The much anticipated President’s Young Talents exhibition opened at the Singapore Art Museum on 25 January 2013. The exhibition showcases new commissioned works by Singapore’s most promising artists under the age of 35. Many of the past artists from the series have gone on to participate at international platforms and biennales.
Of the six featured artists this year, three were LASALLE alumni – filmmaker Boo Junfeng (29), multi-disciplinary artists Zaki Razak (33) and Ryf Zaini (32). The others are fashion designer and artist Grace Tan (34), photographic artist Robert Zhao (30), and fellow filmmaker Liao Jiekai (28). These artists are mentored through the entire process of art creation – from concept development to exhibition realisation.
Boo Junfeng’s short film, Mirror, collapses temporal realities and narratives, and reiterates the point that our present and future are inextricably tied to our past. Junfeng is one of Singapore’s most notable young filmmakers. His debut feature length film, Sandcastle, won international recognition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.
Unveil the curtain to the window with no ledge, Ryf Zaini ’s mixed-media installation, shines a light on the process of discovery and uncertainty, and the reward of illumination on those who seek and enquire with persistence and curiosity. Ryf, who graduated with first class honours in Media Arts from LASALLE in 2007 has had his work displayed in several exhibitions in Singapore and Malaysia and had previously represented the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2007.
In Revising Art: The Ten Year Series, Zaki Razak, an MA Fine Arts alumnus, attempts to understand the complexity and nature of contemporary art with the use of an art school set up that questions established practices and paradigms of art education. Zaki has been featured in many other local and overseas exhibitions, including shows in Hong Kong and Australia.
Since its inception in 2001, the President’s Young Talents exhibition has honoured many other outstanding Singaporeans artists including installation artist and photographer Francis Ng and filmmaker Tan Pin Pin. Contenders for the programme have to be Singaporean citizens or permanent residents as well as have active participation in local or international art shows.
An announcement will be made in March to reveal the artists who will be selected to participate in the Singapore Biennale 2013.
