An interview with independent curator, writer and artist Michelle Lim at Princeton

Michelle Lim is an independent curator, writer and artist.

She curated Reconstruction of a City, a site-specific process-oriented exhibition in the Singapore Arts Festival 2004. Other curatorial projects include Clang. A Self Portrait (2004) at the Jendela Gallery in Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay, Mindscapes (2003) at the Alliance Française de Singapour and Progression: A Selection of fine Modern & Contemporary Chinese Art (2002) at the Fullerton Hotel. She has also translated and written for various publications in Singapore and Taipei, such as Asian Art News, World Sculpture News, Ish and Ravenel Art & Investment.

As an artist, Michelle is interested in exploring memories of architectural spaces, and the role of the artist as a socio-political intervener. Her work has involved video, installation and conceptual performance to-date.

Michelle graduated with a B. Communication Studies (Hon.) from the Nanyang Technological University. She is currently in the PhD program at the Dept of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University.



Rajinder says:
Hello Michelle!

Michelle says:
Hi Raj!

Rajinder says:
Where are you today?

Michelle says:
I'm in Princeton, at home.

Rajinder says:
What are you doing at Princeton? I believe you left to pursue your course of study there last year.

Michelle says:
Well, I left in 2004 actually, so I'm actually starting my 3rd year here. Time passes fast.

Michelle says:
I'm in the graduate program in the Dept of Art & Archaeology at Princeton.

Michelle says:
Back to school!

Rajinder says:
What are the projects that you are actively involved in just now Michelle while at Princeton?

Michelle says:
Well, I'm involved in a graduate seminar that will lead to an exhibition at the Princeton Art Museum.

Michelle says:
The title is "Outside In" and it's curated by Prof Jerome Silbergeld, who's the Prof of Chinese Art & Archaeology. It will open in fall 2008, and will travel around the US a bit.

Michelle says:
We are at the same time preparing another one, "Humanism" (in Chinese contemporary photography) which will be opening its US tour at the China Institute in New York.

Rajinder says:
My goodness you are busy.

Michelle says:
well, yes...

Rajinder says:
Anything else that you are up to apart the above?


Michelle says:
Two book projects. I'm contributing something to an upcoming book on Asian Contemporary Photography, and of course, putting together the book for V&I.

I also 'organised' a visit to a local (Singapore) artist's home studio about a month ago.It was a bit cumbersome doing it long-distance, but it turned out very well and we're very happy with the results. Artist Joon Kiat, is preparing for his exhibition at the National Museum in March 2003 next year. We wanted to bring together a small group to start a dialogue going about his art works so that he could have an idea of how people were responding to his works.At the same time, it was interesting for the group, which also included docents, a conservator, collectors and civil servants to engage with an artist during his process.

Michelle says:
The conservator Esther was really a special bonus because she brought a lot of new insights to the table. Of course, since I myself was not actually able to be present, a lot of the feedback actually came via emails from the participants themselves after the event.I think the artist himself was surprised by some of the areas that his audience were interested in. Such as "material experiments in the studio". And other areas of research and findings.He's actually very keen to see how we might be able to develop this 'studio model' further..

Rajinder says:
Elaborate a little on what you mean when you say 'studio model'

Michelle says:
Well, those are actually Joon Kiat's words, not mine.

Michelle says:
I think he sees it as a new model for exchange between artist and audience.
Although it's not really such a novelty.But this is the first time he is doing it.
I think it's good for artists to be comfortable with studio visits.It's the best way to show and tell.In fact, I know some artists who have two studios - one to receive guests and the other to do the messier work.

Rajinder says:
In organising such an event, while working in US, what were your objectives? You have been involved in many similar sort of activities in the past. What are your motives? Where are you coming from?

Michelle says:
Well, I'm always interested in new platforms for dialogue. And I have a special interest in personalised dialogues and layers that build up in interpersonal relationships over time. Perhaps my background contributes to these interests as well, having worked in a Taiwanese auction house that focused on a very niche audience.And of course, my first degree was in communication studies.

Michelle says:
But in Joon Kiat's case, I think it was perhaps not as structured an activity as the others you referred to. It was a very impromptu thing.We've been friends for a while, and he was showing me his preparatory drawings (which are really quite lovely) for his upcoming exhibition.And it came together with some other ideas that have been floating around in my conversations with other 'groups' of people.

Michelle says:
The docents I mentioned are friends from the days when I used to guide at the Museum too. We still hang out together, going for gallery openings and exhibitions, whenever I'm in Singapore. In fact, one of them, Fiona, is in NYC for a holiday right now, and we'll be going to see the $130 million Klimt at the Neue Museum.And they like to organise get-togethers to paint and ‘makan’, which I think is one of the best ways to enjoy art-making. The conservationist, Esther, is someone I actually met here, in New York, through other Singaporean friends, while she was doing an internship at the Morgan Library. We had a very good conversation about the arts in Singapore, over dinner, and she was very encouraging, of initiatives where we could involve other people who might perhaps be as passionate about art.

Michelle says:
I was also especially interested in this series of works because Joon Kiat was working with acrylic on paper, and paper is a medium that I feel is really important in Asian art, in terms of art history, art practice, audience/artist accessibility, or art market.Esther herself was trained in printmaking (as an artist) and now specialises in conservation of works-on-paper.

