top of page

Dear Bev,

April 6th - May 6th 2022
 

A meandering email conversation
about 

art.

To put together an online conversational piece about and around All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes for ArtAsiaPacific
 

Written between 
Beverly YongGan Siong King

Adapted for web by
Gan Siong King
With thanks to
ArtAsiaPacific

With apologies, best viewed with Google Chrome

B

An experiment

Wed, Apr 6, 3:57 PM

 

Dear Gan,

So my usual approach to an interview by email is to send a short series of questions following a tentative projected flow, follow up with any further questions that arise, and then edit into something reasonably tight and digestible. A nice efficient go-to method for interviewees who enjoy writing and when there are tight deadlines.

Or, if I’m working with, say, a four hour conversationxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx angel’s share xxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx.

I’m hoping this slightly experimental approach (for me), as a leisurely e-mail conversation will fall somewhere in between (and not require too much editing)! xx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxx xxx, xx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx x xxxx xxxx xx xxxxx. Please bear with my rambling.

Redacted
personal stuff

Header(clickable)

Underlined
(clickable)

angel's share

noun

: the amount of an alcoholic drink (such as cognac, brandy, or whiskey) that is lost to evaporation when the liquid is being aged in porous oak barrels. Up to 1 percent of the volume of the cask can be lost each year through evaporation, sometimes called the angel's share.

— James Suckling, Wine Spectator, 30 Apr. 1992

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

+ Chitchat

+sign(clickable)
Hidden for brevity

Lately, maybe like many other people, I feel I’ve been starting too many conversations in my head and even with others. Time of life, parenthood, the pandemic, the speed and fickleness of narrative shifts in recent years here and “globally”, natural introversion, and the projects I/we’ve been working on have really set off a lot of new questions and rethinkings/reconnections that I’m probably too eager to chase down. I  think this is partly why I felt such release (and relief) coming into All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep Killing Mosquitoes. From the moment the text appeared typed on screen, it made me feel, ok, a lot of people right now need to find ways of speaking to each other (because suddenly we understand how blind, deaf, mute and numb we might have made ourselves), and then, once we entered the visual narrative of the video essay, yes everything is happening at this kind of speed and randomness, thank God for that nice soundtrack you put on.

Promo video for All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes

Bev

Scrolling(Clickable)
More info

So I thought, let’s try to do this as a conversation, since conversation seems quite key to your work.

 

So I have some questions to start. What role does conversation play in your work and in what different ways does it manifest? Who’s speaking and to whom?

Thank you,

Bev-Starhill.jpg

Beverly Yong (b. Kuala Lumpur, 1974) graduated from Cambridge University in 1995, reading English Literature and Art History. She went on to gain a Masters degree in Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University the following year.

She joined Valentine Willie Fine Art Kuala Lumpur as Curator shortly after its foundation in 1996. From 1998 to 1999, she worked in the Chinese Department at Christies’ London, returning at the end of 1999 to become a partner and Managing Director of Valentine Willie Fine Art, leaving this post to co-found RogueArt in 2008.

She has over twenty years’ art curatorial and management experience, curating and organising over two hundred exhibitions and projects both locally and in the region. She has worked closely with leading Malaysian artists including Nirmala Dutt Shanmughalingam, Redza Piyadasa, Joseph Tan, Syed Ahmad Jamal, Wong Hoy Cheong, Chang Fee Ming, Jalaini Abu Hassan, and Yee I-Lann, as well as a broad range of artists from across Southeast Asia and beyond, including Putu Sutawijaya, Agus Suwage, the Jendela Group, Geraldine Javier, Natee Utarit, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Tang Da Wu, Lindy Lee and Shaun Gladwell, among many others.

She has served as a curator for a number of major institutional projects, including: Chang Fee Ming – Mekong at Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Chiangmai University Art Museum and Galeri Nasional, Jakarta (2004); Wong Hoy Cheong at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2004); Selamat Datang ke Malaysia at Gallery 4A, Sydney (2007); Between Generations : 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia at Asian Art Museum, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, and Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang (2007), and most recently Chang Yoong Chia: Second Life at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2018). Curatorial projects with RogueArt include Territories of the Real and Unreal: Photographic practices in contemporary Southeast Asian art for Langgeng Art Foundation in Jogyakarta (2011), and Thinking of Landscape: Paintings from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection at the Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore (2014), Yee I-Lann & Collaborators “Borneo Heart” (2021).

