Name: Kong Yen Lin
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: Rise of Modernism in Singapore Photography, 1950s to 1980s: Aesthetic Negotiation through an Ethnic and National Identity Prism
Thesis Abstract:
This thesis traces the development of modern photography in Singapore alongside the crucial decades of socio-political and economic growth of the nation ever since attaining self-governance in 1959 till the 1980s. Given that most photographers active during that period were Chinese, this research would attempt to investigate how photographic representation or negotiation of Chinese ethnicity, against the backdrop of state policies and ideological control, contributed to the rise of modernism in Singapore photography. Case studies were conducted on the seminal works and practices of five photographers who clinched the Cultural Medallion award: Yip Cheong Fun, Lee Lim, Chua Soo Bin, Foo Tee Jun and Tan Lip Seng. A key finding is how the emphasis of traditional Chinese aesthetic values on visual harmony favoured a compatibility with the practice of pictorialism circulating in Euroamerican photo salons, which also revolved around the depiction of beauty and sentimentality. Adopting this pictorial language, Singaporean photographers hybridized it with their ethnic inflections and local iconographies while engaging with the experience of modernity. This cross fertilization of eastern and western influences, encouraged by the Chinese aesthetic values of openness, resulted in the derivation of unique modern photographic visions.

Name: Lim Yan Ling, Jase
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: Notion of Void and Solid in Chua Ek Kay’s Chinese Ink Paintings
Thesis Abstract:
This essay investigates the visual language in Singaporean Chinese ink painter, Chua Ek Kay’s (1947-2008) paintings. This study strives to develop an ‘eye’ in observation for Chinese ink paintings; to be able to read the nuances of things by seeing beyond surfaces and obvious appearances. What appear as lines, dot or dashes may be embedded with in-depth connotations waiting to be excavated. Chua’s visual language, poems, inscriptions on the paintings and statements from interviews project nuances of influences by Chinese philosophy and traditions of painting. Motivated by the belief that the more one knows about art, the more one will appreciate it, this study attempts to read Chua’s inner messages encoded within his paintings with the ultimate aim to provide a link between the viewer and Chua’s artistic realm.

Name: Anette Pusch
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: Ai Weiwei: Art of Irony
Thesis Abstract:
Ai Weiwei is a leading representative of Chinese contemporary art and creative genius of the twenty-first century working in an international context. His art practice includes all manifestations, from performance to installation and even architecture. As such, his conceptual art extends beyond its simple form to critically reflect on China’s cultural history and relation to itself. The main features of his signature style include the extreme reduction to elementary geometric forms, their deformation or serial arrangement as well as the use of traditional materials. It is his way of criticising the selling out of culture, and thereby redefining cultural heritage. Hence, Ai’s art depends in considerable measure on irony. The essential feature of his irony is an indirect presentation of a contradiction between an artistic expression or action and the context in which it occurs. This thesis avoids being radical or definitive as it aspires to open up a critical consciousness of artistic conventions, historical conditions and new perception. Through a contextual approach, and by using ‘critical theories’ as a framework, this paper will critically analyse Ai’s art in a Chinese context and the inherent use of irony, in his body of works.

Name: Jessica Lai
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: Contemporary Southeast Asian Portraiture: A Strategy for Socio-Political Investigation
Thesis Abstract
The art of self-portraiture is not an indigenous tradition in Southeast Asia. Artists in the West began exploring their self-images in their art around the time of the Renaissance; when the conception of the artist as an individual gained ground. When Southeast Asian artists adopted Western techniques and stylistic elements in their art-making, they also adopted the genre of self-portraiture. Artists became independent individuals with their own ideas and expressions. However, the collective frame did not disappear; and even in the depiction of the self, there exists a collective identity. The motives for depicting the self-image are also not the same. Sometimes, the self-image is merely a window through which the artist deals with his inner self. Thus, the artist is not after his physical likeness. Rather, he is on a journey to self-discovery and understanding. In contemporary Southeast Asian art, the self-image has been co-opted as a site and strategy to make commentary about society and politics. This thesis looks at how contemporary Southeast Asian artists, through questioning the self, raise questions about identity within a globalized, pluralistic, continually changing and politically charged world that is contemporary society.

Name: Wong Hong Weng
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: The Singapore Storied:
Issues of Politics and Society in Local Contemporary Art from 2000 Onwards
Thesis Abstract
The Singapore Story as envisaged at the state level is more often than not experienced differently by its citizens at the ground level. There appears to be some disjuncture of perceptions and realities of everyday life in Singapore as perceived from these two vantage points. This thesis takes ‘unofficial’ exhibitions in recent years which have appropriated the occasion of National Day in order to critique it as emblem of this condition. It has isolated works mainly from Valentine Willie’s Singapore Survey series which make commentary on notions of Singapore nation-state with respect to its history, identity and values. The thesis situates these studies in a larger societal context by observing how these alternative perceptions and realities are indicative of rising desire and aspiration from ground-up to partake in matters relating to ideology, space and power. The artists’ responses are symptomatic of postmodern conditions in two aspects – first, the interjecting of personal dialogues into the meta-narrative of state-constructed history; and second, the use of art as counter-measure to dislodge state hegemony.

Name: Georgina Luisa O. Jocson
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: The Impact Of Black Artists In Asia On The Contemporary Art Of Negros Occidental And The Visayas Region, And On A Wider Scale, The Contemporary Art Narrative of The Philippines
Thesis Abstract
The social realist movement in the Philippines reached its height in the period leading up to the 1986 popular uprising which overthrew autocratic president Ferdinand Marcos. Over in the Visayas, less than an hour away by plane from the Manila, the feudal social conditions of Negros Occidental were fomenting their own version of abuse, hunger, and displacement. For over a century, vast tracts of the island had been fenced off as sugarcane haciendas (plantations) in the possession of a few hacenderos (plantation owners). The EDSA Revolution offered the promise of freedom and a new democracy, which artists in Negros took to heart. From this potent mix of political euphoria, economic devastation and social inequality rose the socially committed visual arts organization, Black Artists in Asia (BAA) in 1986. Although the group has been in existence for a quarter of a century, there is a notable lack of documented information on its activities and projects. Hence, this thesis proposed to research and record the 25-year history of the Black Artists in Asia and to evaluate its successes and failures vis-à-vis its stated goals, as well as locate and weigh its significance in contemporary Philippine art.

Name: Rohaya Mustapha
Year: 2012
Thesis Title: Collectivism in Art as Strategy
Thesis Abstract
The range of collaboration in art shows a growing exploration of art making which challenge ideas of conventional artistic autonomy. This exploration is particularly taken up by artists working in collectives who recognise and use interaction and relationships as strategies in art making. In so doing they also help to expand the field of art. Art collectives represent a very explicit form of artistic collaboration in which the individual artistic identity is subsumed by collective labour. Contemporary collectives since the 1990s also tend to be engaged with social issues and the general public instead of issues addressed to the art world. Thus discursive frameworks based on formalistic qualities of art are deficient in discussing collaborative work. The increasing visibility of collective collaboration requires other frameworks which take into account the collaborative element. The objective of the study is to try and understand the different models of collaborative labour adopted by art collectives which challenge the autonomy of art making. This thesis aims to understand the collaborative models of Singapore based collectives and attempt to provide insights into their motivations and their working processes. The research looks into possible discursive frameworks which can be used to discuss these collaborative practices in order to expand the way they can be located in our local art history.