most comprehensive archive of performance art “Die

Schwarze Lade” (The Black Kit) and was adopted and housed in “Seedamm-
111
Kulturzentrum-Perforum” in Berne, Switzerland since 1981. This archive

contains dossiers from artists worldwide and still growing as a “living” archive.

He also organizes various performance art events and conferences.

Performance art practice today has expanded beyond that of just

producing one’s own solo works. The blurring of art and life goes beyond that

of producing art as a product for consumption but to also respond to the

exigencies of the cultural needs of society. Many artists have found it

necessary to facilitate considered change and overcome shortcomings of

official art institutions and events by starting their own alternative art spaces,

festivals of performance art events, publications in order to provide an

invaluable counter perspective and possibilities to that of the institutions. To

 52

paraphrase Derrida in “Archive Fever”, it is necessary to continually go inside

the archive (and museums) to interrogate the documents, which by the

perspective of art as performance, include the collected art objects in

museums as testimonial of the historical past. Just as the archive needs to

engage with the originary source, which lays the outside realities, in order to

keep the cultural project away from the perils of thanatos.

 52

NOTES
1
There is a lack of any comprehensive history of Singapore art history.
Surveys on Singapore’s art history such as Kwok Kian Chow’s “Channels and
Confluences – A History of Singapore Art”; 1996 Singapore Art Museum,
focused on painting and sculpture and do not inform much on performance
art. It is only mentioned in passing that Tang Da Wu and artists from The
Artists Village such as Vincent Leow, Zai Kuning, Amanda Heng as well as S.
Chandrasekaran as part of “Trimurti”, were also practicing performance art.
The most comprehensive survey to date is that in Ray Langenbach
“Performing the Singapore State 1988 – 1995”, 2003, unpublished PhD
thesis, Center for Cultural Research, University of Sydney.
http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20041027.174118/
Since 1994, the most consistently published writer on Singapore’s
contemporary art is Lee Weng Choy, Critic and Co-Artistic Director of The
Substation, Singapore. However his writings normally do not focus on
performance art except for writings surrounding the controversial 1994
incident, which resulted in a de-facto ban on funding of performance art,
which was only lifted in 2003. Lee Weng Choy, “Chronology of a
Controversy”, and “A Review of Josef Ng’s Performance”, in Looking at
Culture. Edited by S.K. Sanjay Krishnan, Lee Weng Choy, Leon Perera and
Jimmy Yap. Singapore published by the editors. 1996.

2
Amelia Jones, specialist in feminist and performance art, and RoseLee
Goldberg not only advocated the validity of critical appraisals based on
documentation but also demystified the privilege of “live” encounters with the
artist’s body in performance: Amelia Jones, "Presence" in absentia:
experiencing performance as documentation, 1997 Art Journal Vol.56 No. 4
p.11-18. Body Art / Performing the Subject. University of Minnesota Press
1998 p. 33-35.
RoseLee Goldberg, “Be my mirror”, Don’t Call It Performance catalogue 2004
El Museo del Barrio New York.
3
Some recent publications includes Clark, John; Modern Asian Art, 1998
Sydney, Fine Arts Press, focused on Japan, China, India, Thailand and
Indonesia. Another often cited work is “Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions,
Tensions” by Apinan Poshyananda, Thomas McEveilley, Geeta Kapur, Jim
Supangkat, Marian Pastor Roces, Jae-Ryung Roe, 1997 Asia Society, New
York, focused on India, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and
Thailand. Both books focused on the few countries and their artists’ use of
traditional imagery and modes to deal with contemporary issues. What is
revealed is the complexity of the notion of “Asia” as a single region and
highlighted the difficulty to access generalizations and trace the ebb and flow
of influences and information in the local spheres of cultural productions.
4
T.K. Sabapathy: Sculpture in Singapore. Exhibition Catalogue Singapore:
National Museum Art Gallery. 1991.
5
T.K. Sabapathy, Tan Teng Kee: An Overview, 1958-2000, Singapore:
Exhibition Catalogue, Sculpture Square, 2001.
 53

6
Kwok Kian Chow, Channels and Confluences – A History of Singapore Art,
1996 Singapore Art Museum, p.141-150. "Open ends" 2001, Catalogue,
documentation exhibition of performance art in Singapore, (Septfest 7-21
September 2001). Singapore, The Substation, Interview with Tang Da Wu by
John Low (pages are unnumbered).
7
Lee Wen, “Interview with Tang Da Wu” The Future of Imagination 3,
Catalog, Singapore, 2006, pg.12.
8
“Asian Artist Today -Fukuoka Annual V: Tang Da Wu Exhibition Catalogue",
1991, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan.
9
Constance Sheares, "Constance Sheares, In Conversation with S.
Chandrasekaran, Goh Ee Choo, Salleh Japar", in Trimurti and Ten Years
After. Edited by T. K. Sabapathy. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum /
National Heritage Board. 1998. p. 54,60 and 75.
10
My comparison refers to works in more traditional modernist practices of
paintings and sculpture being more represented as opposed to recent
alternative media and practices. For a critique of the art museum and
relationship to contemporary art representation see Douglas Crimp: On The
Museum's Ruins, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1993.
11
Paul Schimmel, Kristine Stiles, Russell Ferguson editors: Out of Actions:
Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of
Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Interview quoted pg. 91.
12
Joan Simon, ed. Bruce Nauman: Exhibition Catalogue and Catalogue
Raisonne New York: Distributed Art Publishers, in association with Walker Art
Center, Minneapolis, 1994. Texts by Neal Benezra, Kathy Halbreich, Paul
Schimmel, and Robert Storr.
13
Shaviro, Steven, Performing Life: The Work of Tehching Hsieh, Tehching
Hsieh, One Year Performance Art Documents 1978-1999 DVD ROM,
http://www.one-year-performance.com/
14
Jill Johnston, Tehching Hsieh: Art's Willing Captive, Art in America, Sept,
2001.
15
Saltz, Jerry. “Body Heat.” The Village Voice. April 23, 2004, other works of
Acconci refer to Taylor, Mark C. Frazer Ward, Jennifer Bloomer: Vito Acconci
London: Phaidon, 2002.
16
P.C. Smith, Racing Forms, internet review, "Boat Emptying Stream
Entering”, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, January 10, 1997 - February 22,
1997.
http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/reviews/smith/abramovic.asp
 54

