July 3, 2008
September Sweetness: Work in Progress
e are in full-production with the development of our installation, September Sweetness, for the Singapore Biennale. The past months have been mainly logistical challenges, but Yangon-based artist Aung Ko is now safely with us in Vietnam and fully engaged in the work.
As I've said before, this blog, as the digital counterpart to my sketchbook, is record of ideas and processes. An architecture that has been constructed for hundreds of years becomes a formidable challenge when the material is altered. In this case, sugar for the traditional materials of brick or plaster. We have been consulting with a number of experts from structural engineers to cooks, and at the end of the day, spend hours in our room playing with different model configurations.
Our greatest asset so far has been our arts assistant, Mai Tung. Tomorrow, we have an appointment at a factory that may manufacture our full-scale fiberglass molds.
3d rendering that will be used later to determine lighting effects. Thanks to Tom from Vinamation for his help!
Chaw Ei and Aung Ko draw up sketches for mold segments
Chaw Ei constructs a preliminary model from modeling clay
Experimenting with different sugar formulas. This time combining sugar and lime (calcium oxide)
Consulting with a structural engineer about weight displacement
Reconciling mold designs with the model after speaking with the structural engineer
Imagine this scaled to 12 feet and made completely out of sugar.
Posted by rst at 1:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
June 17, 2008
Coffee, Cigarettes and Pad Thai
offee, Cigarettes and Pad Thai:
Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia
28 June - 27 July, 2008
Curator: Eugene Tan
Eslite Gallery
Tapei, Taiwan
www.eslitegallery.com
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Alvin Zafra, Poklong Anading, Louie Cordero, Ho Tzu Nyen, Winner Jumalon, Jane Lee, Donna Ong, Nippan Oranniwesna, Ana Prvacki, Pomtaweesak Ramsakul, Handiwirman Saputra, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Richard Streitmatter- Tran, Agus Suwage, Titarubi, Tintin Wulia, Wong Hoy Cheong
This exhibition aims to explore the state of contemporary art practice in Southeast Asia within the context of post-colonialism and globalisation. Coffee, cigarettes and Pad Thai can be seen as metaphors for Southeast Asia's relationship to the West.
The region is one of the top coffee producers in the world, through countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. Yet, the coffee that is produced by these countries are often re-packaged by corporations in the West and introduced back to the region as lifestyle products, by multinational corporations such as Starbucks. Similarly, for cigarettes, of which Southeast Asia is also a major producer, the West has become aware of the health hazards of smoking and are attempting to reduce its consumption in its societies by banning advertising, among other measures. But in Southeast Asia, advertising by cigarette companies, owned by the West, is still widespread and the region is seen as one of the strong markets for cigarette consumption. While coffee and cigarettes highlight the economic relationship between Southeast Asia and the West, Pad Thai highlights the superficial perception that the West has about the region.
With the growing popularity of Thai food in the West, Pad Thai has become a popular and widely available dish in trendy Thai restaurants in American and European cities. This has had the effect where people in the West feel that they have an understanding of the region, through their engagement with the cuisine. Ironically, Pad Thai is also one of the earliest ways in which contemporary art from the region was introduced to the West, particularly through the work of Thai artist Rikrit Tiravanija, whose relational works in the early 1990s involved him cooking Pad Thai for visitors to his exhibition. Tiravanija has recently, also became the first Southeast Asian artist to have a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, having won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006. The popular dish of Pad Thai has therefore come to perform an important cultural role for Southeast Asia. This exhibition, therefore, serves to highlight how artists from the region are engaging in their own ways with these issues of globalisation that Southeast Asia finds itself in. In particular, it aims to examine the how this is being done through the diverse practices of the artists and within the context of their specific environments.
The Gleaners and the Ghillies (Construction). 2008. 120 x 80 cm. C-print. Edition 1 of 3.
My latest series of photographs, The Gleaners and the Ghillies, has been included in this exhibition. If you are in Taiwan, please do have a visit!