She has served as a judge for the UOB Painting of the Year (2016) and Young Contemporaries Competition, National Art Gallery (2001). She has been invited to speak on the local and regional art scene by institutions such as Galeri Petronas Kuala Lumpur, Bank Negara Malaysia and IVAA (Indonesian Visual Arts Archive), and has regularly served as moderator for discussions and forums including Imagining New Ecologies: Curators’ Forum at The Japan Foundation, Tokyo (2018).

She was formerly an art columnist for the Malaysian Business Times and The New Sunday Times (2000-2003). As an art writer, she has also contributed to international exhibition publications such as ARS01 (Helsinki 2001), Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2005), and Wong Hoy Cheong (UK touring exhibition by Organisation for Visual Arts, 2002-2003); and arts and cultural magazines such as ArtAsiaPacific, Art India, PhotoArtAsia, Off the Edge, and Kakiseni.com. She has edited a number of publications on local and regional art, including Between Generations: 50 Years Across Modern Art in Malaysia (with Hasnul J Saidon, University of Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia & Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur 2008) and Wong Hoy Cheong: Slight Shifts (with June Yap, NUS Museum, Singapore 2008), Condition Report: Shifting Perspectives in Asia (with Furuichi Yasuko, Japan Foundation Asia Center 2018) and Imagining New Ecologies (with Furuichi Yasuko, Japan Foundation Asia Center 2019). Editorial projects with RogueArt include WORKING (2010), Yee I-Lann: Fluid World (2010), Eko (Space) Nugroho (2011), Today and Tomorrow: Emerging Practices in Malaysian Art (2013), and Thinking of Landscape: Paintings from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection. She is also co-editor-in-chief (with Nur Hanim Khairuddin) of the four volume Narratives in Malaysian Art publication project by RogueArt (2009-2019).

K

On conversation

Apr 8, 2022, 5:53 PM

Dear Bev,

+ Yik Yak

Thanks again for doing this. The deadline and this leisurely email format are great. Please feel free to edit my text for the AAP version. I think you should have authorship for this, and my grammar is suspect. I can share the unedited version (with a link to the AAP version) on my website if there are enough differences between the two. What do you think?

 

Since this is meant for the web, I imagine there are opportunities to hyperlink. To include images and sound in the text. I don’t know how you feel about this. I’ll probably add some, but feel free to take them out.

These greyed words

I’m surprised by your “...how blind, deaf, mute and numb we might have made ourselves” reaction. Please tell me more about how you came to that? This and all paragraphs in grey don’t have to be included for AAP. It’s just another part of my mind chiming in.

 

The Koganecho Gesture - Aggregated Music Links

The Koganecho Gesture - Aggregated Music Links
Crying

Crying

02:59
Play Video
EVISBEATS【PV】いい時間

EVISBEATS【PV】いい時間

05:38
Play Video
EARFQUAKE

EARFQUAKE

04:27
Play Video

 

Thank you for the compliment on the soundtrack. The sound design for All the Time blah Mosquitoes blah (ATP) did a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of keeping people engaged. Or at least provided a space for people to make their own connections to the conversations on the screen. As with everything, words and images have their limits. I think those words/visuals carry the narrative forward (or somewhere), but it’s the sound that gives the viewing experience an emotional dimension. Anyways. 

Starting our conversation with conversations as a topic is my cup of tea.

"Conversation" is one of those slippery words. Which I use interchangeably with others depending on context. But at the center of it, conversations simply imply there are others besides the self. Conversations in my work are a manifestation of that. That art and artist don’t exist on their own. It is always in relation or in context with someone else and/or their work. Which is a realization I found annoying when I was younger. But I usually trust and try to use my discomfort as a departure point.

+ Recalling a past project

Bev, do remember when we did the Artist Survival Workshop in 2001? That project came out from conversations with the gang about the K.L art scene. There’s an instinctive understanding that the vitality of the scene is important to the development of my personal practice. I still feel the same. The project report I wrote for ATP is a continuation of this belief. It’s about art and art-making from an artist's perspective. Written as a reference for younger artists. And a form of documentation with text for myself, perhaps useful for future conversations. 

