Salleh Japar

Last updated
Salleh Japar
Born1962 (age 59–60)
Flag of Singapore.svg  Singapore
Nationality Singaporean
Education Diploma in Fine Art (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, 1986);
BFA (Curtin University of Technology, 1990);
PgD (University of Central England, 1996)
Known for Installation art, sculpture, painting
Movement Contemporary art
Awards1996: Visual Arts Award, Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry
1999: Singapore Youth Award (Arts & Culture), National Youth Council

Salleh Japar (born 1962) is a Singaporean contemporary artist working across sculpture, installation and painting, with his work coming into prominence in late 1980s Singapore. [1] [2] [3] Within Singapore's history of contemporary art, Salleh is known for his collective work with Goh Ee Choo and S. Chandrasekaran for the seminal 1988 exhibition, Trimurti. [4] [5] In 2001, Salleh was one of four artists selected to represent at the very first Singapore Pavilion at the prestigious 49th Venice Biennale, alongside artists Henri Chen KeZhan, Suzann Victor, and Matthew Ngui. [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Salleh's practice explores the confluence of ideas surrounding identity and tradition in postmodern contexts of art making, with his current research locating and interpreting Southeast Asian aesthetics, with an emphasis on Nusantara or the Malay world and its symbolic, structural readings of space and the technologies of craft. [3]

Education and personal life

Salleh graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore with a Diploma in Fine Arts in 1986, later obtaining his Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction from the Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia in 1990. [1] From 1990 to 1995, Salleh was a lecturer at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, later pursuing a postgraduate diploma Art Education at the University of Central England, United Kingdom, graduating in 1996. [1]

Salleh was an appointed member on Course Validation as well as to the Overseas Student Council at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. [2] He has also worked as an assistant curator of art at the National Museum of Singapore. [1] Currently, Salleh is a senior lecturer and programme leader for undergraduate studies at LASALLE College of the Arts. [1] [3]

Career

1980s

In March 1988, Salleh, alongside fellow Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts graduates Goh Ee Choo and S. Chandrasekaran, launched the exhibition titled Trimurti at the Goethe-Institut, Singapore staging works from paintings to performances at the exhibition site. [4] Trimurti has been critically regarded as a highly significant exhibition in the history of Singapore's contemporary art for their disruption of curatorial convention at the time in 1980s Singapore, as well as their exploration of a possible aesthetics for 'multiculturalism' in Singapore. [4] [5]

1990s

During the 1990s, Salleh would exhibit locally and internationally, at sites such as at 5th Passage, Singapore in 1992 for the Hope and Heal Project, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan in 1993 for Four Asian Artists, at the 7th Bangladesh Biennale in 1995, at The Substation, Singapore in 1997 for Art 35: APAD 35th Anniversary Exhibition, also presenting Cultural Sinkholes at the Nokia Singapore Art biennial exhibition in 1999. [1] In 1998, retrospective of Trimurti, titled Trimurti and Ten Years After, was held at the Singapore Art Museum, commemorating a decade since the original exhibition. [1]

2000s

In 2001, Salleh was selected to represent at the very first Singapore Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale. [6] [7] [8] Curated by Ahmad Mashadi and Joanna Lee, Salleh would exhibit alongside Henri Chen KeZhan, Suzann Victor, and Matthew Ngui. [6] [7] [8] At the Singapore Pavilion, Salleh presented a large-scale installation, Kemelut (Turbulence). [7] In 2004, Salleh presented a solo exhibition, Gurindam dan Igauan at the Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, and in 2008, he exhibited work at APAD: Tradition, Innovation and Continuity at the Singapore Art Museum. [1] In 2005, Salleh would draw on his earlier experiences as Assistant Curator at the National Museum Singapore to curate an exhibition titled Batik Forms: Rethinking Tradition at the MICA ARTrium. [1]

2010s to present

After a 10-year hiatus, Salleh would present new work at a solo exhibition in 2015, Talwin and Tamkin, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. [1] In 2018, Salleh would exhibit Sulh-i-Kull (Universal Tolerance) at State of Motion: Sejarah-ku, an artwork of nine stone-like tablets responding to the location as an imagined site for the early arrival of Islam to the Malay Archipelago, in reference to the 1960 film, Isi Neraka. [3]

Art

Trimurti (1988)

Refusing to take part in their own graduation show, Salleh, alongside fellow Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts graduates Goh and Chandrasekaran, instead staged works such as paintings, installations and performances at their own exhibition at Goethe-Institut, titled Trimurti. [4] The trio treated the gallery as a collaborative space, creating an exhibition that could be viewed as a single large installation, rather than a curated selection of individual works. [4]