Posted by rst at 7:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
June 7, 2008
Revisiting Phnom Penh
've returned to Phnom Penh and a lot has changed since my last visit in 2006 in connection with the research Mediating the Mekong. This time, I am accompanied by Russell Storer, of the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane. We are looking at the recent developments in contemporary art in several cities in the Mekong sub-region in connection with the next Asia Pacific Triennial.
Cambodia has been a welcome surprise. Spaces for art have come and go in the last two years. The emergence of new and young artists looks promising as does work by some of the most senior artists in the community. Everyone is extremely helpful and open with information. When not engaged in the several meetings that occupy our days, I had an opportunity to take some photos in transit of Khmer architecture and forms. If you're interested in this sort of thing, please do take a look on flickr.
The weather here is a strain on my endurance, it's much more humid than Ho Chi Minh City. We depart for Vientiane, Laos tomorrow.
Posted by rst at 1:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
June 1, 2008
What's in a Name?
he Many Faces of Hans Ulrich Obrist, a recent post on the Artfag blog, introduces Charles Gutte and his work of "carefully rendered drawings documenting the misspelling of the name Hans Ulrich Obrist", resulting in the fantastic work above.
I feel your pain. How many times has my name has been misspelled, often in various twists within the same publication. I was about to make a point concerning the German language and an increased chance for error, until I realized that my name was misspelled in the literature for an exhibition at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (ZKM) in Germany!
So, who is Richard Streitmatter-Tran anagrammatically? Now you know.
Links
Artfag. The Many Faces of Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Posted by rst at 4:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 7, 2008
Crisis in Myanmar
pparently unfortunate juxtapositions like this occur when online ads are somehow keyword driven. It's unfortunate and disturbing yet very telling. Click the image to view my original screenshot.
CET is currently in Japan and was in London during last summer's catastrophe in Myanmar. We are hopeful that her family is safe in Rangoon.
Posted by rst at 3:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 28, 2008
Post- Đổi Mới: Vietnamese Art after 1990
will be presenting work in the exhibition and an abstract of recent research at the symposium.
Symposium on Modern and Contemporary Vietnamese Art
May 15 - 19, 2008
Held in conjunction with National Heritage Board Vietnam Festival and
Post- Đổi Mới: Vietnamese Art after 1990s (12 May - 28 Sep 2008)
"Sharing an equally important platform as the exhibition, SAM is organising a three-day symposium to explore the developments that have taken place in Vietnam. The presentations will cover the rise of modern art from the French Colonial period to the experimental art movement in present-day Vietnam. Speakers from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, Vietnam and Singapore will be examining the differences in the developments that have taken place in the North and the South."
Image credit: Janet Chan, Asia Art Archive
Posted by rst at 5:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 9, 2008
Summer 2008 Itinerary
fter an unusually extended (but appreciated) period in Vietnam, I'll begin traveling again for arts-related projects and exhibitions. It felt good to stay put for a while in HCMC, during which CET and I were able to reorganize and refurbish our work spaces. New shelves, tables,etc. The rest of 2008 looks like a busy year for both of us. My tentative travel plans as of today until the end of summer are below. If things work out, CET will also be traveling to Japan, Germany, Singapore, Vancouver and New York before the year's end. Fingers crossed.
Posted by rst at 8:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 27, 2008
Toward SB2008
ET and I discovered this evening that our project has been accepted for the Singapore Biennale 2008. It will be our first major collaboration. We have been doing research for the project for the last months and in conversation with curator Joselina Cruz over the concept and logistical details. Thanks Joselina for supporting our idea. We know it wasn't easy.
Posted by rst at 5:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 24, 2008
Biljana and Jin Shan
was happy to reunite with Shanghai-based curator Biljana Ciric and artist Jin Shan in Saigon for the first time since the Venice Biennale. Arriving Sunday evening and departing for Phnom Penh on Tuesday, Monday was a marathon of meeting local artists and spaces, ending in exhausting 3 am chat in my apartment with Chaw Ei and visiting artist Hai Minh.
