LEE WEN
  • ABOUT
    • Curricullum Vitae/bio
    • Downloads
    • Links
    • Videos, Films, Moving Images
    • Bibliography
    • Interviews >
      • Huang Zhiming/Open Ends
      • Woon Tien Wei/Performance Researchwa
      • Iola Lenzi/Shifts
      • "Modern Art Reveries" Cheah Ui-Hoon
      • Artlink/Interview2014
      • BLOC TALK >
        • Beauty Is A Battle
  • Collectives
    • Artists Village/FOI/RITES
    • Independent Archive
    • Black Market International
    • Eternal Network international >
      • Call Of The Red
      • We Here Spend Time : Jason Wee & Lee Wen
      • A Clockwork Pisang
  • IDENTITY
    • Journey Artist's Statement >
      • "We are 'perfurbing' here" March 2008
      • "Will the real Singapore art please stand up?" Dec.1999
      • "If you see a performance artist, kill him", 1997
      • Lexicon Of Dissent
      • Sustaining Alterity in the Times of R(v)apid Changes.
      • How To Change The World Without Really Trying
      • Open Letter to the Nation of Josef Ng's
      • Letter to Alan Oei
      • Return to Daydreams >
        • Iola Lenzi/Shifts
    • Journey Of A Yellow Man >
      • Journey of a yellow man No.2
      • Journey of a yellow man No.3
      • Journey of a yellow man No.4
      • Journey of a Yellow Man No.5: Index to Freedom
      • Journey of a yellow man no.6
      • JYM No.9: Trees Resurrection
      • Journey No.11: multi-culturalism
      • Journey No.15: Touching China
    • More China Than You[我比你中国] >
      • More China, Manchester
      • More China, Rome
      • More China, Tokyo
      • More China, Cheng Du
      • More China, Suzhou
    • Ghosts Stories >
      • Ghosts Stories, Tokyo
      • Ghosts Stories, Kwang Ju
      • Ghosts Stories, Mexico
    • Stagger Lee >
      • Stagger Lee
    • Re-imagined Self >
      • Mirrors In The Dark
      • Picasso & Me
  • Interactive Art
    • Ping-Pong Go Round
    • World Class Society
    • AIM: Raffles
    • Chewing Gum Paintings
    • Give Peace A Chance Redux
    • Art vs. Art
    • Freedom, Service, Hope >
      • Freedom, Service, Hope #1
  • Revisits
    • Give Peace A Chance Redux
    • Anthropometries
    • Zen For Clay
    • Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps)
    • COSMOS: Currencies OfferingS Move Over Sky
  • Contexts & forms
    • Drawings (as Renewal) >
      • Drawings (as Endgame)
      • Songs Unsung
      • Portraits of Remarkable People and Tree
    • Strange Fruit
    • Unframed7
    • Nychthemer 1 & 2
    • Lifeboat
    • Dream Boat
    • One Stone, Three Forms
    • Paintings
  • Institutional Critique
    • I Am Not A Performance Artist >
      • I Am Not A Performance Artist/This Is Not A Work Of Art
    • Is Art Necessary? >
      • Is Art Necessary?
    • Anyhow Blues Project >
      • Diary of A Dead Artist >
        • Diary of A Dead Artist #1, Xi-An, China
        • Diary of A Dead Artist #2, Staglinec, Koprivnica, Croatia
    • Dog Man Domesticate
    • "Room For Nothing To Do" >
      • "Room For Nothing To Do #1
      • "Room For Nothing To Do #2"
      • COSMOS: Currencies OfferingS Move Over Sky
  • Texts
    • Lucy Davis/“Insects as Others”
    • Adele Tan/Art & the Iterative
    • Lee Weng Choy/Critical Response
    • Mitsu Salmon/Daydreamer
    • "Inside an Outsider's Dream" Huang LiJie
    • "A Performative State of Indefinite Duration" Bruce Quek
    • Chinese texts: 中文 >
      • Chng Seok Tin/黄人之旅--李文与行为艺术
      • 已死艺术家的日记 1 – 070513 : 英汉翻译:朱爱伦
Picture
photograph and text, 1998
Digital Photograph and text
210 x 148 mm (8.3 x 5.8 in) and 297 x 210 mm (11.7 x 8.3 in)
"Bicara-Dialogue-Zaghata: Identity and anonymity",
Singapore Arts Festival, 1998
Caldwell House Gallery, Singapore

A photograph taken on a visit to the wax museum manipulated on the computer was used to spin an association with Picasso. It was a follow-up to one of the paintings in the series of four works, "Paintings of desire" showing a self portrait being crossed out, done in likeness of Picasso's. Below each painting is a small painting appended to them like explanatory signs or information for the larger works.  It's a tongue in cheek poke at the common notion that Singapore's art is derivative of other histories. By adding the reference to Warhol it raises the comparison to that of a post-modern tendency of how we all harbor aspirations to masters of a by-gone age, that our trajectory is of our present age that can only take us away from the forms they found and established. The irony is how in aspiring to be like them one also participate in the iconoclastic destruction of their status quo in order to represent the changes that brought us to where we are to. The sepia tone giving a nostalgic effect to help soften the blow in delivering a post-colonial take at the same time submitting to an sub-altern's dream of being in friendly company with the masters and yet being disadvantaged.


