Night of Desirable Objects by Bruce Quek & Melissa Tan [2015]

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

[07.05.15 — 31.05.15]

Curated by: Andrea Fam & Jason Wee

Night of Desirable Objects, featuring works by Bruce Quek and Melissa Tan, opens up the space for the viewer to contemplate the relationship between objects and their desired states.

With references to the philosophy of Object Oriented Ontology (OOO) and Speculative Realism, this exhibition takes as its point of departure and indeed its point of arrival, the considerations of humans towards objects that are ‘real’ – objects that are accessible to us.

OOO, as a subset of Speculative Realism, generated numerous questions (but rarely answers) about objects without subjects. Objects without subjects, discussed within the strand of Speculative Realism, is Graham Harman and Levi Bryant’s thesis that objects do not exist in relation to subjects – their realism is independent of human’s consciousness of them.

Night of Desirable Objects presents Consider(Singapore); Cadastre per Aspera (2013 – present) by Bruce Quek, and After, and The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Everyday (2015) by Melissa Tan. Through the continuous dance of distancing and contiguity to the materials of the works, this exhibition attempts to demonstrate the investigations into OOO set forth by the artists.

—

Bruce Quek (b. 1986, Singapore) is a young artist and writer with an unhealthy fascination with emergent behaviour, pathological transference, and puns. All of his endeavours are frequently threatened by the seductive allure of reading random things online, out of a vague belief in the value of consuming as much information as possible.

Melissa Tan (b. 1989, Singapore) graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. She has a predilection for ephemeral themes such as crystal formations and the transformations of landscapes.

Andrea Fam (b. 1987, Singapore) is a curator and an artist whose practices are informed by the markings made on socio-political landscapes. Her preoccupations are in creating disruptive art that questions the mundanity of everyday objects as tools to comment on underlying societal issues.

Jason Wee (b. 1978, Singapore) is an artist and a writer. His art practice is concerned with the hollowing out of singular authority in favour of conundrums and polyphony. He transforms these singular histories and spaces into various visual and written materials, with particular attention to conundrums, idealism and unexplored futures.