Chaw Ei shares her work with Biljana and Jin Shan
Art and bed talk
(L-R) Me, Jin Shan, Biljana, Hai Minh
Biljana and Chaw Ei
Posted by rst at 4:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 23, 2008
Year of the Rat
ut with the old, in with the new. I've been simultaneously playing catch up while trying to relax. Sorting through the detritus of 2007. Evidently, it's the year of the rat and this is my year. I've risen from winter hibernation and now that the new year has begun (by this I mean Tet, or Lunar New Year since I've already reneged my Gregorian calendar New Year's resolutions), I'm back to blogging after two months.
Saigon 2008 has been busy with visitors and conversation including Russel Storer, now with the Queensland Art Gallery; Joselina Cruz of the Singapore Biennale, Joyce Fan with the Singapore Art Museum and most recently curator and critic Jang-un Kim.
I participated in a panel discussion, Living the Local, at Galerie Quynh in January. It has in many ways changed my attitude toward art production in this city. The event was organized by curator Zoe Butt during her Asialink residency and she has since returned to The Long March Foundation in Beijing. Fantastic conversations, all of them.
Writing and Writhing
There's been a concerted effort to stick to meeting deadlines, often only by the skin of our teeth. I recently finished a performance art proposal that if accepted, will allow me to return to the United States for the first time in four years. I may return home to find my mother has adopted another child to replace me. Hiroko Kikuchi and I have developed a performance work, that strangely seemed effortless and completely in line with our recent individual work despite not having met in nearly 5 years. This evening, CET and I finished an installation art proposal.
I've committed to writing two papers and one article for 2008 for different organizations. One for the Singapore Art Museum and the other for the Mekong Project Journal.
Lifelong Learning
I've decided that I will spend much of 2008 trying to learn new things. Like the things that fall under the category "before I die". So, I've bought a guitar and started a garden. Now how's THAT for productivity! A bunch of us have decided to pool our knowledge in group tutorials. Tammy Nguyen has volunteered to kick start the learning with a day of mixing pigment to create homemade gouache and oils. We're even going to make egg tempera! Yummm.
I'm also continuing my double life as a university lecturer and to keep the new new, I've made a completely new course reader for my class, updated with contemporary design and art texts. I'm actually proud of that.
CET has been painting and shaping up her art travels. We spent last night experimenting on how to make traditional Burmese architectural models out of the left overs from packaging styrofoam. We now have a temple. Tomorrow she has a meeting with the Asian Cultural Council at 8:30 am. It's 4:30 am now. Even with the coming a new year, some bad habits are hard to break.
Posted by rst at 3:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Sing Sing
ietnamese authorities have proposed an interesting idea: a book about what you can sing. Right. This is going to take some explanation. But in a nutshell, it's a book of permitted songs. Until now, singers in Vietnam were unclear about what they could and could not sing for songs existing before 1975. With the publishing of the permitted songs book, for any song from 1975 to pre-history, you are now in the know.
If it still does not makes sense, an article on VietnamNet explains:
Some say the agency should issue a list of banned songs instead of licensed songs, because the number of banned songs is often less than licensed ones. However, Cuong said the list of those banned may not have songs written before 1975, which are not made public yet.
Did anyone say Sing Sing?
Source:
VietnamNet. Agency to issue list of permitted songs
Posted by rst at 2:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 17, 2007
The Decemberists (Arts update)
haven't been posting entries as frequently. I think facebook and twitter are eating into my blogging passion. Anyhow, here are some pre-holiday updates.
Visiting Artists and Curators
This week Saigon was visited by curators representing two exhibitions that will occur in Singapore 2008. I met with Joselina Cruz, curator for the Singapore Biennale 2008, last Tuesday. After visiting several artists and spaces that afternoon, Joselina met with Zoe Butt, of the Long March Foundation, the following day before departing for Hanoi. Zoe is a current Asia Link researcher with San Art, where on Friday she gave a presentation on LMF at the space. On behalf of the Singapore Art Museum, curators Boi Tran Huynh-Beattie and Patricia Levasseur de la Motte are in Saigon finishing their curatorial research for an exhibition in early 2008.
