Sundial Garden

Sundial Garden

The Dilapidated House

The Dilapidated House

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Manifesto

1. The artist must be conversant in old-new-east-west.
1.1. One can be a Chinese painter and a conceptual artist at the same time.
1.2. Drawing is not dead. Painting is not dead.
1.3. Not all conceptual art is bad. Not all installation art or performance art is bad.
1.4. The artist's influences can be as varied as (but not limited to) the following:
(a) Emily Bronte
(b) Vincent Van Gogh
(c) Kathe Kollwitz
(d) Expressionism
(e) Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(f) Henry David Thoreau
(g) Huang Binhong
(h) Li Keran
(i) Antoni Tapies
(j) Marcel Duchamp
(k) Minimalist Art
(l) Natsume Soseki
(m) Werk magazine/Guerrillazine (Theseus Chan)
(n) Redrum (Japanese indie band, now disbanded)
(o) Daido Moriyama
(p) Sengai
(q) Yasujiro Ozu
(r) Dogen's "Shobogenzo"
(s) Conceptual art
(t) Jiro Taniguchi
(u) Rei Kawakubo/Junya Watanabe/Comme des Garcons
... ...
2. The artist must take long walks in nature.
2.1. The artist must read many books and go to many places.
3. Art must move out of galleries and museums to alternative spaces, such as abandoned train tunnels, bookshops, boutiques, hair salons, libraries, cafes etc.
4. Art is spiritual food.
5. The art book is a portable gallery or museum. It is also an autobiography, diary, and bible.

(To be continued)

Monday, March 7, 2011

Notes From A Young Artist

1. The contemporary artist must be conversant in old-new-east-west.

2. Art must move out of museums and galleries to alternative spaces like bookshops, boutiques etc.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

69

I like the ending of Murakami's 69. Why should a gentle and beautiful girl have to go out of her way to see something sad or painful?

I don't think I should give S----- a copy of my Sorrowful World.

Goodbye to you...I wish you all the happiness in the world.

Home

I am in love with Yohji's idea of a home. What is my idea of a home? A bed. A few books and magazines. A pencil case. A sketchbook and journal. My iPod. A camera. A few sets of clothes. A cup of tea. That's my idea of home.

(And perhaps, a laptop and broadband connection.)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Sorrowful World -- The writings (No. 2)

Sorrowful World is the book I have always wanted to produce. Despite the typo errors and one of the images printed upside-down, it remains important to me. I am very proud of these drawings.

Looking back

I wrote Chinese poems in a cafe till the cafe closed at two o'clock in the morning. I painted next to a graveyard at twelve midnight, urinating into the drain even as there was no nearby toilet which I could use. Days of reading novels and trying to write my autobiography. Crazy nights of drawing and painting into the wee hours of the morning. Watercolour sunset next to a roadside stall, with smoke and ashes from the joss bin blowing in the wind. Banyan tree in a Muslim graveyard. Canal and construction site next to the old folks’ home at Kembangan. Insomnia blues at Pandan Reservoir. Stir-fried kway teow, iced coffee and intellectual conversations at Teban Gardens. Mosquitoes and drizzle at the Botanical Gardens and Fort Canning, with “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in my bag . I have done it all…