17
Johanna Burton, Repeat Performances, Artforum, January 2006, p.55-56.
Smith, Roberta, Turning Back the Clock to the Days of Crotchless Pants and
a Deceased Rabbit, New York Times, November 17, 2005, Arts and Leisure,
p.1.
Kennedy, Randy, Self-Mutilation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, New York
Times, November 6, 2005, Arts and Leisure, p.1.
18
Guggenheim Museum website:
http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/abramovic/index.html
19
Rachel Withers, “Short History of Performance-Part One”, ArtForum Spring
2002.
20
Whitechapel Gallery website:
http://www.whitechapel.org/content.php?page_id=323
21
MTAA (M. River & T.Whid Art Associates) homepage:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/on-line_art
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/1year/info.php?page=bg
22
Hayley Newman, “Performancemania”, Catalogue published by Matt’s
Gallery, 2001. For a critical analysis see: Camilla Jalving: Inventing reality. On
truth and lies in the work of Hayley Newman, in Rune Gade, Anne Jerslev
(ed.), Performative Realism: Interdisciplinary Studies in Art And Media,
Museum Tusculanum 2005, p.145-180.
23
Shimoda Seiji, Editor. The Nippon International Performance Art Festival
Catalogues, 1993 to 2005, Tokyo, NIPAF.
24
Richard Martel, editor. Art Action 1958-1998, 2001, Quebec, Inter, (Editions
intervention).
25
Art Service Association website: http://www.asa.de
26
This thesis is to enable more insight into my own practice. It is beyond the
scope of my thesis to make a thorough critical analysis of Tang and S.
Chandrasekaran’s work.
27
The first presentations were at the exhibition “Happenings”, held at National
University of Singapore campus co-organized by Artists Village and students
from the Faculty of Architecture in 1989.
28
Lee Wen, A Waking Dream, drawings and poetry, 1981, Select Books,
Singapore.
29
"Open ends" 2001, Catalogue, documentation exhibition of performance art
in Singapore, (Septfest 7-21 September 2001). Singapore, The Substation,
Interview with Tang Da Wu by John Low (pages are unnumbered)..
 55

30
Lee Wen, “Interview with Tang Da Wu” The Future of Imagination 3,
Catalog, 2006, pg.12-19. I did not see them but heard about them and they
were poorly documented.
31
"Open ends" 2001, Catalogue, documentation exhibition of performance art
in Singapore, (Septfest 7-21 September 2001). Singapore, The Substation,
interviews by John Low also Catalogue “Asian Artist Today” – Fukuoka
Annual V, September 10 – November 10, 1991, Fukuoka Art Museum.
32
T. K. Sabapathy, Editor. Trimurti And Ten Years After. Exhibition
Catalogue. Singapore: National Heritage Board / Singapore Art Museum.
1998.
33
“Icons”, An exhibition of recent works by S.Chandrasekaran, 11-18 January
1996, exhibition catalogue, The Gallery Fort Canning Centre Introduction by
Constance Sheares, “Trimurti to beyond” by T.K. Sabapathy. I was also
invited to Portland Sculpture Park in 1990 and helped S.Chandrasekaran on
his “Yogi” installation after I finished making my own work, a stone installation.
It was here where I had various conversations with Chandrasekaran about his
process.
34
Russell Storer, ed: Situation: Collaborations, Collectives & Artist Networks
from Sydney, Singapore and Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney,
2005.
The Artists Village Website: http://www.tav.org.sg/
35
Op. Cit. interview with Constance Sheares pg. 54.
36
Ray Langenbach, “Performing the Singapore State 1988 – 1995”, 2003,
PhD thesis, Center for Cultural Research, University of Sydney. Ch. 4.
37
Op.Cit. Ahmad Mashadi “’Different Things’: Trimurti and Multicultural
Assertions” pg. 32 – 41.
38
"Open ends", 2001, documentation exhibition of performance art in
Singapore, (Septfest 7-21 September 2001). Singapore, The Substation,
Interview with Tang Da Wu by John Low (pages are unnumbered).
39
Op. Cit. interviews with Constance Sheares, pg 65.
40
Op. Cit. and also Quoted by R. Langenbach: Turner, V. 1982. From Ritual to
Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts
Journals.
41
For detailed discussion on the debate on “Asian” values see Wee Wan-Ling,
C. J.: “’Asian Values’, Singapore, and the Third Way: Re-Working
Individualism and Collectivism”. Sojourn, 15(2), pp. 332-358.
--- “Capitalism and Ethnicity: Creating “Local” Culture in Singapore”, Inter-Asia
Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (April 2000): 129-43. See also Fareed Zakaria, A
 56

Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew, Foreign Affairs 73 (no. 2, March-April

1994): p.109-127.
42
Op.Cit. Ahmad Mashadi “’Different Things’: Trimurti and Multicultural
Assertions” p. 39-40.
43
For an exploration of the relationship between theatre, performance art and
cultural policies of Singapore see William Peterson : Theater and the Politics
of Culture in Contemporary Singapore 2001, USA, Wesleyan University
Press.
For an examination of Singapore’s management of social and cultural policies
see Carl A. Trocki: Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control,
2005, United Kingdom, Routledge.
44
For detailed descriptions and discussions see Lee Weng Choy, “Chronology
of a Controversy”, and “A Review of Josef Ng’s Performance”, in Looking at
Culture. Edited by S.K. Sanjay Krishnan, Lee Weng Choy, Leon Perera and
Jimmy Yap. Singapore; published by the editors. 1996.
also in William Peterson : Theater and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary
Singapore 2001, USA, Wesleyan University Press. pg.153-159.
and Ray Langenbach: “Performing the Singapore State 1988 – 1995”, PhD
thesis, Center for Cultural Research, University of Sydney.
August 2003, p 240-287
http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/uploads/approved/adt-
NUWS20041027.174118/public/09Chapter8.pdf
45
The eviction forced a move out of the rustic village. Tang brought as many
works and material he could salvaged from the old village, which were too
much for the first house he rented and necessitated a second move where he
finally re-settled in three rented post-colonial houses in Queens Avenue,
Sembawang. The move was an enormous operation, which drained us yet we
continued immediately after to participate in the Arts Festival.
46
The Artists Village was occupying land that was deemed for “urban
renewal”. In Singapore it is compulsory by law to apply for public
entertainment license for public performances. Before eviction the village was
actually private property and we did not apply for public entertainment license
for art events and performances as the events were deemed private events. I
was living there in the village when we were served eviction notice in 1989-90.
I assisted Tang Da Wu to negotiate with the then newly formed National Arts
Council as well as the Land Authorities for extension to stay longer in
Sembawang unsuccessfully. When I went down to appeal for extension of the
eviction, the Land Authorities officer chided us for holding events that
attracted media publicity, which made me suspicious of the undisclosed
underlying rationale of our eviction. After eviction, the land was handed over
to the military to be used as jungle training grounds.
47
Sociologist, Goffman saw individuals as social actors participating in social
transactions as every day performance. Social interactions are symbolic
 57

