Saturday 26 September 2015, 10:30am–5:30pm
NTU CCA Singapore
The Single Screen
Block 43 Malan Road
Singapore 109443
NTU CCA Singapore presents an international symposium dedicated to the late photographer, theorist, photography historian and critic Allan Sekula. Situated within the context of Allan Sekula’s exhibition Fish Story, to be continued at NTU CCA Singapore, the symposium will mark a concluding point to the show and highlight the continued relevance of his work and writing on the theme of globalisation.
The programme of the symposium will focus on key themes underlying Allan Sekula’s practice including questions of critical realism in contemporary art, representation of labour as well as the vast topic of the sea as the “forgotten space” of the contemporary global economy.
The symposium will bring together art professionals who have collaborated with Allan Sekula across the years and who will share their insights and experience of working with the artist. The list of contributors comprises: Hilde Van Gelder (Director of the Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography, Leuven), Carles Guerra (Director of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona), Roger Buergel (Director Johann Jacobs Museum, Zurich), and curator and writer Mercedes Vicente (PhD candidate, Royal College of Art, London).
In the second part of the symposium, the complexities of a maritime world and a maritime nation unpacked by Allan Sekula in his extensive research will be grounded in the local context of Singapore, an important harbor in colonial and postcolonial times. Contributors to this discussion include Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (curator for the Singapore Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale) and Charles Lim (artist for the Singapore Pavilion). The symposium will be moderated by Ute Meta Bauer (Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore) and Anca Rujoiu (Curator, Exhibitions, NTU CCA Singapore).
The exhibition Fish Story, to be continued (3 July–27 September 2015) brings together core works of Allan Sekula’s research of the global maritime industry from the collections of Fond Regional d’art contemporain Bretagne, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), Vienna. Curated by Ute Meta Bauer and Anca Rujoiu (NTU CCA Singapore), the exhibition introduces chapters from Fish Story (1988–93) alongside two filmic extensions of the project, Lottery of the Sea (2006) and The Forgotten Space (2010), both co-directed with the film theorist and director Nöel Burch.
In juxtaposition with Allan Sekula’s exhibition, NTU CCA Singapore has invited the curator Mercedes Vicente (Darcy Lange Curator-at-Large) to present Darcy Lange: Hard, however, and useful is the small, day-to-day work (12 August–27 September 2015). These works by the late New Zealand artist Darcy Lange, selected from the Darcy Lange Estate and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, examine these two artistic practices that meet in a shared interest of representing labour despite their different approaches.
Fish Story, to be continued and Darcy Lange: Hard, however, and useful is the small day-to-day work punctuate NTU CCA Singapore’s overarching narrative: PLACE. LABOUR. CAPITAL.
