COLLECTING BODIES, 2022
CURATORIAL STATEMENT BY DR YANYUN CHEN
December 2022
“But the nudes, they were my first love.”[1]
Addiction. Obsession. Love.
An artist, a model, and a collector surround a painted nude. In an instant, a meaningful silence engulfs a passionate encounter. A locked gaze, a trigger pulled: a body collected.
As an artist who has been embarking on a research journey to understand why nudity in art would often incite offence, censorship, and restrictions in Southeast Asia—particularly in light of the vast history of nudes in the Western art canon—this exhibition has been an archaeological treasure trove. It is a privilege to be invited into the protective sanctuary of private art collections, where the love for art, figures and artists is revealed through the generous sharing of stories and works that you now see before you. Each nude is an entry point not only into an artist’s oeuvre, it is also a marker in a collector’s journey with art. Nudities, in all its plurality, serve as carriers for stories. This group exhibition is a glimpse into a world where bodies of art, and bodies in art are carried gently for posterity.
One does wonder, how does a visual artist begin to make sense of the nudes before her, through history, in the contemporary, and perhaps, in future? The role of the curator is fundamentally one of care. When collectors and artists alike treat a represented nude with reverence, love, and humour, one who serves as a guide for the exhibition is called to embody the same spirit. The exhibition considers the intricate and nuanced relationship between the act of representation and the act of collecting. Interweaved within the stories silently are gestures of care and carrying, where an art object has been lovingly acquired and generously offered for display.
Collecting Bodies : A short story about art and nudities in Asia assembles 31 artworks from 26 artists, housed in 10 private collections. These bodies hold many questions: how is the image of a body held; how have we held our bodies in their image, and how have we carried the bodies of others?
Nudity, pit against nudity, pit against nudity. The stakes are high.
On a body, nudity can be described as a material (colour, mark, surface, idea) and a medium, as— for application, transmitting, transporting, transferring—metaphorical. How the body is used as material and medium sculpts nudity’s existence as a word in language—in languages—which in turn changes the implications it has on the everyday living body. These consequences affect both language and its use, adds to and builds on the etymology of the word nudity, and affects relationships we have with our own bodies.
The nude is a way of thinking about our bodies borrowed from, and seen through, the lens of art—an invisible membrane hovering above our skin, suspended its strangeness, manifested through language. As a vessel for the seen naked body it encompasses, nudity is both a boundary of thinking about our body, and a fiction to be worn. Our understanding of nudity creates a gaze, which is then projected onto our skin; a fiction we wear: one recognises one’s body as nude. The image of nudity as another skin suggests that nudity is not a natural state, but something that can be applied. Thus, to be nude is to undergo a transformation: which is one of the definitions of not only artifice, but art itself. Perhaps, the term nude art is tautological: the movement from craft to art is always already an exposure, a stripping away, becoming nude. Thinking about nude, naked and bare reveals the process of the becoming art.
The borders between art and ourselves turn porous as we learn to appreciate the works. This is the sentiment I hope to leave behind: a small exercise in humility and humanity.
This exhibition is an attempt to stand in solidarity with the brave Asian artists who, in spite of everything, continue to persevere and persist with their craft and in their thoughts, to try to understand and appreciate, on their own terms, what it means to be human and to have a naked body, what it means to be human which is to have a naked body.
_________
[1] Anwar, Ahmad Zakii. “A conversation between Ahmad Zakii Anwar and Valentine Willie”
Kota Sepi catalogue, Malaysia: Valentine Willie Fine Art, 2012.
PRESS
https://www.straitstimes.com/life/arts/arts-picks-the-culture-story-s-collecting-bodies-asian-film-archive-s-anna-may-wong-double-bill
https://www.artweek.sg/events/collecting-bodies-a-short-story-about-art-and-nudities-in-asia
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/whos-afraid-nude-art
ARTISTS
Pucuk Cemara
Theo Meier
Cheong Soo Pieng
Liu Bingjiang
Gong Lilong
Shi Hu
Federico Alcuaz
Basuki Abdullah
Nhek Dim
Nguyen Quoc Dzung
Nguyen Van Cuong
Mangu Putra
Elmer Bolongan
Shi Hu
Jian Yi-Hong
Ni Jui Hung
Vanessa Liem
Murniasih
Bagyi Aung Soe
Lin Hsin-Ying
Leo Abaya
Jimmy Ong
Ahmad Zakii Anwar
Hashiguchi Goyō
Itō Shinsui
Kitagawa Utamaro
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
