Mr Kiasu - a caricature of the 'mainstream' Singaporean desire not to
lose out.
Annabel Chong - an icon of 'transgression', apparently against
everything
that Singaporean culture stands for.
Yet the visage of Mr Kiasu, decontextualized from the seemingly
innocent
pages of the comic book reveals a visage brimming with lust.
And Annabel Chong, considered in context of her record-breaking
achievement
of taking on 251 men signifies a distinctly Singaporean sense of
Kiasu-ness.
Thus, the artist finds cartoon character and hardcore porn-star
strangely
complicit. Seeming opposites collude.
The images are repeated 251 times in order to simulate the banality and
boredom of Annabel Chong's 'gang-bang' [all the variations you can do
in
her]. The relatively large amount of floor space covered by the images
also
makes the artist complicit in what he is trying to bring to light - the
insatiability of desire, albeit manifested in the context of art.
The work, consisting of images appropriated from print and the
internet, and
multiplied by the photocopier, emphasizes the theme of banality in this
age
of mass reproduction - a system, which Annabel Chong and Mr Kiasu
similarly
are complicit within. However, repetition always generates
differentiation
- an object multiplied or reproduced does not remain the same. It
becomes a
term in a series, the object is no longer singular, but remains one of
two,
or three, or four…or 251. Hence, on a note of optimism, the artist
feels
that Annabel Chong's great event, banal and boring as a sexual act
repeated
251 times may sound, every repetition must carry with it
differentiation.
This is expressed through the art-work by the process of ensuring that
every
photocopy is of a different tone or of a different definition. This is
in
turn reemphasized by the random orientation of the images as they are
laid
to the ground.
Lastly, the formal arrangement of the work alludes to the grid [10 by
25],
which in turn, signifies rationality. But claims to rationality or
'clarity', in turn, is merely another fetish, an anal obsession for
clarity.
Hence the disruption to the enclosure of the grid - 10 by 25 plus 1 -
the
one that got away, the disorderliness of desire. In pretty much the
same
vein, the images form 'floor-pieces', to avoid the verticality of
paintings,
to avoid the verticality of high-art. Horizontality, on the other
hand,
alludes to low culture [of comics and porn], the base-ness of animal
that
crawls on all fours [not the verticality of upright humans], and of
course,
a low-ness that is to be stepped upon.
*the artist himself explains his controversial
work