which changes according to differing actors and situations. Erikson’s psycho-

analytical approaches to adolescent identity crisis saw the individual self
through a dynamic process with the communal culture. Schrag dismisses
deconstructionist and postmodern continually shifting views as debilitating the
self as subject and re-asserts the creative features of self-formation and self-
understanding. His critique of Weber’s and Habermas’s theories of modernity
adopted their differentiation of three cultural spheres of science, morality and
art. He added religion as a legitimate fourth cultural sphere.
Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Penguin, 1959;
Erik Erikson: Identity: Youth and Crisis, Faber & Faber,1968; Carl. O. Schrag,
The Self after Postmodernity, Yale University Press,1997.
48
Richard Ellism Vinograd, Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-
1900, 1992 Cambridge University Press, New York.
WU Hung, Katherine R. TSIANG, editors; Body and Face in Chinese Visual
Culture, 2004 Harvard University Press.
49
Joseph Campbell, Primitive Mythology, Occidental Mythology, Oriental
Mythology, Creative Mythology (Masks of God) 1991 (reissued) Penguin.
50
Gao Minglu, Toward A Transnational Modernity: An Overview of the
Exhibition, Gao Minglu ed. Inside Out: New Chinese Art (catalog). Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998.
51
Qian Zhijian, Performing bodies: Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, and
performance art in China –Interview, Art Journal, Volume: 58. Issue: 2.
Summer 1999, New York.
52
For a comparison with Japan see Munroe, Alexandra: Japanese Art After
1945: Scream Against the Sky, Harry N Abrams, NY 1994. One could also
make contrasting comparisons with Japan, which was more open to the new
influx of philosophical ideas from the west. Yoshihara Jiro who exhibited in
Paris in 1952, helped initiated the avant-garde group, Gutai. Under the
influences of “l’art informel” and “action painting”, Gutai staged events that
have been cited as the precedents of Happenings. Groups like “Neo-Dada
Organizers” and “Hi Red Center” in Tokyo followed this in the 1960’s.
However my interest here is to make comparisons based on parallel histories
of coming from the same ethnic roots of Chinese culture evolving into artists
presenting themselves in performance art and related to my early
development and position in Singapore.
53
Hans Gunter Golinske, The Body as Intercultural Medium of Communication
“On the Spiritual Background to the Art of Zhang Huan”, in Dziewior, Yilmaz.
“Zhang Huan” Kunstverein in Hamburg, Published by Hatje Cantz 2003 p.73-
78.
54
For a historical survey of the Chinese diaspora see Lynn Pan: Sons of the
Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, Boston, Little, Brown,
1990
 58

55
Stuart Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora in Identity: Community, Culture,
Difference. J. Rutherford, ed. Pp. 222-237. London: Lawrence and
Wishart.1990.
56
Rosalind E. Krauss The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist
Myths, MIT press, 1986 “Notes on the Index”, p.196-220. Concerning
repetition in performance and representation see Anthony Howell: Mimicry
and Repetition in Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and
Practice, Routledge Harwood Contemporary Theatre Studies, 1999, p. 29-44.
57
"Open ends", 2001, documentation exhibition of performance art in
Singapore, (Septfest 7-21 September 2001). Singapore, The Substation,
Interview with Tang Da Wu by John Low (pages are unnumbered).
58
Peggy Phelan: Unmarked, 1993, London, Routledge. p. 27
59
There are not many critical reviews written on my work except for some
newspapers reports and catalogue essays. Lee Weng Choy: Catalogue
Essay, The Third Asia Pacific Triennale Catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery,
Brisbane Australia. 1999.
James Swinson: Lee Wen Connection / Location, Third Text/ no.45 Winter,
London 1998-99 - pp.95-97
Ho Tzu Nyen, Chapter Four: Four Suits – Of Memes and Men, The Substation
Magazine, (internet magazine) posted : 16 September 2005
http://www.substation.org/magazine/issue02/ft_4suits.html
60
Suzi Gablik, Has Modernism Failed? New York: Thames & Hudson, [1984]
1986.

Charles R. Garoian, Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics.

61

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.

62
Edward W. Said, Orientalism New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
------------- Culture and Imperialism, New York, Vintage; Reprint edition, 1994
63
Achille Mbembe: On the Postcolony, Berkeley, University of California
Press, 2001 p. 102.
64
Although my work is not directly related to issues of racism I found it useful
to understand the perceptions of identity in relationship to race and ethnicity.
For issues of classification see Audrey Smedley: "Science and the Idea of
Race," in, Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth, edited by
Jefferson M. Fish (London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002):
pg. 145-155. For a structural review of the relationship between race, and
class on national identity formation see: Balibar, Etienne & Wallerstein,
Immanuel: Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Verso, 1991. A social
anthropological assessment on the relationship of ethnicity to identity
 59

formation is given by Richard Jenkins: Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and

Explorations, Sage Publications, 1997.
65
Erich Herold, The World of Masks, London, Hamlyn, 1992.
66
Like masks, clothing can alter, camouflage and enlarge us: Anthony Howell:
Being Clothing in Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and
Practice, Routledge Harwood Contemporary Theatre Studies, 1999, p. 15-28.
67
“Singlish” is a colloquial English spoken in Singapore, creole based on a
mixing of grammar and vocabulary of English language with some of its
Malay,Tamil languages and Chinese dialects of Hokkien and Teochew and
Mandarin. For a historical survey see Anthea Fraser Gupta: The Step-tongue:
Children's English in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1994.
68
Henri Bergson: Laughter : an essay on the meaning of the comic, translated
from the French by Cloudesley Bereton and Fred Rothwell.Kobenhavn :
Green Integer, 1998.
69
Freud saw a relationship between psychological repression and horror
fiction albeit not repression based on social pressures of ideology and state
structures. Sigmund Freud, (1919), The Uncanny, The Penguin Freud Library,
vol. 14, Art and Literature, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990, p. 339-76.
Henry James’s famous ghost story “The Turn of a Screw” had been read as a
story of sexual repression. See Wilfred L Guerin, Jeanne C Reesman, Earle G
Labor, John R Willingham, Lee Morgan (authors): A Handbook of Critical
Approaches to Literature, Oxford University Press US, 2005, p. 144-146.
Bradley examines how horror fiction genre also articulates our repressions via
altered images of the body and self. Linda Bradley: Writing Horror and the
Body, Greenwood Press, 1996.
For a reading of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” as literature of repressed fear
see Franco Moretti: Dialectic of Fear, New Left Review 136 (Nov.-Dec.), p.67-
85, 1982.
70
For readings of Jackson Pollock as performativity see: Amelia Jones: Body
Art/ Performing the Subject. University of Minnesota Press 1998, p. 55-57;
also Schimmel, Paul: Leap into the Void: Performance and the Object, in:
Schimmel, Paul(ed.): Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object,
1949-1979, Thames and Hudson, Los Angeles, 1998, p.17-120.
For an ontological interpretation of art as performance see: Davies, David. Art
as Performance. Malden, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell Press, 2004.
71
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, Basic
Books New York, 1973, 2000.
72
Marvin A. Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction, 1999, Routledge.
73
Paul Schimmel, Kristine Stiles, Russell Ferguson editors: Out of Actions:
Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of
 60

Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

74
For context of the work, see David Medalla in conversation with Gavin
Jantjes in Gavin Jantjes, (ed.) in association with Rohini Malik, Steve Bury,
and Gilane Tawadros, A Fruitful Incoherence: Dialogues with Artists on
Internationalism. London: Institute of international Visual Arts, 1998, p.94-109.
75
Alexandra Munroe: Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, Harry
N Abrams; NY 1994.
76
Helena Konterova,, The Wound as Sign: An Encounter with Gina Pane,
Flash Art (Milan) , 92-93, (October- November 1979), p. 36-37. Discussion on
the modern object and body’s transformation into the postmodern sign: Jon
Erickson: Fate of the Object: From Modern Object to Postmodern Sign in
Performance, Art, and Poetry, University of Michigan Press, 1995.
77
Allan Kaprow, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, ed. Jeff Kelley,
University of California Press, Los Angeles and Berkeley 1993.
78
Antonin Artaud, The theatre and its double, Tr. Victor Corti, Calder, London,
1970.
79
Peter Bürger's 1974 classic text, Theory of the Avant-Garde, responded to
Renato Poggioli's work of the same title. He found Poggioli excessively
optimistic of conjunctions between political and aesthetic avant-garde
movements and distinguishes quite sharply between modernism’s self-
protective gesture, and what he terms the historical or revolutionary avant-
garde. Peter Bürger: Theory of the Avant-Garde, Tr, Michael Shaw University
of Minnesota Press, 1984. Murphy responded to critics of post-modernism’s
lack of direct political and ideological engagement, re-linking life and art:
Richard Murphy, Theorising the Avant-Garde: Modernism, Expressionism,
and the Problem of Postmodernity, , Cambridge University Press, 1999.
80
Jacques Derrida, Eric Prenowitz (Translator) Archive Fever: A Freudian
Impression, University Of Chicago Press 1998.
81
Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (1920) W. W. Norton &
Company, 1990.
82
Lucy Lippard,: Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966
to 1972 (NY: Praeger, 1973), vii
83
Their opinions based on personal conversations with the artists. For details
of their works see: Hugh Mulholland (ed) Knot Naught: Alastair MacLennan A
Retrospective, catalogue published by Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, 2003.
Idit Porat: Adina Bar-On, Performance Artist, Hakibbutz Hameuchad
Publishing House Ltd & Herzliya Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2001.
84
See 'Art and Money', in Robert Hughes Nothing if Not Critical: Selected
 61

Essays on Art and Artists, New York, Penguin,1990, p.387-404.

85
Mark Seltzer: Bodies and Machines, Routledge, NY, 1992, p 136.
86
For discussions concerning the art world see in Peter Lamarque and Stein
Haugom Olsen (ed.) : Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic
Tradition: An Anthology, Blackwell, 2004 Arthur Danto: The Art World, p.27-34
and George Dickie: The New Institutional Theory of Art, p.47-54.
87
Schneider’s book is pitched on feminist theory and performance art, which
artists on the margins can identify with. Rebecca Schneider, The explicit body
in performance, London, New York : Routledge, 1997, p 1-7.
88
Without doubt art and culture are complex and contested terms to define
depending on contexts, philosophical inclinations, which is beyond the scope
here. Michael Fried’s critique of art’s “degeneration as it approaches theater”
called for recuperation of effective evaluation: Michael Fried: Art and
Objecthood University of Chicago Press, 1998, Terry Eagleton’s Idea of
Culture, Blackwell, 2000 re-examines culture’s complex roots and argued to
retrieve its relation to nature towards a ‘human nature’ as opposed to the
postmodern non-naturalistic perspectives. Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial
perspectives appealed for tolerance and asserts the minority’s rights to
narrate and be represented in an international platform: Bhabha, Homi K. The
Location of Culture. London ; New York: Routledge, 1994; Introduction:
Narrating the Nation in Bhabha, Homi K., ed. Nation and Narration. London ;
New York: Routledge, 1990, p. 1-7
89
Lee Wen, ed.: The Future of Imagination 3, Catalog, Singapore, 2006.
90
Acciones en Ruta, Festival Internacional de Arte Acciones y Performance
Acciones en ruta. Intervencion en la Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico City, June
2003.
91
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, W. W. Norton & Company;
Rev/Expd edition 1996, p.142-172. Also see Neil Gerlach: The Genetic
Imaginary, University of Toronto, 2004, p. 36.
92
The body as a natural site for cultural representation as subject is reclaimed
from postmodernism’s contradictions in Terry Eagleton: The Illusions of
Postmodernism, Blackwell Publishers, 1996, p.70-77. For a thorough study of
the body as an axis of sociological analysis see Bryan S Turner: The Body
and Society: Explorations in Social Theory, Sage Publications, London
Thousand Oaks, Calif. 1984/1996. For a critique of narcissistic tendencies in
consumer culture see: Christopher Lasch: The Culture of Narcissism.
American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. W.W. Norton: London,
1991. On realism’s use of photographic document as decentred
representation of the idealized body and anti-repressive performance see:
John Roberts, The Art of Interruption, Manchester University Press, 1998, p.
172-183. Concerning repetition in performance and representation see
 62

Anthony Howell: Mimicry and Repetition in Analysis of Performance Art: A

Guide to its Theory and Practice, Routledge Harwood Contemporary Theatre
Studies, 1999, p. 29-44.
93
Yves Klein, Selected Writings, 1928-1962, Tate Gallery Publications, 1974.
For a postmodern, feminist critique: Jane Blocker : What the Body Cost:
Desire History and Performance, University of Minnesota, 2004, p.55-95.
94
Amelia Jones: Body Art/ Performing the Subject. University of Minnesota
Press 1998, p. 86-100.
95
The list includes: (1) provocative, unconventional, often assaultive
interventionist or performance stance; (2) opposition to culture’s
commodification of art; (3) a multimedia texture, drawing for its materials not
only upon the live bodies of the performers but upon media images, television
monitors, projected images, film poetry, autobiographical material, narrative,
dance, architecture, and music; (4) an interest in the principles of collage,
assemblage, and simultaneity; (5) an interest in using “found” as well as
“made” materials; (6) heavy reliance upon unusual juxtapositions of
incongruous, seemingly unrelated images; (7) an interest in the theories of
play that we discussed earlier [Huizinga and Caillois], including parody, joke,
breaking of rules, and whimsical or strident disruption of surfaces; and (8)
open-endedness or undecidability of form.” Carol Simpson Stern, Bruce
Henderson: Performance: Texts and Contexts, New York, Longman, 1993.
p.382-3. Quoted in Marvin A. Carlson : Performance: A Critical Introduction,
Routledge; 1999, p.80.
96
Amelia Jones, Body Art/ Performing the Subject. 1998 University of
Minnesota Press.
Jones, Amelia and Stephenson, Andrew (ed.) Performing the Body/
Performing the text, 1999, London, NY Routledge.
RoseLee Goldberg, “Be my mirror”, Don’t Call It Performance catalogue 2004
El Museo del Barrio New York.
97
“Open ends” – A documentation exhibition of performance art in Singapore,
2001, The Substation. Amanda Heng, Jason Lim and myself initiated the
project.
98
Russell, Storer, ed.: Situation: Collaborations, Collectives & Artist Networks
from Sydney, Singapore and Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney,
2005.
99
Ray Langenbach, The Performative Indoctrination Model: Colonialism
without tears, 3. Werkleitz Biennale “subfiction”, 1998
http://www.werkleitz.de/events/biennale1998/text/cat/langenbachE.html
100
Charles Lim and Woon Tien Wei, alpha 3.8: translocation, Emerging
Artists/ Emerging Medium_01, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
http://www.tsunamii.net/
 63

