Lee Weng Choy/3rd Apt - lee wen 李文
Artist essay on Lee Wen
By Lee Weng Choy
The 3rd Asia Pacific Triennale
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Australia. 1999
Perhaps it is no extraordinary thing to say: that Lee Wen's art has taken him around the world. In addition to the country of his birth, Singapore, he has performed and exhibited in Japan -- where he now spends much of his time -- as well as in Thailand, Britain, India, Poland, Germany, Korea, Canada, Pakistan, Mexico and Cuba. Nonetheless, the fact that he is a traveler bears pointing out. Especially since he has become well known for his "Journey of a Yellow Man" series of performances. With such titles, however, too often the attention is on terms like 'yellow man', and at the expense of those like 'journey'. But in Lee Wen's work, it is precisely through the process of 'journeying' that 'identity' is constructed and deconstructed.
In one of the earlier performances, "Journey of a Yellow Man No. 3: Desire" (July 1993), Lee Wen -- covered entirely in yellow paint -- 'worked' in The Substation arts center gallery for five days from 11 am to 7pm. The 'work' involved contemplating on and manipulating long red chains and several kilos of white rice. The effect of all this contemplating and handling was to evoke 'rice' and 'chains' as objects of desire. At 7pm he would proceed to the Substation garden and do an improvisation based on his daily 'work'.
While Lee Wen's iconic imagery may seem rather obvious, what he articulates is a complex and multi-layered negotiation of self-representation. As a Chinese, the all-over yellow paint exaggerates his own ethnicity, but rather than suggesting a straightforward embrace of Chinese-ness, his 'performance' of identity is ambiguous and playful. The chains suggest bondage, but also security. His performing/working with rice could also be seen as problematising the prevalent view in Singapore that what should come first are the practical needs of the people, such as feeding and providing jobs for them, and only then should Singaporeans worry about such things as 'democracy' and 'art'. Lee Wen's performances refuse these neat separations between art and life, the everyday and the extraordinary, freedom and necessity, and society and the individual.
Lee Wen typically develops his performances in series, examples of which include "Ghost Stories" (first performed February 1995) and "Neo-Baba"(first performed May 1995). Ghost story books are best sellers in Singapore. Their popularity suggests nostalgia for the irrational in this otherwise hyper-rationalized and ultra-managed nation-state. In "Ghost Stories", Lee Wen juxtaposes this return of the repressed irrational with another repression that pervades Singapore: the paranoia and self-censorship experienced by individuals in this society that many -- locals and non-locals alike -- feel is 'authoritarian'.
"Neo-Baba" is a pun on the radical anti-art movement, Dada, and 'Baba', a somewhat derogatory term for the minority Straits-born Chinese of Malaysia and Singapore. (Also known as Peranakan, Straits-born Chinese adopted Malay as their language and evolved their own distinct culture combining Chinese and Malay traditions.) Underlying Lee Wen's "Neo- Baba" performances are two other of his major preoccupations (besides 'identity'): the questioning of Singapore's relatively conservative mainstream assumptions about art, and the attempt to combine Southeast Asian contexts with international currents in contemporary art, such as performance and installation.
Lee Wen's performances take place in a variety of contexts: from the streets to more conventional galleries and museums. One consequence of this variety is that Lee Wen has to deliberate over how different cultures read his tropes differently. For instance, in India, "Yellow Man" has been read as a sadhu or shaman (holy man). Whereas in Thailand, interpretations have ranged from traditional references to religion and the monarchy, to modern 'dangers', such as the sex industry and its associated diseases. In other contexts, "Yellow Man" has taken on an extra-human, even extra-terrestrial dimension. In each case, Lee varies his sub-themes to push the performances beyond racial or ethnic signification.
In "Journey of a Yellow Man No. 11: Multiculturalism"(September 1997), Lee Wen again presented at The Substation, though this time as a panelist at a conference on "Multiculturalism in Singapore". Covered again in yellow paint, but fully-clothed this time -- usually as "Yellow Man" he wears only yellow briefs -- Lee Wen presented a paper which discussed, among other things, the prevailing conservatism in Singapore art. He was particularly critical of the Singapore Art '97 exhibition, which claimed to represent the gamut of contemporary Singapore art. Lee Wen argued that the exhibition over-represented certain forms, like scenic watercolors and Chinese painting and calligraphy, while under-representing installation and totally disregarding performance art.
Like many others at that Substation conference, Lee Wen advocated a multiculturalism that goes beyond the Singapore State’s essentialist CMIO -- Chinese, Malay, Indian, Other -- multiracialism. After his paper, Lee Wen did a performance: he formed the letters C, M, I and O out of rice, then obliterated them. He stripped to his yellow briefs, got into a small bathtub and washed his yellow color off. After putting on some clothes, he bottled the now yellowed bath water in several plastic containers. As he offered them to the audience to take home, he proclaimed: "Now I am a water colorist too!"
