ArtAsiaPacific — May-June 2017

56

Previews

| MAY/JUN 2017 | ISSUE 103

ZAI KUNING, Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of

Knowledge (Books Sealed In Wax), 2017, book and

beeswax, 20 x 14 cm. Courtesy the artist.

TEHCHING HSIEH, Time Clock Piece, as part of his “One Year

Performance” series, 1980–81. Photo by Michael Shen. Copyright

the artist. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

MOHAMED YOUSIF, Al Shawahid, 1981/2016, gypsum, wood,

aluminum and mirror, 115 x 105 cm. Courtesy the artist.

For the past two decades, Zai Kuning’s research

has focused on the orang laut (pre-colonial

sea people) of the Riau Archipelago, a group

of Indonesian islands just south of Singapore,

as part of his broader investigations into Malay

culture and the history of the region. Expanding

on a series in which he took the mythical

7th-century figure Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa,

the first king of the Malay empire, as his point

of departure, “Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of

Knowledge” will comprise a 17-meter-long

rattan ship and installations of books and

photographs, providing rare insight into living

masters who still practice the traditional

pre-Islamic opera, mak yong, connecting these

historical lineages to the present day.

Best known for his five rule-based, yearlong

performances that took place in New York

between 1978 and 1986, conceptual artist

Tehching Hsieh will display documentation of

these works—such as Time Clock Piece (1980–81)

and Outdoor Piece (1981–82)—as well as rarely

exhibited early works performed in Taiwan.

Curated by Adrian Heathfield, author of Out of

Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh (2008),

the pavilion “Doing Time” seeks to go beyond

the artist’s actions, and looks at the long-debated

relationship between a live event and its recording,

as well as labor and immigration issues.

The United Arab Emirates national pavilion
takes on the title of “Rock Paper Scissors:
Positions in Play,” which investigates playfulness
and its influence in artistic creation. Curated
by Hammad Nasar, five participating artists—
Nujoom Alghanem, Sara al-Haddad, Vikram
Divecha, Lantian Xie and Mohamed Yousif—will
explore “play” through movement, sound and
form. The Sharjah-based Yousif, a key figure
of modern art in the UAE since the 1970s,
will re-create his mixed-media installation
Al Shawahid (1981/2016). The Arabic word
“Shawahid” not only refers to “witness,” but
also “martyr.” With these associations in mind,
Yousif’s found-object composition uses a
mirror to catch the visitor’s reflection, placing
viewers in these roles while referencing their
own mortality.

TAIWAN

UNITED ARAB

EMIRATES

SINGAPORE