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  • ABOUT
    • Curricullum Vitae/bio
    • Downloads
    • Links
    • Videos, Films, Moving Images
    • Bibliography
    • Interviews >
      • Huang Zhiming/Open Ends
      • Woon Tien Wei/Performance Researchwa
      • Iola Lenzi/Shifts
      • "Modern Art Reveries" Cheah Ui-Hoon
      • Artlink/Interview2014
      • BLOC TALK >
        • Beauty Is A Battle
  • Collectives
    • Artists Village/FOI/RITES
    • Independent Archive
    • Black Market International
    • Eternal Network international >
      • Call Of The Red
      • We Here Spend Time : Jason Wee & Lee Wen
      • A Clockwork Pisang
  • IDENTITY
    • Journey Artist's Statement >
      • "We are 'perfurbing' here" March 2008
      • "Will the real Singapore art please stand up?" Dec.1999
      • "If you see a performance artist, kill him", 1997
      • Lexicon Of Dissent
      • Sustaining Alterity in the Times of R(v)apid Changes.
      • How To Change The World Without Really Trying
      • Open Letter to the Nation of Josef Ng's
      • Letter to Alan Oei
      • Return to Daydreams >
        • Iola Lenzi/Shifts
    • Journey Of A Yellow Man >
      • Journey of a yellow man No.2
      • Journey of a yellow man No.3
      • Journey of a yellow man No.4
      • Journey of a Yellow Man No.5: Index to Freedom
      • Journey of a yellow man no.6
      • JYM No.9: Trees Resurrection
      • Journey No.11: multi-culturalism
      • Journey No.15: Touching China
    • More China Than You[我比你中国] >
      • More China, Manchester
      • More China, Rome
      • More China, Tokyo
      • More China, Cheng Du
      • More China, Suzhou
    • Ghosts Stories >
      • Ghosts Stories, Tokyo
      • Ghosts Stories, Kwang Ju
      • Ghosts Stories, Mexico
    • Stagger Lee >
      • Stagger Lee
    • Re-imagined Self >
      • Mirrors In The Dark
      • Picasso & Me
  • Interactive Art
    • Ping-Pong Go Round
    • World Class Society
    • AIM: Raffles
    • Chewing Gum Paintings
    • Give Peace A Chance Redux
    • Art vs. Art
    • Freedom, Service, Hope >
      • Freedom, Service, Hope #1
  • Revisits
    • Give Peace A Chance Redux
    • Anthropometries
    • Zen For Clay
    • Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps)
    • COSMOS: Currencies OfferingS Move Over Sky
  • Contexts & forms
    • Drawings (as Renewal) >
      • Drawings (as Endgame)
      • Songs Unsung
      • Portraits of Remarkable People and Tree
    • Strange Fruit
    • Unframed7
    • Nychthemer 1 & 2
    • Lifeboat
    • Dream Boat
    • One Stone, Three Forms
    • Paintings
  • Institutional Critique
    • I Am Not A Performance Artist >
      • I Am Not A Performance Artist/This Is Not A Work Of Art
    • Is Art Necessary? >
      • Is Art Necessary?
    • Anyhow Blues Project >
      • Diary of A Dead Artist >
        • Diary of A Dead Artist #1, Xi-An, China
        • Diary of A Dead Artist #2, Staglinec, Koprivnica, Croatia
    • Dog Man Domesticate
    • "Room For Nothing To Do" >
      • "Room For Nothing To Do #1
      • "Room For Nothing To Do #2"
      • COSMOS: Currencies OfferingS Move Over Sky
  • Texts
    • Lucy Davis/“Insects as Others”
    • Adele Tan/Art & the Iterative
    • Lee Weng Choy/Critical Response
    • Mitsu Salmon/Daydreamer
    • "Inside an Outsider's Dream" Huang LiJie
    • "A Performative State of Indefinite Duration" Bruce Quek
    • Chinese texts: 中文 >
      • Chng Seok Tin/黄人之旅--李文与行为艺术
      • 已死艺术家的日记 1 – 070513 : 英汉翻译:朱爱伦