http://www.walkerart.org/archive/E/9D73994CD5CB9E846139.htm
101
Bernd Behr, Théâtre du Vide, 2001, Video, in . Guo Liang, And we took
ourselves out of our hands (In search of the Miraculous), exhibition text, P-10,
Singapore, October 2005
102
Koh Nguang How, Errata: Page 71, Plate 47. Image caption. Change Year:
1950 to Year: 1959; Reported September 2004, P-10, Singapore September
2005.
103
Lee Weng Choy, Anwar Sadali: "Lim Tzay Chuen Makes a Proposition",
Broadsheet, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2004, p.33-34. Lee Weng Choy: “ The Public
Remainder: Singapore Goes to Venice, Beinnale Comes to Singapore.”
Broadsheet, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2005, p.87-88.
104
Rusell Storer, Ho Tzu Nyen:4 X 4, Broadsheet BS Vol. 35 No1, 2006,
p.42,43
105
Dana Lam, Let's Chat - after Amanda Heng by exhibition at The Substation
Gallery, December 2005; a re-presentation of Amanda Heng's Let's Chat, first
presented at The Substation Gallery in October 1996 and subsequently, in
Gedung BPI-ITB, Bandung, Indonesia (1998), the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum
and Kawabata Shopping Mall (1999) and the Singapore Art Museum (2000).

Khairuddin Hori and Gene Sha Rudyn, Die Faustus Die!, The Substation
106

Façade, 2-4 November 2001. http://diefaustus.tripod.com/index.html

107
Juliana Yasin, et al, “Fusion Strength 2001”, Plastique Kinetic Worms,
Singapore, 26 April to 13 May 2001. http://jy1970.tripod.com/id1.html
108
Russell, Storer, ed.: Situation: Collaborations, Collectives & Artist
Networks from Sydney, Singapore and Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Sydney, 2005.
See archives in the Artists Village website: http://www.tav.org.sg/Archives.htm
Other offshoots art initiatives which facilitates network, research, residencies
and exhibitions started by former Artists Village members includes, Plastique
Kinetic Worms, an artists run spaces started by Yvonne Lee and Vincent
Leow, and p-10 started by Woon Tien Wei and Jennifer Teo. Jeremy Hiah and
Lina Adam started “Your Mother Gallery” as art space, “rock and roll bar” and
meeting place for artists in their living room.
PKW website: http://www.pkworms.org.sg/, p-10 website: http://www.p-10.org/
Your MOTHER Gallery website: http://www.geocities.com/yourmothergallery/
109
Lee Wen, ed.: The Future of Imagination 3, Catalog, Singapore, 2006
110
Richard Martel, ed. Art Action 1958-1998, Quebec, Inter/editeur, (Editions
intervention) 2001.
111
Websites: http://www.seedamm-kultur.ch/; http://www.perforum.ch/
 64

List of figures:

1. Tang Da Wu, They Poach the Rhino, Chop Off his Horn And Make this
Drink, Performance at National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore, 1989.
Photo: Koh Nguang How …………………………………………………….67

2. Tang Da Wu, Tiger’s Whip, Performance at People’s Park, Chinatown,

Singapore, 1991. Photo: Koh Nguang How. ………….……………………….68

3. Nauman, Bruce, Image from Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk),1968.

videotape, black and white, sound, 60 min. repeated continuously, from Bruce
Nauman Exhibition Catalogue, Distributed Art Publishers, in association with
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1994. p. 136. …………………………..…….69

4. Nauman, Bruce, Performance Corridor, 1969 from Bruce Nauman

Exhibition Catalogue, Distributed Art Publishers, in association with Walker
Art Center, Minneapolis, 1992. p. 27. Photo by Peter Moore..……………….70

5. Tehching Hsieh: One Year Performance-Art Documents, 1978-1999 (2000)

DVD-ROM ………………………………………………………………………....71

6. Image of installation, Vito Acconci: Diary of a Body 1969-1973, Barbara

Gladstone Gallery, New York, 2004. Photo: Robin Holland.………………….72

7. Abramovic, Marina, The Lovers (Seated Figure) 1988;

Published in 1996 Color photograph with unique drawing on lower margin
framed: 28 3/4 x 27 inches, Sean Kelly Gallery website: http://www.skny.com/
Downloaded on 27 April 2006. …………………………………………………..73

8. Abramovic, Marina, Seven Easy Pieces, 2005, View of Abramovic

performing Valie Export’s Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York, November 11, 2005. Photo: Kathyrn Carr.
Artforum January 2006, pg.55……………………………………………..…….74

9. MTTA (M. River & T.Whid Art Associates), 1 YEAR PERFORMANCE

VIDEO (aka samHsiehUpdate) 2004
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/1year/performancevideo.php………….…75

10. Newman, Hayley, Meditation on Gender Difference, 1996, Lexham

Gardens, London. Photo: Christina Lamb, Color C-Type print 40 X 26.7 cm.
Newman, Hayley, Aaron Williamson, “Hayley Newman Performancemania”,
Matt’s Gallery, 2001. pg. 49..………..…………….………………………….….76
 65

11. S. Chandrasekaran, Kala Chakra (Wheel of Time), Performance, 1991,

http://scholars.nus.edu/landow/post/singapore/arts/mixed/chandrasekaran/ind
ex.html………………………………………………………………………………77

12. Zhang Huan, 12 Square Meters, Performance, 1994, Beijing China,

©Zhang Huan. Made Possible by Zhang Huan Studio.
http://www.zhanghuan.com/12SquareMeters.htm……….…………………….78

13. Lee Wen, Journey of a yellow man, Performance, 1992, London, England.
Photo: Rosa Sanchez…………………………………………………….……….79

14. Lee Wen, Neo-Baba, Installation and Performance, 1995, Tokyo, Japan
Photo: Satoko Sukenari……………………………………………..…………….80

