National Museum of Singapore (venue partner)
Inaugurated in 2008 by the Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Foundation and the Singapore Art Museum, the triennial APB Foundation Signature Art Prize returns for its fourth edition in 2018. Recognising outstanding examples of contemporary art from both emerging and established artists over the previous three years, the prize puts the spotlight on the most compelling, cogent and complex works of art from the Asia-Pacific rim to the region of Central Asia.
The APB Foundation Signature Art Prize is worth SGD 100,000, with SGD 60,000 awarded to the Grand Prize winner and SGD 15,000 each to two Jurors’ Choice Award winners. A People’s Choice Award of SGD 10,000 will also be offered to the work that receives the highest number of public votes on-site.
For this fourth edition of the Prize, there were 113 nominated artworks from 46 countries and territories. 15 finalist works are presented in an exhibition taking place at the National Museum of Singapore, venue supporter for the Prize.
View this exhibition on Google Arts & Culture.
Au Sow Yee
Malaysia
The Kris Project (2016)
Bae Young-whan
South Korea
Abstract Verb – Can you remember? (2016)
Club Ate
(Bhenji Ra + Justin Shoulder)
Australia
Ex Nilalang (Balud, Dyesebel, Lola ex Machina) (2015)
Fang Wei-wen
Taiwan
Republic of Rubber Tape (2016)
Jitish Kallat
India
The Infinite Episode (2016)
Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong
Hong Kong
He was lost yesterday and we found him today and Museum of the Lost (2015)
Mata Aho Collective
New Zealand
Kaokao #1 (2014)
Yerbossyn Meldibeikov
Kazakhstan
Brand (2014 – 2015)
Phan Thao Nguyen
Vietnam
Tropical Siesta (2015 – 2017)
Propeller Group, The
Vietnam
AK-47 vs. M16 (2015)
Shubigi Rao
Singapore
Pulp: A Short Biography of the Banished Book. Vol I: Written in the Margins (2014–2016)
Thasnai Sethaseree
Thailand
Untitled (Hua Lamphong) (2016)
Yuichiro Tamura
Japan
Milky Bay / 裏切りの海 (2016)
Chikako Yamashiro
Japan
Mud man (2016)
Gede MAahendra Yasa
Indonesia
After Paradise Lost #1 (2014)
gede mahendra yasa
2014
acrylic on canvas
shubigi rao
2014 – 2016
mixed media installation with video clips, giclée prints with text, ink drawings, books and table with 3 texts
phan thao nguyen
2015 – 2017
2-channel video and oil painting on x-ray film backing (set of 6)
thasnai sethaseree
2016
paper collage on buddhist monk robes
2014
acrylic on canvas
After Paradise Lost #1 is rendered in the popular Batuan style of painting. The Batuan school developed in Bali in the late 1930s, and is characterised by a dense, layered composition that populates the canvas surface with a teeming array of figures, spaces and incidents. Yasa views this depiction of the masses as a political analogy, with divisions between important figures of history and ordinary crowds becoming blurred. He has depicted not only the bustle of everyday life on the island—Hindu temples, masked Barong dancers, tourists and surfers, as well as women dressed in traditional costume—but also included his own versions of famous paintings from Western and Indonesian art history. He juxtaposes, for instance, Raden Saleh’s iconic painting, The Arrest of Prince Diponegoro (1857), which commemorates a turning point in the anti-colonial struggle in the Dutch East Indies, with Dutch painter Nicolaas Pieneman’s depiction of the same subject, The Submission of Prince Diponegoro to General De Kock (c. 1830–35); as well as Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (c. 1818–19) with Saleh’s own A Flood in Java (c. 1865–1876).
As an artist, Gede Mahendra Yasa’s primary object of investigation is the practice and discourse of painting, his medium of choice. The ‘After Paradise Lost’ series represents the artist’s engagement with Balinese painting, a chief thematic concern being the relation of Balinese painting to the history and development of modern art in Indonesia, and particularly in Java.
This work is the winner of the APB Foundation Signature Art Prize 2018 People's Choice Award.