This weekend, I spent some time with Rachid Ouramdane and his project 'Distant...' which will arrive this May at the Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. Sharaad Kuttan, who I met in Bangkok this October at the Prana exhibition at Chulalongkorn University is in Hanoi. Thanks Lucy for introducing him to the arts community there.
Research and Print
Although I've been resisting writing in order to concentrate on art production, I've agreed to author two papers for 2008. The first for the Mekong Art and Culture Project, slated for publication in 2009 and secondly, another to be presented at a symposium at the Singapore Art Museum in the spring 2008.
Mogas Station
Mogas Station is currently participating in the latest incarnation of the Migration Addicts project at the Shenzhen & HongKong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture. In October, Mogas Station met with the New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective and has contributed to the forthcoming volume of the Sarai Reader. We are keeping our fingers crossed that our recent project proposal, 848FM, will make the short list of candidates for funding from Arts Network Asia.
Posted by rst at 12:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 3, 2007
Art Portfolio at Wooloo
his blog has been the media companion to my moleskine sketchbooks. The diacritic site has yet to include my portfolio. In the meantime, I'm hosting select images and works at this amazing site for artists called wooloo. If you're looking for updated information on recent work, please do head over to my profile there.
wooloo.org: streitmatter-tran
Posted by rst at 6:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 20, 2007
Hooray for the Philippines (Arroyo's Cojones)
et's hear it for the boys! The spineless men's club that is ASEAN has resisted international pressure to take a strong position on Myanmar - that is, except the Philippines. President Gloria Arroyo has just announced that unless some real demonstration of change can be verified, the Philippines is unlikely to ratify the ASEAN charter. Arroyo further states, "If Myanmar signs the charter, it is committed to returning to the path of democracy and releasing Aung San Suu Kyi." She is alone in taking a definitive stand on Myanmar , and ironically, alone in acting to defend the very bylaws of the charter itself and its explicit call for democratic reform among its member nations. As sexist as this is going to sound, is the female leadership within ASEAN the ones with balls? Really.
Just weeks ago, it all but spelled doom for any ASEAN pressure on Myanmar. ASEAN rejected a boycott of the annual Burmese gemstone trade conference while gently dismissing Myanmar as a "troubled child". ASEAN's Secretary General, Ong Ken Yong invokes the simplicity of "asian values" by stating "Myanmar is part of our family, and it is the principle involved. If you have a troubled child, do you say, 'Go out of the house, I don't want to talk to you?'" Vietnam's new ceremonial seat on the UN Security Council is backed by its rock solid track record with Myanmar of looking the other way (dare it look upon itself).
"(Myanmar) PM Thein Sein took this occasion to congratulate Viet Nam on its election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in the 2008-09 term. (Vietnam) PM Dung thanked Myanmar for its enthusiastic support for Viet Nam's run for the UN Security Council post and said he hoped Myanmar will continue cooperating with Viet Nam in activities at the UN." - Vietnam Net Bridge
Myanmar's generals have also nothing to fear for either west or east, as neighboring Thailand and Bangladesh are themselves under rule by military juntas. China to the north and India to the south remain among its largest trade partners.
Alone is the Philippines and I hope they Arroyo can maintain the courage to stand up to the frat party that is the ASEAN leadership and to press upon them that ASEAN's legitimacy demands that they follow the bylaws of very charter they so eagerly want to ratify.
References
+ ASEAN. Statement by Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations, on Behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), at the Security Council lOpen Debate on "The Role of Regional and Sub-Regional Organisations in the Maintenance of International Peace and Security", Security Council Chamber, 6 November 2007
+ BBC. Burma warned over ASEAN charter.
+ Vietnam Net Bridge. Myanmar PM to visit Vietnam to boost cooperation. November 9, 2007.
+ Vietnam Net Bridge. PM emphasizes consolidating ties with Myanmar. November 10, 2007.
+ International Herald Tribune. Myanmar casts shadow over Asean talks
Posted by rst at 4:07 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