15. Lee Wen, Ghosts Stories, Performance, 1995, Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Raiji
Kuroda……………………………………………………..………………………..81

16. David Medalla, A Stitch in Time, 1968-72, Arts Council Collection,

Hayward Gallery, London, from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the
Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese
Edition 1999, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.214………………...….82

17. Genpei Akasegawa, One Thousand Yen Note Trial – Catalogue of Seized
Works, 1967, Courtesy of Nagoya City Museum, from Out of Actions:
Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tokyo………………………………………………………….83

18. Gina Pane, Les Corps Presenti, Photodocumentation of performance (23

pieces), 1975, Collection Anne Marchand, Museum moderner Kunst Stifung
Ludwig, Vienna, from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object,
1949-1979 by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition
1999, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo…………………………………….84

19. Lee Wen, Self-Portrait, Self-portrait Performativ, langaut, Golberode,

Dresden, Germany, October 2005, Photo, Kai Lam……………………………85

20. Lee Wen, Anthropometry Revision 1,

Digital Lamda Print, 2006, 101.6 cm X 142.24 cm…………………...………...86

21. Lee Wen, Anthropometry Revision 2, Digital Lamda Print, 2006

Tryptich, 101.6cm X 101.6 cm each..………………….……………...….…...87

22. Lee Wen, Stills from Anthropometry Revision 3, DVD 32 secs video loop.,
NTSC, 2006 ..………………………………………………………………………88

23. Yves Klein, Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 160), 1960, Yves Klein Archives,
Paris. from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979
by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.34………………………………….….89
 66

24. Yves Klein, Rehearsal. Practice canvas later cut out into several paintings,
1960 from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979
by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.34…..…………………………………89

25. Yves Klein, “The Living Paintbrushes”, 5 June 1960, from Out of Actions:
Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999 Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.32…………………….……………………………..90

26. Yves Klein, Anthropometries et Symphonie Monoton, exhibition at the

Galerie Internationale d’art competition,Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, 9 March
1960 from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979
by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.200…………………………………….90
 67

Figure.1
Tang Da Wu, They Poach the Rhino, Chop Off his Horn And Make this
Drink, Performance at National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore, 1989.
Photography by Koh Nguang How.
 68

Figure.2

Tang Da Wu, Tiger’s Whip, Performance at People’s Park, Chinatown,

Singapore, 1991. Photography by Koh Nguang How.
 69

Figure 3. Nauman, Bruce, Image from Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk),

videotape, black and white, sound, 60 min. repeated continuously, from Bruce

Nauman Exhibition Catalogue, Distributed Art Publishers, in association with

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1994. p. 136.

 70

Figure 4. Nauman, Bruce, Performance Corridor, 1968-70 Solomon

R.Guggenheim Museum, New York. From Out of Actions: Between

Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of Contemporary Art,

Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

p.90.
 71

Figure. 5, Tehching Hsieh: One Year Performance-Art Documents, 1978-1999

(2000) DVD-ROM
 72

Figure 6. Image of installation, Vito Acconci: Diary of a Body 1969-1973,

Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, 2004. Photo: Robin Holland.

 73

Figure. 7. Abramovic, Marina, The Lovers (Seated Figure) 1988;

Published in 1996 Color photograph with unique drawing on lower margin

framed: 28 3/4 x 27 inches

Sean Kelly Gallery website: http://www.skny.com/ downloaded on April 27,

2006
 74

Figure 8. Abramovic, Marina, Seven Easy Pieces, 2005, View of Abramovic

performing Valie Export’s Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969, Solomon R.

Guggenheim Museum, New York, November 11, 2005. Photo: Kathyrn Carr.

Artforum January 2006, pg. 55.

 75

Figure 9. MTTA (M. River & T.Whid Art Associates), 1 YEAR

PERFORMANCE VIDEO (aka samHsiehUpdate) 2004

http://www.turbulence.org/Works/1year/performancevideo.php

downloaded on June 8, 2006

 76

Figure. 10. Newman, Hayley, Meditation on Gender Difference, 1996, Lexham

Gardens, London. Photo: Christina Lamb, Color C-Type print 40 X 26.7 cm.

Newman, Hayley, Aaron Williamson, “Hayley Newman Performancemania”,

Matt’s Gallery, 2001. pg. 49.

 77

Figure 11.

S. Chandrasekaran, Kala Chakra (Wheel of Time), Performance, 1991,

http://scholars.nus.edu/landow/post/singapore/arts/mixed/chandrasekaran/ind

ex.html
 78

Figure 12.

Zhang Huan, 12 Square Meters, Performance, 1994, Beijing China,

©Zhang Huan. Made Possible by Zhang Huan Studio.

http://www.zhanghuan.com/12SquareMeters.htm
 79

Figure 13.

Lee Wen, Journey of a yellow man, Performance, 1992, London, England,

 80

Figure 14. Lee Wen, Neo-Baba, Installation and Performance, 1995, Tokyo,

Japan.
 81

Figure 15. Lee Wen, Ghosts Stories, Performance, 1995, Tokyo, Japan.
 82

Figure 16.

David Medalla, A Stitch in Time, 1968-72, Arts Council Collection, Hayward

Gallery, London, from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object,

1949-1979 by Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition

1999, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.214.

 83

Figure 17.

Genpei Akasegawa, One Thousand Yen Note Trial – Catalogue of Seized

Works, 1967, Courtesy of Nagoya City Museum, from Out of Actions:

Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of

Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999, Museum of

Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.150

 84

Figure 18. Gina Pane, Les Corps Presenti, Photodocumentation of

performance (top, detail) (bottom, 23 pieces), 1975, Collection Anne
Marchand, Museum moderner Kunst Stifung Ludwig, Vienna, from Out of
Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. p.99.
 85

Figure 19.

Lee Wen, Self-Portrait, Self-portrait Performativ, langaut,

Golberode, Dresden, Germany, October 2005.

 86

Figure. 20

Lee Wen, Anthropometry Revision 1,

Digital Lamda Print , 2006, 101.6 cm X 142.24 cm

Figure. 21.

Lee Wen, Anthropometry Revision 2,Tryptich,

Digital Lamda Print , 2006, 101.6 cm X 101.6 cm

87
 88

Figure 22.
Lee Wen, Stills from Anthropometry Revision 3, DVD 32 secs video loop.,
NTSC, 2006
 89

Figure.23
Yves Klein, Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 160), 1960
Yves Klein Archives, Paris.
from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.34.

Figure 24.
Yves Klein, Rehearsal. Practice canvas later cut out into several
paintings, 1960
from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.34.
 90

Figure.25
Yves Klein, “The Living Paintbrushes”, 5 June 1960.
from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.32.

