Night of Desirable Objects
Bruce Quek and Melissa Tan

Publisher • Grey Projects
Year • 2016
Pages • 24
Dimensions • 21 x 29.7 cm

“Our conversation together has had a long gestation. Bruce Quek, Melissa Tan and Andrea Fam first traveled to the Dena Foundation in Paris for a residency, ending with a exhibition curated by Valen- tine Meyer and Andrea in late 2013. The collaborative possibilities initiated by the residency offer remained larval rather than extensively developed, and the following year, a discussion began at Grey Projects around the forms for talking/making/thinking together. To assume nothing in common about our understanding of objects and materiality, I devised a series of reading sessions centered on the philosophy of the object, around the writings of authors such as Levi Bryant and Graham Harman, with a colloquium where Bruce, Melissa and Andrea speak their thoughts, and selected individuals—fellow artists, curators—are invited to respond. The short writings you encounter here are their responses for the colloquium, written in the churn of thinking. The exhibition took place in May 2015, more than 20 months after they first left for Paris. The conversation published here began in 2016, taking shape over many months, closing as the year itself winds up.”

— Jason Wee