Taking the Hindu concept of trimurti as its starting point, that is, creation, preservation and destruction, the trio sought to develop an artistic language inspired by Indian-Hindi, Chinese-Buddhist, and Malay-Muslim vernacular traditions and cultural values, for Chandrasekaran, Goh, and Salleh respectively. [4] Despite the close alignment with state-prescribed notions of preserving distinct racial, ethnic, and religious identities under the CMIO (Chinese-Malay-Indian-Other) system of categorisation, such artistic explorations were deemed significant as an early attempt to contend with multiculturalism in Singaporean identity and culture in contemporary art. [4]

49th Venice Biennale (2001)

At the Singapore Pavilion, Salleh presented Kemelut (Turbulence), an installation made with metal sheets, PVC pipes, brass tap heads, wood, unbleached calico, and an assortment of spices and salt. [7] Consisting of three sequential and experiential spaces, visitors first encountered a large metal-clad wall connecting the two other spaces. [8] The first space was dominated by the presence and smell of spices, and the second, with salt. For Salleh, these material encounters provided a metaphor for engagements between colonial powers and the colonised. [8] Through references to the history of Venetian and European trade, as well as Western colonialism in Asia, Salleh sought to critique the West's construction of its own history and identity by identifying marginalised fragments, forgotten texts, materials and experiences that could complicate static and stable notions of history. [8]

Awards

In 1996, Salleh received the Visual Arts Award from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and in 1999, he was awarded the Singapore Youth Award (Art and Culture) from the National Youth Council. [1] [2] In 2008, he was one of 28 artists commissioned by Singapore's Land Transport Authority to create artwork for the Paya Lebar MRT station. [1]

Related Research Articles

LASALLE College of the Arts Public university in Singapore

LASALLE College of the Arts is a publicly-funded post-secondary arts institution, and a soon-to-be University of the Arts by 2023 in alliance with Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore.

LGBT art in Singapore, or queer art in Singapore, broadly refers to modern and contemporary visual art practices that draw on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender+ imagery and themes, addressing topics such as LGBT rights, history and culture in Singapore. Such queer art practices are often by Singaporean or Singapore-based visual artists and curators who identify as LGBT+ or queer.

Singapore Art Museum Contemporary Art, Museum in Bras Basah Road, Singapore

The Singapore Art Museum is an art museum located in the Downtown Core district of Singapore. Formerly a 19th-century Catholic school, it is the first fully dedicated contemporary visual arts museum in Singapore with one of the world’s most important collections by local, Southeast and East Asian artists. It collaborates with international art museums to co-curate contemporary art exhibitions.

Singapore Biennale Art biennial

The Singapore Biennale is a large-scale biennial contemporary art exhibition in Singapore, serving as the country’s major platform for international dialogue in contemporary art. It seeks to present and reflect the vigour of artistic practices in Singapore and Southeast Asia within a global context, fostering collaboration and engagement between artists, arts organisations, and the international arts community.

Donna Ong is a Singaporean contemporary artist. She is known for her installation works, which often feature environments created with assemblages, found objects, and sculpture. Her practice draws upon notions of botany, landscaping, and representations of nature in both European and Chinese art.

Group 90 is an informal arts group in Singapore, committed to the study and interpretation, and promotion of the human nudity as an art form. It was founded the late Brother Joseph McNally, along with founding members S. Namasivayam, Chia Wai Hon and Sim Tong Khern, who subscribe to the European art tradition of using the human body in developing artistic mastery in depicting form, perceptual acuity and fluency in drawing.

Tang Da Wu is a Singaporean artist who works in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation art and performance art. Educated at Birmingham Polytechnic and Goldsmiths' College, University of London, Tang gave his first solo exhibition, consisting of drawings and paintings, in 1970 at the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He began engaging in performance art upon returning to Singapore in 1979 following his undergraduate studies.

Han Sai Por Singaporean sculptor (born 1943)

Han Sai Por is a Singaporean sculptor. A graduate of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), East Ham College of Art, Wolverhampton College of Art and Lincoln University, New Zealand, she worked as a teacher and later as a part-time lecturer at NAFA, the LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, and the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, before becoming a full-time artist in 1997.

S. Chandrasekaran is a Singaporean contemporary artist known for his pioneering work in performance art in 1980s Singapore. He has held executive positions as Head of School at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and LASALLE College of Arts.

Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar, also known as Jantsa, is a Mongolian multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California.