Figure.26
Yves Klein, Anthropometries et Symphonie Monoton, 9 March 1960
from Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Japanese Edition 1999
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo p.200.
 91

Bibliography

Balibar, Etienne & Wallerstein, Immanuel: Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous

Identities, Verso, 1991.

Bergson, Henri : Laughter : an essay on the meaning of the comic, translated

from the French by Cloudesley Bereton and Fred Rothwell.Kobenhavn :
Green Integer, 1998.

Bhabha, Homi K.: The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994;

Bhabha, Homi K.: Introduction: Narrating the Nation in Bhabha, Homi K., ed.
Nation and Narration. London; New York: Routledge, 1990, p. 1-7

Blocker, Jane : What the Body Cost: Desire History and Performance,
University of Minnesota Press, 2004

Bradley, Linda: Writing Horror and the Body, Greenwood Press, 1996.

Buchloh, Benjamin H.D.: Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: Essays on

European and American Art from 1955 to 1975. MIT Press, 2001.

Bürger, Peter, Translated by Michael Shaw : Theory of the Avant-Garde,

University of Minnesota Press, 1984

Buren, Daniel : “Function of the Studio” [1971], October 10 (Fall 1979): 51-58.

Cage, John: Silence, lectures and writings, Wesleyan University Press; 1st
edition 1961.

Carlson, Marvin A.: Performance: A Critical Introduction, Routledge; 1999.

Campbell, Joseph: Primitive Mythology, Occidental Mythology, Oriental

Mythology, Creative Mythology (Masks of God) Pengiun, (re-issued 1991)
Clark, J., Modern Asian Art, Sydney, Fine Arts Press, 1998.

Crimp, Douglas: On The Museum's Ruins, MIT Press, Cambridge,

Mass.,1993.

Davies, David. Art as Performance. Malden, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell

Press, 2004.

Derrida, Jacques, Eric Prenowitz (Translator) Archive Fever : A Freudian

Impression, University Of Chicago Press, 1998.

Dziewior, Yilmaz. “Zhang Huan” Kunstverein in Hamburg, Published by Hatje

Cantz 2003.

Eagleton, Terry: The Illusions of Postmodernism, Blackwell Publishers, 1996

 92

Eagleton, Terry: Idea of Culture, Blackwell Publishers, 2000

Erikson, Erik: Identity: Youth and Crisis, Faber & Faber,1968.

Erickson, Jon: Fate of the Object: From Modern Object to Postmodern Sign in
Performance, Art, and Poetry, University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Foucault, Michel: History of Sexuality: Volume 1, trans. Robert Hurley, New

York, 1980.

Freud, Sigmund, (1919), The Uncanny, The Penguin Freud Library, vol. 14,
Art and Literature, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990, 339-76

Freud, Sigmund : Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (1920) W. W. Norton &

Company, 1990.

Gablik, Suzi : Has Modernism Failed? New York: Thames & Hudson, [1984]
1986.

Garoian, Charles R.: Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics. Albany:

State University of New York Press, 1999.

Gerlach, Neil : The Genetic Imaginary, University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Goldberg, Roselee : Performance Art: from futurism to the present,

1979/2000, Thames & Hudson.

Goldberg RoseLee; “Be my mirror”, Don’t Call It Performance catalogue El

Museo del Barrio New York 2004.

Goffman, Erving: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Penguin, 1959.

Golinske, Hans Gunter, The Body as Intercultural Medium of Communication

On the Spiritual Background to the Art of Zhang Huan, Zhang Huan,
Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hatje Cantz 2003.

Guo Liang, And we took ourselves out of our hands (In search of the
Miraculous), exhibition text, P-10, Singapore, October 2005

Gould, Stephen Jay: The Mismeasure of Man, W. W. Norton & Company;

Rev/Expd edition 1996

Guerin, Wilfred L., Jeanne C Reesman, Earle G Labor, John R Willingham,

Lee Morgan (authors) : A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature,
Oxford University Press US, 2005

Gupta, Anthea Fraser : The Step-tongue: Children's English in Singapore.

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1994.
 93

Hall, Stuart: Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In Identity: Community, Culture,

Difference. J. Rutherford, ed. Pp. 222-237. London: Lawrence and
Wishart.1990.

Herold, Erich: The World of masks, London, Hamlyn, 1992.

Ho Tzu Nyen, Chapter Four: Four Suits – Of Memes and Men, The Substation
Magazine, (internet magazine) posted : 16 September 2005.
http://www.substation.org/magazine/issue02/ft_4suits.html

Howell, Anthony: Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and

Practice, Routledge Harwood Contemporary Theatre Studies, 1999.

Hughes, Robert: Nothing if Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists,
New York, Penguin,1990/1992.

Johnston, Jill, Tehching Hsieh: Art's Willing Captive, Art in America, Sept,
2001.

Jalving, Camilla: Inventing reality. On truth and lies in the work of Hayley
Newman, in Rune Gade, Anne Jerslev (ed.), Performative Realism:
Interdisciplinary Studies in Art And Media, Museum Tusculanum 2005.

Jantjes, Gavin (ed.) in association with Rohini Malik, Steve Bury, and Gilane
Tawadros, A Fruitful Incoherence: Dialogues with Artists on Internationalism.
London: Institute of international Visual Arts, 1998.

Jenkins, Richard: Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations, Sage

Publications, 1997.

Jones, Amelia: "Presence" in absentia: experiencing performance as

documentation, Art Journal Winter 1997.

Jones, Amelia: Body Art/ Performing the Subject. University of Minnesota

Press 1998.

Jones, Amelia and Stephenson, Andrew (ed.) Performing the Body/

Performing the text London, NY Routledge, 1999.

Kaprow, Allan: Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, ed. Jeff Kelley,
University of California Press, Los Angeles and Berkeley 1993.

Kaye, Nick, Site-Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation.

London: Routledge.

Klein, Yves: Selected Writings, 1928-1962, Tate Gallery Publications, 1974.

Konterova, Helena, The Wound as Sign: An Encounter with Gina Pane, Flash
Art no. 92-93, (October- November 1979), p. 36-37.
 94

Krauss Rosalind, E. : The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist

Myths, MIT press 1986.

Kwok Kian Chow, Channels and Confluences – A History of Singapore Art;

Singapore Art Museum, 1996.

Kwon, M: "One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity" in Suderberg,

E. (ed) Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, pp 38-63.
Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Lamarque, Peter, Stein Haugom Olsen (ed.) : Aesthetics and the Philosophy
of Art: The Analytic Tradition: An Anthology, Blackwell, 2004.

Langenbach, Ray, “Performing the Singapore State 1988 – 1995”, PhD thesis,
Center for Cultural Research, University of Sydney. August 2003,
http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20041027.174118/

Lasch, Christopher: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of

Diminishing Expectations. W.W. Norton: London, 1991.