2 Booklet.jpg

2 DIY publications on art and art-making 20 years apart.

Artist Survival Workshop’s booklet (2001, left)

and All the Time I Pray to Buddha, I Keep on Killing Mosquitoes’ project report (2022, right).

Link to the project report

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RIniy7pyZCN0twxUqvKN4MlQ2QZ6YE2e/view?usp=sharing

Over the years, I‘ve come to believe that art and artists cannot exist on their own. A slight hardening of position. So, figuring out how to meaningfully include others in my practice became crucial. And conversations are entry points. A cost-efficient one I should add. I talk to different people in different phases of my art-making process. These conversations take on many forms for different purposes. And can be replaced with words like brainstorming, feedback, review, interview, discussion, planning, collaboration, dialogues, Q&A and etc. I’m interested in developing all these forms of conversation. Particularly its documentation. So, this thing we’re doing comes at the right time.

+ Question on things left unsaid

I’ve always felt after a dialogue or Q&A that so much was left unsaid. To somehow extend the dialogue and Q&A in other forms. Do you have any thoughts about this?

@meeting.people.is.easy (2017) Instagram account

Meeting People is Easy (MPIE) is a result of those thoughts. It’s an open studio project where the audience books a 3-hour block to hang out with me at my studio. To look at my paintings in various stages of completion. With a small group of people of their choice, or by themselves.

Part of the idea is to rethink how my paintings or my painting practice can be used as a form to interact with others. MPIE relies on conversations as means to understand my work, and theirs as well. And then, documenting some aspects of our conversations in short captions on Instagram. This project attempts to place my practice within the context of our local arts scene. It’s a way of saying, these are my works and these are some of the other artists in my arts community.

Conversations are also materials. Even those casual banters between friends. Kecek Amplifier Bersama Nik Shazwan is an example of this. Some of the things said in that video essay are not vital to the narrative. Which is essentially about guitar amplifiers. You'll find jokes, half-truths, and outright lies. All of these add a degree of humanity to the person saying those words. And helps create a representation of those casual conversations between Nik and me. Meandering, always with laughter and intimate at times, but not efficient. Because life is just not very efficient.

Ceriatone-24.jpg

Nik Shazwan at CERIATONE Amplification

All of my video essays are made from recorded conversations. I suppose it’s a necessary condition for any narrative-based, non-fiction work. They serve as a first draft script. Most of it gets cut eventually. Part of the editing process is to find an overlap of interest and opinions between the subject/narrator and myself. Balancing this with their story and work. It can be said that I’m speaking through them in some instances. Or perhaps speaking together with them throughout. It’s a manifestation of our conversations. Maybe it’s an exercise in empathy. Which I think we can all have more of.

I sometimes think of these video essays as prayers. I’m a non-believer. So, it’s not a conversation with God, but something equally abstract. It’s a conversation with this idea of a nation and its people. So, I'm talking with everyone and no one at all. It's a balm for my anxiety from our ever-polarizing socio-political discourse. There are good people doing good work is the mantra.

On that, I should stop my rambling. I hope I'm making some sense. And see, an edit might be necessary.  

Looking forward to continuing this conversation. Please take care.

cheers
gan

Promo video for Kecek Amplifier bersama Nik Shazwan

B

Much happier things

Apr 11, 2022, 11:33 AM

Dear Gan,

+ Much happier things

Doing this the old-fashioned way and writing a reply afresh though it’s tempting to answer in caps/different colour! (Just figured out that it’s a matter of forwarding not replying the message so we keep the images and links etc)

 

We can just publish this one reply hahaha, and keep the rest for your website! Seriously though, let’s just run with it and decide what to propose to AAP later. I’m really glad you suggested to put this on your website - it makes things much happier when it’s not (even in the most superficial xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx sense) at the outset a proposal for me to create content from your story.

 

“Blind, deaf, mute and numb” - I think I mean I feel xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On the soundtrack, I’d like to expand on this later if that’s ok. 

