RUINS (Entries on Days with No End) 5 %, 2009, Black and White Digital Print, 35.6 x 178 cm, Image Courtesy of VWFA

Dear readers, apologies for the lateness of this review. It was something I wrote awhile ago but I have only just managed to give it the light of day now, so here you go :)

“Are you in between shows?”

“Is this really the exhibition?”

“Where is the Art?”

These are some of the public’s reactions to Singaporean artist, Jason Wee’s exhibition RUINS: Captain’s Log Entries on Days with No End at Valentine Willie Fine Art KL earlier this year. It is interesting to hear that such an academically rigorous artist is so easily reduced to invisibility. But then again, this is nothing new in the story of contemporary Art and our Attention Deficit Disordered world. The reason for this disregard is because Wee’s digitally created pseudo photographic images are so densely put together that ironically, they seem too simple to be Art. As such these monochromatic meditation points, on history, memory and borders are (frustratingly) invalidated by easily wandering minds.

RUINS (Entries on Days with No End) 25%, 2009, Black and White Digital Print, 35.6 x 178 cm, Image Courtesy of VWFA

Captain’s Log is a series of digitally rendered prints. They are not actual photographs but the artist is not adverse to them being considered in this way. Inspired by the journeys of Admiral Cheng Ho, a fifteenth century Chinese maritime explorer and diplomat, Wee created imagined ocean views of the horizon line as might have been seen aboard one of these historical vessels. After studying ancient maps from Cheng Ho’s journeys the artist was interested in the concept that although these maps were at the time the most sophisticated examples of cartography, they are now accepted as being highly inaccurate. Therefore there was a certain amount of imagination involved in their construction at the time. Using computer programming, some of the most sophisticated form of technology at the moment, Wee then digitally constructed his own imagined visual account, placing himself on board Cheng Ho’s ship. The result, a surreal state of limbo, loneliness, revelation, wonder and ultimate resignation at the endless unobtainable horizon line which becomes both the beginning and end of the world. We are witnessing the impressions of a sailor, an Admiral stranded at sea hoping for land only to be endlessly taunted by the flat unfeeling oceans.

RUINS (Entries on Days with No End) 55 %, 2009, Black and White Digital Print, 35.6 x 178 cm, Image Courtesy of VWFA

History, memory, place, and the idea of non place (in this case an imagined site with no physical existence) are weighty, dry and often not very exciting topics for your average gallery goer. It is Art beyond everyday understanding so to speak. Most art audiences want specific recognition, entertainment, pleasure, shock and humour. And Wee does not provide any respite in his titles: Ruins (Entries on Days with No End) (5 percent) is as unyielding a line of text as his minimal images. Instead he has constructed a specific distance between subject and viewer, which many audiences find frustrating, boring, arrogant and pointless. Yet another hoax of contemporary art. This is fine. Wee’s art is for a very specific viewer many of which aren’t in Malaysia, and he is an artist for whom process (research and production) is more important than communicating clearly his intent to audiences. It is up to us to embark on a voyage of seeing and understanding. However, by investing in his line of inquiry we may just come out on the other side that little bit more informed and enlightened.

RUINS (Entries on Days with No End) 75 %, 2009, Black and White Digital Print, 35.6 x 178 cm, Image Courtesy of VWFA

Wee’s images begin through research, a personal process of absorption and selection of historical information. The seeds for the series began when the artist was reading a theatre script by Kuo Pao Kun entitled “Descendents of the Eunuch Admiral” a part fiction part factual play about Admiral Cheng. This then compelled him to continue his study of historical maps (which he explored in a previous exhibition, Landscapes: A View from the Ground, 2006) and use of digital technology to re-render imagined views from these maps. RUINS: Captain’s Log on Days with No End finally emerged from Wee’s 2007 residency at the Artspace Visual Arts Centre in Sydney where he felt compelled to pursue a piece of information gained during his research that revealed how Aboriginal Australians near Darwin would come across Chinese junks and sailors in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. And so the Australian connection, required for an artist residency, was born. However, the final images do not reveal this process but rather present ideas of nothingness. And  to see something in  nothing is a lot of work for local audiences in KL. That they are black and white  images of a distant horizon emerging and disappearing through subtle black and white digital tonal variations further adds to this sensation of distance.  And so with  no kitsch or realism audiences are left with some quite serious imagery that feels more clever then they are.

RUINS (Entries on Days with No End) 95 %, 2009, Black and White Digital Print, 35.6 x 178 cm, Image Courtesy of VWFA

Rather than welcoming us into his world, Wee seems to be purposefully trying to push us further away. But this alienation is an appropriate reminder of the isolation Admiral Cheng Ho and his men must have experienced during their journeys across the seas. However, problematically for me, a die hard Hiroshi Sugimoto fan I can’t separate my indulgent emotional love of Sugimoto’s Seascapes series of which there are striking visual similarities with Wee’s work, which as a result make RUINS feels secondary. Although Wee’s imagery is sensuous, mysterious, hypnotic and intelligently produced with a completely different technique and reasoning, well I just can’t let go of how much better Sugimoto is to look at as a meditation point. C’est la vie. But Art that requires my attention, that has a slow pace to it, that has layer upon layer of production and is coy about meaning (and I am still thinking) is something that I happily respect and would like to see more and more of in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

RUINS: Captain’s Log Entries on Days with No End was on display Valentine Willie Fine Art KL from 6-23 May 2009

(EM)