Lee Wen, A Waking Dream, drawings and poetry, 1981, Select Books,
Singapore

Lee Wen, ed.: The Future of Imagination 3, Catalog, Singapore, 2006

Lee Weng Choy, “Chronology of a Controversy”, and “A Review of Josef Ng’s

Performance”, in Looking at Culture. Edited by S.K. Sanjay Krishnan, Lee
Weng Choy, Leon Perera and Jimmy Yap. Singapore; published by the
editors. 1996

Lee Weng Choy: Catalogue Essay, The Third Asia Pacific Triennale
Catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Australia. 1999, p.130.

Lee Weng Choy, Anwar Sadali: "Lim Tzay Chuen Makes a Proposition",
Broadsheet, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2004, p.33-34.

Lippard, Lucy : Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to
1972 (NY: Praeger, 1973)

Martel, Richard ed. Art Action 1958-1998, Quebec, Inter/editeur, (Editions

intervention) 2001.

Mbembe, Achille: On the Postcolony, Berkeley, University of California Press,

2001.

McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Gingko

Press,1964.

Moretti, Franco: Dialectic of Fear, New Left Review 136 (Nov.-Dec.), p.67-85,
1982.
 95

Mulholland, Hugh (ed): Knot Naught: Alastair MacLennan A Retrospective,

catalogue, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, 2003.

Munroe Alexandra: Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky, Harry
N Abrams; NY 1994.

Murphy, Richard: Theorising the Avant-Garde: Modernism, Expressionism,

and the Problem of Postmodernity , Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Naumann, Francis M.: Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction , New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1999.

Newman, Hayley, Aaron Williamson, “Hayley Newman Performancemania”,

Matt’s Gallery, 2001.

Pan, Lynn: Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora,
Boston, Little, Brown, 1990

Phelan, Peggy: Unmarked, 1993, London, Routledge.

Peterson, William, Theater and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary

Singapore 2001, USA, Wesleyan University Press.

Porat, Idit: Adina Bar-On, Performance Artist, Hakibbutz Hameuchad

Publishing House Ltd & Herzliya Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2001.

Poshyananda Apinan: Modern Art in Thailand: nineteenth and twentieth

Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1992.

Qian Zhijian, Performing bodies: Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, and performance

art in China – Interview, Art Journal, Volume: 58. Issue: 2. Summer 1999,
New York.

Richter, Hans: Dada: Art and Anti-Art , Thames & Hudson, reprinted 1997.

Roberts, John: The Art of Interruption, Manchester University Press, 1998.

Roth, Moira : Difference/Indifference: Musings on Postmodernism, Marcel

Duchamp and John Cage, Newark, G+B Arts International, 1998.

Sabapathy, T. K.; Sculpture in Singapore. Exhibition Catalogue Singapore:

National Museum Art Gallery. 1991.

Sabapathy, T. K, Editor. Trimurti And Ten Years After. Exhibition Catalogue.

Singapore: National Heritage Board / Singapore Art Museum. 1998.

Sabapathy T.K., Tan Teng Kee: An Overview, 1958-2000, Exhibition

Catalogue, Singapore: Sculpture Square, 2001.
 96

Said, Edward W. : Orientalism New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.

Said, Edward W. : Culture and Imperialism, New York, Vintage; Reprint

edition, 1994.

Saltz, Jerry. “Body Heat.” The Village Voice. April 23, 2004.

Schrag Carl. O. – The Self after Postmodernity, Yale University Press, 1997.

Schimmel, Paul, Kristine Stiles, Russell Ferguson editors: Out of Actions:

Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979 by Museum of
Contemporary Art Los Angeles, California.

Seltzer, Mark: Bodies and Machines, Routledge, NY, 1992.

Sennett, Richard: The Body and the City in Western Civilisation - Faber ,1994.

Shaviro, Steven, Performing Life: The Work of Tehching Hsieh, Tehching

Hsieh, One Year Performance Art Documents 1978-1999 DVD ROM,
http://www.one-year-performance.com/

Smedley, Audrey : "Science and the Idea of Race," in, Race and Intelligence:
Separating Science from Myth, edited by Jefferson M. Fish London: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 2002.

Schneider, Rebecca :The explicit body in performance, London ; New York :

Routledge, 1997

Simon, Joan, ed. Bruce Nauman Exhibition Catalogue and Catalogue

Raisonne New York: Distributed Art Publishers, in association with Walker Art
Center, Minneapolis, 1994. Texts by Neal Benezra, Kathy Halbreich, Paul
Schimmel, and Robert Storr.

Stern, Carol Simpson and Bruce Henderson: Performance: Texts and

Contexts, New York, Longman, 1993.

Stiles, Kristine and Peter Selz (ed) : Theories and Documents of

Contemporary Art, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Storer, Russell, ed.: Situation: Collaborations, Collectives & Artist Networks

from Sydney, Singapore and Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney,
2005.

Storer, Russell : Ho Tzu Nyen: 4X4, Broadsheet BS Vol. 35 No1, 2006,

p.42,43

Swinson, James: Lee Wen Connection / Location, Third Text/ no.45 Winter,
London 1998-99 - pp.95-97
 97

Taylor, Mark C. Frazer Ward, Jennifer Bloomer : Vito Acconci London :

Phaidon, 2002.

Trocki, Carl A. : Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control,

2005, United Kingdom, Routledge.

Turner, Bryan S.: The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory, Sage
Publications, London Thousand Oaks, Calif. 1984/1996.

Turner, Victor: The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure, Chicago 1969

Vinograd, Richard Ellism, Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-

1900, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992.

Wart, Tracey (ed.) survey by Amelia Jones, The artist’s body, London
Phaidon 2000.

Wee Wan-Ling, C. J.: “Capitalism and Ethnicity: Creating “Local” Culture in

Singapore”, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (April 2000): 129-43.

Wee Wan-Ling, C. J.: Creating High Culture in the Globalized "Cultural

Desert" of Singapore, TDR: The Drama Review - Volume 47, Number 4 (T
180), Winter 2003, pp. 84-97.

Wee Wan-Ling, C. J.: Local Cultures and the "New Asia": The State, Culture,
and Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
Singapore 2002.

Withers, Rachel, “Short History of Performance-Part One”, ArtForum

magazine Spring 2002.

WU Hung, Katherine R. TSIANG, editors; Body and Face in Chinese Visual

Culture, Harvard University Press, 2004

Zakaria, Fareed : A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew, Foreign Affairs 73 (no.
2, March-April 1994): p.109-127.

Other Catalogues/publications

“Asian Artist Today -Fukuoka Annual V: Tang Da Wu Exhibition Catalogue",

Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan 1991.

“Icons”, works by S.Chandrasekaran, 11-18 January 1996, exhibition

catalogue, The Gallery Fort Canning Centre.

“Open Ends” – A documentation exhibition of performance art in Singapore,

2001, The Substation