Vertical Submarine

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Vertical Submarine is a collective group of artists originating from Singapore. The group was formed in 2003 and the name was taken from a word subvert that is rotated to be vert-sub and expanded to form Vertical Submarine. The group has been appearing in local exhibitions of intricate installations involving everyday objects, text and an acquired sense of humor.

Singapore Republic in Southeast Asia

Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south and Peninsular Malaysia to the north. Singapore's territory consists of one main island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23%. The country is known for its transition from a developing to a developed one in a single generation under the leadership of its founder Lee Kuan Yew.

Installation art three-dimensional work of art, usually from various materials and larger than a sculpture. For the art genre, use Q212431.

Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called public art, land art or intervention art; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.

Contents

The group won the Singapore President's Young Talents Award of 2009. [1] Vertical Submarine will participate in ROUNDTABLE: The 9th Gwangju Biennale, which takes place September 7 – November 11, 2012 in Gwangju, Korea.

Gwangju Biennale art biennial

The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea. The Gwangju Biennale is hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the city of Gwangju. The Gwangju Biennale Foundation also hosts the Gwangju Design Biennale, founded in 2004.

In January 2013, works by Joshua Yang, Justin Loke and Fiona Koh were exhibited at Worlds Apart Fair, held at Conrad Centennial Singapore.

Art Apart Fair

Art Apart Fair is Singapore's first hotel-based boutique art fair. Initially called Worlds Apart Fair in January 2013, the success of the fair encouraged a second edition, later renamed as Art Apart Fair as part of a series of "Apart Fairs".

Conrad Centennial Singapore architectural structure

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Exhibitions

Selected Exhibitions

Penetrations

Taking a playful stance on otherwise serious discussions of language policies and identity in Singapore, the series of work by Vertical Submarine exercises a tongue-in-cheek preservation of quickly disappearing pockets of colloquial conversation among Singaporeans. Despite the gradual loss of vernacular language, the presence of lyrical rhymes recited in the local Hokkien dialect still stands as endearing figures of expression in Singapore. The collective’s tribute to the unique verbal vestiges of the local dialect culture is sold to audiences via a selection of rhyming verses presented in forms archetypal of olden-day advertisements and illustrations. [2] Presented at Chan Hampe Galleries, Singapore.

Planting Shadows

In Singapore Botanic Gardens they created an in-situ installation, Planting Shadows [3] consisting of a patch of gray sunflowers in the middle of the garden. It comes with a small note at the bottom referring to Chien Swee-Teng’s poem about a sunflower plantation owner’s pact with a bottle imp where he gives up his sense of color for the success of his business. But there is a hidden twist to this exhibit: There is no Chien Swee-Teng or poem — the collective invented the writer and his poem about avarice.

Singapore Botanic Gardens 158-year-old tropical garden located in Singapore

The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a 160-year-old tropical garden located at the fringe of Singapore's Orchard Road shopping district. It is one of three gardens, and the only tropical garden, to be honoured as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Botanic Gardens has been ranked Asia's top park attraction since 2013, by TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards. It was declared the inaugural Garden of the Year, International Garden Tourism Awards in 2012, and received Michelin's three-star rating in 2008.

Garden planned space set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, or enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has traditionally been a more general one. Zoos, which display wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens. Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden often signifying a shortened form of botanical garden. Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens, use plants sparsely or not at all.

Imp mythical creature similar to a goblin

An imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy or demon, frequently described in folklore and superstition. The word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, used to denote a young grafted tree.

Analogic

Analogic, [4] is an antithetical exhibition by Vertical Submarine. The title, Analogic with prefix ANA- means “against”, suggests a frivolity, nonsensical exercise of wit.
Exhibition Text:
“Vertical Submarine’s ANALOGIC features a series of paintings inspired by the concept of analogy and its proximity to the past as expounded in Umberto Eco’s novel, Foucault’s Pendulum. In the exhibition, the paintings are presented as image sequences of related words, concepts and objects. Based on Eco’s concept of tying things up and linking seemingly diverse and unrelated concepts into one work, Vertical Submarine delves into an exploration of ‘analogy’ and ‘analogue’, creating in the process a nostalgic act of journeying back to the analogue era.”

Analogy inference or argument from one particular to another particular

Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another, or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. In a narrower sense, analogy is an inference or an argument from one particular to another particular, as opposed to deduction, induction, and abduction, in which at least one of the premises, or the conclusion, is general rather than particular in nature. The term analogy can also refer to the relation between the source and the target themselves, which is often a similarity, as in the biological notion of analogy.

Umberto Eco Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Umberto Eco was an Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor. He is widely known for his 1980 novel Il nome della rosa, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory. He later wrote other novels, including Il pendolo di Foucault and L'isola del giorno prima. His novel Il cimitero di Praga, released in 2010, topped the bestseller charts in Italy.

Flirting Point

Flirting Point [5] is a lighthearted satire of the behavior of Singaporeans and their culture. Singapore living is generally perceived as being so restricted and regulated. Therefore this work is trying to suggest that even flirting has to be restricted to a designated area.

A View With A Room

This exhibition is done by the collective group as part of the Singapore's Young Talents Awards. A View With A Room is an installation that presents a continuation of Vertical Submarine’s earlier inquiries into the relationship between text, image and representation. In particular, their installation explores the process of translating words into images, in the viewers’ as well as the artists’ imaginations, which are then realized in three-dimensional form.

Awards

Controversy

In September 2014, Vertical Submarine's exhibition Eville at the Singapore Night Festival drew protest from animal welfare groups after flyers urging people to “kill stray cats” were taken out of context. The flyer was in fact part of a satirical performance-exhibition against evil acts, commissioned by the Singapore Kindness Movement. The art group issued a statement saying, “The flyers were not distributed to the public for the purpose of advocacy but scattered as part of the performance. We do not advocate or condone the killing of stray cats. On the contrary, we are pleased that the issue of cat abuse is highlighted". The animal welfare groups subsequently apologised for posting the flyers on their social media platforms. [8]

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References

  1. ↑ Singapore President's Young Talents Award 2009
  2. ↑ Deepika Shetty,"Art collective Vertical Submarine pick up Chinese dialect phrases for new work", The Straits Times, September 23, 2015. Retrieved 2015-10-04
  3. ↑ In Singapore, Nature Reborn as Art
  4. ↑ Analogic by Vertical Submarine
  5. ↑ Flirting Point
  6. ↑ President's Young Talents Award
  7. ↑ Singapore President's Young Talent Award Winner Archived July 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine .
  8. ↑ Martin, Mayo (1 September 2014). "Controversial stray cats flyer part of Vertical Submarine art work against evil". MediaCorp. TODAY. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
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