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Of placebos that sing sweet in the mouth and ache in the soul

20 June–29 July 2024
Richard Koh Fine Art
Singapore, Singapore

Curated by Louis Ho
Images Courtesy of Richard Koh Fine Art

Related Artworks

It Feels Exactly Like This Sometimes (2024)
Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop (2024)
I Could Never Be a Saint Like You (2024)
I Would Have Loved for You to See (2024)
I Wish We Were More Alike (2024)
Envy, Van Houten (2024)
Becoming, Nestlé & Meiji (2024)
Indifference, Cadbury (2024)

Description

Excerpt of Essay by Curator Louis Ho

THE WAY WE WERE, and continue to be

Long gone are the days when gay men in Singapore had to resort to a bottle of water in hand to indicate one’s availability to a passing stranger; the advent of smartphones and hook-up apps put paid to the practice of public cruising. The other momentous nail in the coffin, of course, was the repeal of Section 377A of Singapore’s Penal Code, which prohibited “gross indecency” between men, on 3 January 2023. Theoretically, at least, queer representation in the little red dot should have blossomed in a newly liberated era of openness, unmoored from the veiled syntaxes and coded vocabularies that were formerly necessary ... yet, the signs and symbols that the queer community has always identified with continue to linger, like the beloved games or sugary candy of halcyon childhood afternoons. Of placebos that sing sweet in the mouth and ache in the soul celebrates the aesthetics of queerness that, despite continued socio-cultural coolness – legal revisions do not necessarily translate into overnight amelioration in general attitudes – live on. While there are no handkerchiefs or mineral water bottles here (though there is a carnation), the work of Haffendi Anuar, Johann M. F., Siew Guang Hong, Lucas Tan, Money Wang and Samuel Xun channel a language familiar to queer viewers. Their work speaks to the semiotics of the male body, from the sculpted muscles of bodybuilders to the lithe, supple forms of youth on the cusp of manhood; the suggestive iconography of the still-life and the material culture associated with the genre; the aesthetics of camp, kitsch and so-called bad taste, encompassing the gamut from the playful to the garish.

“Don’t Talk to Me Until I’ve Had My Goddamn Sugar” encompasses several bodies of work oriented around the motif of candy. Xun took a cue from a favourite childhood film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), with the sequence that occurs in the candy- studded chocolate room providing especial impetus.

Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop includes a pair of massive inflatable figures in the shape of gummi bears, ornamented with sparkly, embroidered accoutrements that evoke his characteristic aesthetic. The bears – one pink, the other blue – are colour-coded to reflect traditional gender binaries. Both are reflections of the artist’s personal identity, and mark his shift lately from a comparatively more masculine gender expression to a feminized one, an ongoing process.

It Feels Exactly Like This Sometimes also features the gummi bear as an autobiographical surrogate. 31 hand- sewn soft sculptures are arranged into a wall-bound installation, with the sole silver bear set apart from its fellows – the lone figure against the crowd. It channels feelings of segregation and solitude that afflict many queer individuals, but, in Xun’s case, were amplified by recent psychological shifts.

He speaks of “new realisations and moments of acceptance” at this stage of life, including coming to terms with the likelihood that romantic attachments are increasingly difficult.

A trio of chocolate boxes, shaped like buildings, are each paired with a drawing. I Could Never Be a Saint Like You is shaped like the outline of the church at which Xun used to attend kindergarten classes – the Church of the Good Shepherd in Queenstown. In pre-school, a classmate arrived with a box of Van Houten chocolates as a treat for everyone and selected the smallest piece for herself, thereby earning praise from their teacher. Xun remembers disagreeing with the display. Even as an adult, he refuses to disavow an instinctive mistrust of public acts of altruism. The drawing, Envy, Van Houten, replaces the word “ASSORTMENT” (on a box of assorted Van Houten chocolates) with “ABSOLUTELY”, connoting an affirmative reaction.

I Would Have Loved for You to See recalls the façade of the now demolished Block 27A, Commonwealth Avenue, the artist’s childhood home. After-school care was provided by his grandparents, and he has fond recollections of candy-buying trips with his grandfather to the provision store at the foot of the block. Favourite acquisitions on these trips included Nestle’s FRUTIPS and Meiji’s Choco Baby, which are depicted in the drawing, Becoming, Nestlé & Meiji. In the drawing, a tube of Nestle’s fruit-flavoured pastilles are labelled “FRUITYGRANDSON”, while a container of Choco Baby reads, instead, “QUEER BABY”. The artist acknowledges that his late grandfather was the one paternal figure he felt comfortable around, and his association with much beloved childhood treats only reinforces the affectionate warmth of his memory.

The artist’s current home, a condominium complex, is alluded to in I Wish We Were More Alike. An only child, he lives with his parents – like most unmarried Singaporeans – and, in adulthood, came to realize how different he and his mother were as people. He remarks: “I used to think that we have at least one thing in common, a love of Cadbury chocolates, but my mum enjoys Hazelnut and my favourite is the Fruit and Nut variety, so ultimately we don’t even have that.” Indifference, Cadbury pictures two bars of chocolate, the Cadbury logo substituted with the phrase, “Completely DIFFERENT PEOPLE”, and, underneath, “FRUIT & MUM”.