On discomfort, I remember certain earlier works of yours, somewhere in the 2000s, were intended to create this very sense of discomfort in the other, to put us at our unease. There was that particularly wonderful painting of a gallery wall label that you contributed for one of VWFA’s exhibitions and that (ultra radical at the time) black rubber mat in the shape of the gallery floor plan* (maybe a context footnote will be necessary here!). I think there was a will to expose the system or challenge assumptions about how we see things. I don’t think your work is any less critical (or playful) now, but where you used your work to antagonise, you now talk about meaningfully including others in your practice, I’d say you go out of your way to include them in the conversation. I’m curious about that transition (because I also just read through the journal Between Two Mountains, and its story of your going “lone wolf…

Still from Between Two Mountains (2007)

+ Spooling thread

OMG artists' survival handbook - pls send me the PDF! We have it somewhere but our library is with [A+ Works of Art}. I think Rachel is still carrying on the work of the artist's survival handbook, with her own updates… : ) Really grateful for your exhibition-making project report - wish we had had this for the exhibition-making toolkit workshop xxxxxx xxxxx xx xx xx in Sabah, and will still distribute to participants and elsewhere! Very helpful on a personal level also, for someone who grew up not used to playing with others (I’m hoping my son does better but he demonstrates the same natural bossiness at a young age that comes with being an over-indulged only child) and has been trying different ways with varying success to work together with others on many projects.

On extending conversations: I know what you mean by Q&As being too short – editors, writers, moderators have that job of keeping things digestible and the limitations on time and word counts can get frustrating. But I believe whatever is unfinished or triggered will find a way into something else, somewhere else, even if it’s just in our thinking. In the old days, people used to reply to each other through letters in the papers - somehow online comments just don’t cut it. I meet up online with a group of art writers/researchers every xxxxxxxxxxxxxx for two hours - on Discord, we’ve started a #belated thoughts thread which allows us to add thoughts and references whenever we feel like after a session. Discord allows for spooling threads, leisurely conversations like old-fashioned chatrooms with more options for organisation. It feels kinda underground and private right now, but it looks like the institutions are starting to enter the space (Pace just announced its Discord channel) so not sure how its character as a forum will unfold; I really liked that it was made for kids and gaming nerds. I wish more artists would adopt something like the Meeting People is Easy approach, or that we had the equivalent of community radio for artists, workers and fans. I shouldn’t say “I wish”.

And then, to dig a bit more into these video essays based on conversations... I suppose I think of their form as biography (to say “portrait” is just too fanciful, but you may disagree. I can just imagine someone writing an essay on Gan Siong King’s “portraiture” - me, 15 years ago perhaps!). Could you maybe share a bit more about some of the other people who have become the subject of these works - how you came to want to make work about/with their stories? Just in brief, as a teaser if you like, because the essays themselves are what we should go to.

 

And then of course The Koganecho Gesture as autobiographical, which kind of loops back to Between Two Mountains and my question about transition. The essay seems seamless, natural, honest - was that hard to achieve?    

 

Thanks, and take care too,

 

Beverly

 

Blind men and an elephant

Apr 13, 2022, 4:50 PM

K

Dear Bev,

+ Index under "Work" and titled "Dear Bev"

Alright, let’s just write and see what happens.  I think I’ll just index this whole thing under my “Work” page and titled it “Dear Bev”. A new text-based work. Yay.

 

Yes, let’s talk sound, I think I’ll have much to say. I just need enough or the right questions to organize my thoughts around this subject.

Perhaps one of the positives of the pandemic is it made us reconsider our situation. Especially in relation to others. Bev ah, please xxxx xx xxx xxxx xx xxxxxxxx. xxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxx, xxxx. xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxx xxxx, xx?

I don’t have the PDF for Artist Survival Handbook. My hard copy is battered. But I’ll find time to scan it. Yes, thank you and please share the ATP report with people. I’m glad Rachel has branched into education because she has good experiences to share. 

#belated thoughts is such a brilliant title! That is what it feels like, a second chance. I need to go check out this discord thing. Maybe I can document my future projects on my website with this interface. Thanks for sharing.