5th Passage Artist-run initiative in Singapore

The 5th Passage Artists Limited, commonly known as 5th Passage or 5th Passage Artists, was an artist-run initiative and contemporary art space in Singapore from 1991 to 1994. As a registered, artist-led non-profit organisation, it was one of the earliest of its kind for early-1990s Singapore, with its initial space located at Parkway Parade, a shopping centre in the east of the city. The "meteoric existence" of 5th Passage has been noted alongside other art collectives and alternative spaces existing in 1990s Singapore, such as The Artists Village, The Substation, Plastique Kinetic Worms, and Trimurti.

Juliana Yasin Singaporean contemporary artist and curator

Juliana Yasin was a Singaporean contemporary artist and curator whose practice spanned painting, installation, video, and performance art. Her works examined notions of identity, subjectivity, and community practices. Pedagogy and research further complemented her artistic practice, with Juliana having taught fine art at Kolej Bandar Utama in Kuala Lumpur and worked as a Singapore-based researcher for the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.

Suzann Victor Singaporean contemporary artist

Suzann Victor is a Singaporean contemporary artist based in Australia whose practice spans installation, painting, and performance art. Victor is most known for her public artworks and installations that examine ideas of disembodiment, the postcolonial, and the environmental in response to space, context and architecture.

Shubigi Rao is a Mumbai-born Singaporean contemporary artist and writer known for her long-term, multidisciplinary projects and installation works that often use books, etchings, drawings, video, and archives. Her interests include archaeology, libraries, neuroscience, histories and lies, literature and violence, and natural history. Rao has exhibited internationally, presenting work at the 10th Taipei Biennial in 2016, the 3rd Pune Biennale in 2017, the 2nd Singapore Biennale in 2008, as well as the 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2018.

Ming Wong is a Singaporean contemporary artist who lives and works in Berlin, known for his re-interpretations of iconic films and performances from world cinema in his video installations, often featuring "miscastings" of himself in roles of varied identities.

Lim Tzay Chuen is a Singaporean contemporary artist known for his conceptual works that involve designing or constructing subtle interventions within systems, leading viewers to re-evaluate their perceptions and assumptions of social, economic, cultural and political processes.

Thiagarajan Kanaga Sabapathy, better known as T.K. Sabapathy, is Singapore's leading art historian, curator, and critic. Sabapathy has written, researched, documented, and supported contemporary visual art in Singapore and Malaysia for four decades. He has held positions at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological Institution, and National Institute of Education as a lecturer of art history. Sabapathy further established and headed pioneering art research facilities in Singapore, such as the Contemporary Asian Art Centre (2001–2004) and subsequently, Asia Contemporary (2015–).

Visual art of Singapore

The visual art of Singapore, or Singaporean art, refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with Singapore from its history to present. Its history ranges from the beginnings of Ancient Singapore, possibly from the 10th century AD, to the present-day country. The history of Singaporean art includes the indigenous artistic traditions of the Malay Archipelago and with the arrival of the colonial period, the diverse visual practices of itinerant artists and migrants from China, the Indian subcontinent, and Europe, such as portraiture, landscapes, sculpture, printmaking, and natural history drawings. Post-World War II saw the emergence of practices such as Nanyang style paintings, social realist art, abstract art, and photography. The contemporary art practices of post-independence Singapore includes, for instance, performance art, conceptual art, installation art, video art, sound art, and new media art.

Kumari Nahappan Singaporean sculptor (born 1953)

Kumari Nahappan is a Malaysian-born Singaporean contemporary artist best known for her large-scale public sculptures that often depict natural subjects such as fruit, seeds, and spices. Aside from sculpture and public art, Nahappan's interdisciplinary practice also spans installation and abstract painting.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Mok, Mei Feng (2009). "Salleh Japar". NLB Infopedia. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 "Salleh Japar". LASALLE College of the Arts. Archived from the original on 25 October 2020. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Salleh Japar". State of Motion. 2018. Archived from the original on 25 October 2020. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Toh, Charmaine (2015). "Shifting Grounds". In Low, Sze Wee (ed.). Siapa Nama Kamu? Art in Singapore Since the 19th Century. National Gallery Singapore. p. 95. ISBN   9789810973841.
  5. 1 2 Sabapathy, T.K. (1998). Trimurti and Ten years After. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum. ISBN   9810407785.
  6. 1 2 3 Mashadi, Ahmad; Lee, Joanna (2001). Singapore. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum. ISBN   9810442548.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "National Pavilions and Presentations: Singapore". Universes in Universe. 2001. Archived from the original on 9 June 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Republic of Singapore" (PDF). World of Art. 2 (3): 55–57. 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 June 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.