This simultaneous assertion and disavowal of an identity -- be it "Yellow Man" or 'water colorist' -- figures in another, more recent series of performances, "I am not a Performance Artist, This is not a work of Art" (first performed December 1997). It is a gesture that echoes some of the primeval concerns of performance art -- 'what is a work of art?', 'what separates art from ordinary objects and activities?' Yet Lee Wen's drawing attention to himself as a performance artist also speaks to a specifically Singaporean situation. Following a controversial performance by Josef Ng in 1994, the state initiated proscriptions against performance art in the country, claiming that the art form was by nature too transgressive. But the policing of the ban has been, as one might expect, inconsistent; moreover, it is ultimately untenable. If 'what is and what is not performance art?' cannot be resolved by artists themselves -- indeed, Lee Wen's point is to keep the question open -- how then can the state presume to have the answer?
In one of the earlier performances, "Journey of a Yellow Man No. 3: Desire" (July 1993), Lee Wen -- covered entirely in yellow paint -- 'worked' in The Substation arts center gallery for five days from 11 am to 7pm. The 'work' involved contemplating on and manipulating long red chains and several kilos of white rice. The effect of all this contemplating and handling was to evoke 'rice' and 'chains' as objects of desire. At 7pm he would proceed to the Substation garden and do an improvisation based on his daily 'work'.
While Lee Wen's iconic imagery may seem rather obvious, what he articulates is a complex and multi-layered negotiation of self-representation. As a Chinese, the all-over yellow paint exaggerates his own ethnicity, but rather than suggesting a straightforward embrace of Chinese-ness, his 'performance' of identity is ambiguous and playful. The chains suggest bondage, but also security. His performing/working with rice could also be seen as problematising the prevalent view in Singapore that what should come first are the practical needs of the people, such as feeding and providing jobs for them, and only then should Singaporeans worry about such things as 'democracy' and 'art'. Lee Wen's performances refuse these neat separations between art and life, the everyday and the extraordinary, freedom and necessity, and society and the individual.
Lee Wen typically develops his performances in series, examples of which include "Ghost Stories" (first performed February 1995) and "Neo-Baba"(first performed May 1995). Ghost story books are best sellers in Singapore. Their popularity suggests nostalgia for the irrational in this otherwise hyper-rationalized and ultra-managed nation-state. In "Ghost Stories", Lee Wen juxtaposes this return of the repressed irrational with another repression that pervades Singapore: the paranoia and self-censorship experienced by individuals in this society that many -- locals and non-locals alike -- feel is 'authoritarian'.
"Neo-Baba" is a pun on the radical anti-art movement, Dada, and 'Baba', a somewhat derogatory term for the minority Straits-born Chinese of Malaysia and Singapore. (Also known as Peranakan, Straits-born Chinese adopted Malay as their language and evolved their own distinct culture combining Chinese and Malay traditions.) Underlying Lee Wen's "Neo- Baba" performances are two other of his major preoccupations (besides 'identity'): the questioning of Singapore's relatively conservative mainstream assumptions about art, and the attempt to combine Southeast Asian contexts with international currents in contemporary art, such as performance and installation.
Lee Wen's performances take place in a variety of contexts: from the streets to more conventional galleries and museums. One consequence of this variety is that Lee Wen has to deliberate over how different cultures read his tropes differently. For instance, in India, "Yellow Man" has been read as a sadhu or shaman (holy man). Whereas in Thailand, interpretations have ranged from traditional references to religion and the monarchy, to modern 'dangers', such as the sex industry and its associated diseases. In other contexts, "Yellow Man" has taken on an extra-human, even extra-terrestrial dimension. In each case, Lee varies his sub-themes to push the performances beyond racial or ethnic signification.
In "Journey of a Yellow Man No. 11: Multiculturalism"(September 1997), Lee Wen again presented at The Substation, though this time as a panelist at a conference on "Multiculturalism in Singapore". Covered again in yellow paint, but fully-clothed this time -- usually as "Yellow Man" he wears only yellow briefs -- Lee Wen presented a paper which discussed, among other things, the prevailing conservatism in Singapore art. He was particularly critical of the Singapore Art '97 exhibition, which claimed to represent the gamut of contemporary Singapore art. Lee Wen argued that the exhibition over-represented certain forms, like scenic watercolors and Chinese painting and calligraphy, while under-representing installation and totally disregarding performance art.
Like many others at that Substation conference, Lee Wen advocated a multiculturalism that goes beyond the Singapore State’s essentialist CMIO -- Chinese, Malay, Indian, Other -- multiracialism. After his paper, Lee Wen did a performance: he formed the letters C, M, I and O out of rice, then obliterated them. He stripped to his yellow briefs, got into a small bathtub and washed his yellow color off. After putting on some clothes, he bottled the now yellowed bath water in several plastic containers. As he offered them to the audience to take home, he proclaimed: "Now I am a water colorist too!"
This simultaneous assertion and disavowal of an identity -- be it "Yellow Man" or 'water colorist' -- figures in another, more recent series of performances, "I am not a Performance Artist, This is not a work of Art" (first performed December 1997). It is a gesture that echoes some of the primeval concerns of performance art -- 'what is a work of art?', 'what separates art from ordinary objects and activities?' Yet Lee Wen's drawing attention to himself as a performance artist also speaks to a specifically Singaporean situation. Following a controversial performance by Josef Ng in 1994, the state initiated proscriptions against performance art in the country, claiming that the art form was by nature too transgressive. But the policing of the ban has been, as one might expect, inconsistent; moreover, it is ultimately untenable. If 'what is and what is not performance art?' cannot be resolved by artists themselves -- indeed, Lee Wen's point is to keep the question open -- how then can the state presume to have the answer?