The Label

The label was meant for a show to celebrate VWFA’s, I can’t remember, 10th year anniversary? So, I painted the VWFA label, and place it where a label should be, leaving the space for the artwork empty. The title of this (non) work is It’s Not What You Show, but Where You Show That Matters. It's a cheeky tribute to the importance of VWFA as a gallery. And a commentary on the function or the authority certain art spaces have to validate an artist's practice. Latiff Mohidin at Centre Pompidou for instance. Or Gan Siong King at ArtAsiaPacific for that matter. 

 

I think it came from my youthful annoyance that an artist has to consider other things besides art-making. I was aiming to antagonize anyone. It's just my way of processing things.

Typo. I meant wasn't.

+ Object making

The VWFA label is part of a loose series of works that approach paintings as an act of object-making instead of image-making. Which included among other things a clock in actual size and dimension. Placed above eye level to further simulate an actual clock. Which opens up the possibility of reading it as a sculpture or an installation besides a painting.
 

A part of my painting practice is about finding ownership of the form, by testing its accepted perimeter. Similar to my video essays, it’s about simultaneously using and investigating the limits of genres.

It's-Show-Time.jpg

It’s Show Time
2008, Oil on Canvas, approx. 27cm x 30cm

Made for The Painting Show (2008),

curated by Yee I-lann

Loneliest-Place-WEB.jpg

The Loneliest Place in The World (detail)
2009, Fiberglass Cast (with Black Pigment), approx. 218cm x 307cm

Made for Cartographical Lure (2009), curated by Simon Soon
Simon’s essay - 
http://www.vwfa.net/cartographicallure/intro.html

- The Place
The Loneliest Place in The World (LPW) is actually a 1:1 cast of the wooden flooring of my rented room at that time. A tiny space on the ground floor, adjacent to the kitchen. And my bedroom for more than a decade. The work negates the scaling in map-making and marks the place with an irreverent and emotive description. It counters the kind of work I was making at that time. Which are usually conceptual or macho in their posturing. I thought my aversion to emotions or vulnerability is funny. LPW is one of those instances where I trusted my discomfort.

Hujan-Emas-8-Door.jpg
Hujan-Emas-8-Floor.jpg

My room at Taman OUG (2000-2012), Plywood floor panel (right)

- Unpacking things
A big part of what I do is unpack conventions or expectations. And then rearrange them in different ways to imagine other ways of seeing. This is true for my paintings and videos. I think a lot of our values and the way we understand reality are embedded in the status quo we maintain. Most of it is unchallenged and taken as unchanging truth. Painting is image-making (for most) is an example.

I’m not looking to change anything. It's just my way of figuring things out. It's that group of blind men and an elephant, but with all kinds of other animals on it. 

 

- Escaping painting

The transition you mentioned was preceded by another much earlier turnover. When I tried to escape from the solitary process of painting. And even prior to that, other people have always been part of my practice. They just have different roles, functions, and visibility. 

 

I went on the 2 weeks excursion with a group of friends from theater and other fields that I meet through Spacekraf (2000-2005). A multi-art collective that I co-founded because I wanted to do more than just paintings. I felt paintings were a limited interface to process my thoughts and reality. I thought other people and art forms will surely add to my artistic practice.

2002-ChowKitFest02-WEB.jpg

Chow Kit Fest (2002) photo by Tan Sei Hon

https://myartmemoryproject.com/articles/2002/05/chaos-and-cacophony-at-chow-kit/?lang=ms

essay by Pang Khee Teik

- Making connections and expanding practice
Chow Kit Fest (2002), is an unreasonably ambitious and inevitably chaotic 5-days multi-arts festival initiated by Spacekraf. We weren’t sure how to organize a festival, we definitely don’t have adequate resources, but thank goodness that didn’t stop us. So, it was five days of improvised madness. But it did introduce and connect different pockets of young people from different art disciplines. Which was what I wanted. And it’s sure as hell is different from making paintings. Another thing that I wanted.

It was through Chow Kit Fest that I met and then started work on community arts projects. Mainly with Five Arts Center through their theater programs. It was an exciting time. Again, not painting. Different methods and values toward different ends. Art outside of gallery spaces and formalistic concerns of image-making. Artist as facilitators and other roles.