2
Veneer Zhiwen Yap March 16 – 22, 2017 Performance Hall Foyer Yale-NUS College
3
4
5
Introduction
The artist invites you to partake in the sublime monumentality of the blank, vis-Ă -vis the [blank]. The precocious simplicity of her installation is borne of an interest in hyperminimalist minimalistic minimalism, emphasising absence over presence; the absence of presence over the presence of absence, and the phenomenology of materiality. As an ‘High Art’, it questions the foundations, boundaries, and parameters of objecthood, saturating a void that
6
signifies the precise fragility of its non-being. The work’s subtle, yet nervous, visual energy and violent color palette tackle challenging questions and assumptions concerning the contrivances of artistic creation — the players, languages, and structures that uphold its spectacle. By participating in this installation, audiences are forced to confront the legitimacy of complicity, and the essential complexity of legitimacy
therein. Ergo, by problematising the ambiguous polarity between the object and subject, physical and liminal, vacuous and meaningful, and by embodying the expressivity of aesthetic interiority as such, the artist’s installation engages with, examines, interrogates, and subverts the emptiness of form, and the form of emptiness.
7
Plinth
8
9
10
13
14
15
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
Walls
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
57
58
59
61
62
64
65
67
68
71
72
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
87
88
89
90
91
92
94
95
96
97
98
100
101
103
104
106
107
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
117
118
119
120
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
132
133
134
135
136
139
140
141
142
Wall Label
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
167
Lights
168
169
170
171
172
174
175
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
PLINTH
PLINTH STAIN I
PLINTH STAIN II
Plywood Painted white, three coats 110 x 40 x 40 cm
Wear and Tear 1.7 x 0.2 cm
Shoe Print 10.1 x 5.9 cm
PLINTH STAIN III
WOOD PANELS I-V
HOLE I
Wear and Tear 2.8 x 7.2 cm
Plywood Painted white, three coats 244.3 x 122.3 cm
Drilling Mistake 0.3 x 0.3 cm
190
SCREW I
SCREW II
SCREW III, HOLE II
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm Drilling Mistake 0.3 x 0.3 cm
SCREW IV, HOLE III
SCREW V
SCREW VI
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
Drilling Mistake 0.3 x 0.3 cm
191
SCREW VII
SCREW VIII
SCREW IX
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
SCREW X
SCREW XI
SCREW XII
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
192
SCREW XIII
SCREW XIV
SCREW XV
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
SCREW XVI, XVII
UNEVEN WOOD I
UNEVEN WOOD II
0.5 x 0.5 x 4.5 cm
36.2 x 7 cm
36.2 x 7 cm
193
UNEVEN WOOD III
UNEVEN WOOD IV
UNEVEN WOOD V
2.4 x 1.9 cm
6.8 x 3.2 cm
5 x 5.3 cm
UNEVEN WOOD VI
UNEVEN WOOD VII
UNEVEN WOOD VIII
2.2 x 0.3 cm
2.2 x 3.8 cm
0.5 x 0.3 cm
194
UNEVEN WOOD VX
UNEVEN WOOD X
UNEVEN WOOD XI
2.3 x 0.9 cm
5.2 x 3.1 cm
6.3 x 4.9 cm
UNEVEN WOOD XII
SHADOW OF WORDS I
SHADOW OF WORDS II
3.4 x 7.1 cm
24.3 x 18.1 cm Remains from former use
82.3 x 10 cm Remains from former use
195
WOOD MARKING I 2.3 x 0.9 cm Pencil
DOUBLE-SIDED TAPE I-IV 0.5 x 0.2 cm 1.3 x 1.5 cm 1.4 x 0.9 cm 1.5 x 1 cm
FILLED WOOD I 24.7 x 8.3 cm
FILLED WOOD II
FILLED WOOD III
FILLED WOOD IV
9.1 x 6.7 cm
16.2 x 6.1 cm
3.1 x 4.8 cm
196
FILLED WOOD V
FILLED WOOD VI
FILLED WOOD VII
9.2 x 7.1 cm
3.9 x 3.4 cm
3.8 x 2.3 cm
FILLED WOOD VIII
WALL LABEL
2.8 x 3.2 cm
42 x 29.7 cm 379 words
LED 3-SPOTS CEILING TRACK 78 x 2.8 x 3 cm
197
The artist would like to thank Advisors Yanyun Chen Prof. Maria Taroutina Actors Melody Madhavan Natalie Christian Tan Christopher Tee Photographer Leong Kit Ling Arts & Media Office Amir Ayul Farhan Indra Mike Md Shafei Bin Seri Gurjeet Singh Nabila Binte Abu Talib Prof. Rajeev Patke Prof. Sarah Weiss Laurel Fantauzzo Mastura Bte Mohd Saleh Lily Seah Wee Jing Long Bryant Chan Jennifer Teo Mark Ong Dean of Faculty Office
198
Zhiwen Yap (b. 1994, Singapore) is a graduating senior at Yale-NUS College, where she will earn a BA in Arts & Humanities in May 2017. She hence exists precariously in a liminal space between the temporality of Studenthood, the potentiality of Greatness, and inevitability of Unemployment. Yap’s practice amalgamates curated spaces and experiences, graphic design and writing.
INSTALLATION Zhiwen Yap ART DIRECTION Zhiwen Yap PHOTOGRAPHY Zhiwen Yap, Leong Kit Ling DESIGN Zhiwen Yap
199