Michelle says:
So while the event came about rather spontaneously, I did give quite careful thought to planning the mix, especially since the size of the home studio also meant that it would have to be a cosy event!

Rajinder says:
Let me nudge you a little further about platforms and dialogue. Many of your major achievements in the past have revolved around these two words. In my opinion, the V&I exhibition was more about the dialogue it sparked up between artists then the art itself. Why is dialogue so important in the Singapore context?

Rajinder says:
Why is it so important to you in particular?

Michelle says:
Well, because there's not much dialogue going on? Haha..

Michelle says:
well, let me correct myself, there's not much spontaneous dialogue taking place, at least not in a sustained way where people can come in and out, and both give and take inspiration from other people.Dialogue is really just the beginning. We talk about starting dialogues, because I don't think we've really reached the point where we can talk about "discourse" (another fav word of art people.)

Michelle says:
I wonder if it's really possible to really create 'art' without the counter-actions between artists and audience that can strengthen the random thoughts of an artist into a philosophy.Without a philosophy towards life, how would it be possible to articulate one's views about certain topics or subjects with any kind of clarity?
Or any kind of resonance for the society which is the context for the art practice, whether in alliance, opposition or assimilation.

Michelle says:
I might clarify (or so I hope!) that I see dialogue as a mutual articulation of words, and discourse would imply other levels of communication, of thought, ideas, in a way that builds and layers, going to potentially new trajectories.

Rajinder says:
If you don’t mind I want to keep with this topic a little longer.

Rajinder says:
You said earlier that you were satisfied with the dialogue resulting from the studio visit. Now I guess there are various levels of dialogue of various pedigree. What is a successful dialogue session to you and how will you contrive it?

Michelle says:
Contrive is a very loaded word I must say! But perhaps quite appropriate for what we are doing, or trying to do, here. Perhaps these 'levels' as you put it, should be seen in both time and space, not just content. Other 'ingredients' that I would put into the stew are language and context.And perhaps I would then further add history and culture a little later.

Michelle says:
Let me elaborate a little, and you will have to tell me when i am not being clear. The dialogue that took place at Joon Kiat's place was a very satisfying one for everyone. First of all, because people had no expectations. They were there to learn. And I wanted to have a diverse group (well as diverse as you can be with a size limitation of 10), where there would be at least some areas of common interests and enough diversity (or foreignness) that there would create a kind of positive tension.

Michelle says:
it is perhaps somewhat a cross between planning a successful dinner party and a theatre production. And because there was already, at this starting point, a sense that they were all going on a new journey together, and this kind of positive feeling that this was the beginning. So at the end of point, people say, let's keep in touch, they exchange numbers. So we have created a positive friction as one of the themes for this particular dialogue.

Michelle says:
Where do we go from here now?There are many ways (we are going to bring in time now).
For some, this will be the beginning of new conversations at other dinner parties which might not even include any of the people present at this studio visit. That is how ideas transfer and mutate. We of course cannot concern ourselves with the path of every idea generated at this session and all its human carriers - we will have no time to plan any other dialogues!

Michelle says:
For the artist, the dialogue may have added something to his own discourse, which he will express through material means, his art, and then we can all hope that we will experience the sublime afterwards. (ok, just kidding.)

Michelle says:
I think I want to mention a little bit here about the special circumstances of the Singapore audience, and art-making in Singapore. Putting it a little simply, people are not so used to thinking, in a way that moves beyond articulating their response to situations or issues. But now we have been asked in recent years to think more.
To participate in civic society, and suddenly, we have to complain, to think through, to decide where we stand, articulate our viewpoint, respond to criticism positively, and take positive action that will definitely lead to positive results.

Michelle says:
Perhaps this might all be a little bit too much to expect in a short time. But then, since Singapore is such an efficient place... lol...

Michelle says:
The most basic building block for culture is language.But what is language? It does not necessarily have to be verbal, or even written. For instance art and music. Certainly one cannot say that we use our eyes the same way we use our ears. Otherwise, we could do just fine with one or the other; we don't need both.

Michelle says:
Then we talk about expression. We can perhaps look a little at the works of the Expressionists.There is the famous story of Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein which I love. Where Stein complains that her portrait does not resemble her. And Picasso replies that it will.

Michelle says:
Wait, I leapt a little here..

Michelle says:
I was thinking of the German Expressionists before Picasso, so let me finish that first, although it is somewhat connected.When the Expressionists were busy 'expressing' themselves, the audience had to work much harder to understand what they were trying to say. Now, of course we can just read the art critic's subjective interpretation but that will only be a small part to the story because like Rashomon, everyone's version would of course be different, although most people are too shy to admit that they might have a profoundly insightful view than the critic.

Michelle says:
Aside: I will leave talking about self-confidence for another time.

Michelle says:
So back to Picasso,

Michelle says:
over time, people can learn a formal visual language if the idea and the purpose behind is clear and faithful, over time, articulation through patterns of style will create its own unique language. That is what I think most artists and writers and aiming for in some way.I think I mentioned in one of the texts I prepared for V&I, about the desire to express a unique way of looking at life, of making the world over to our specifications. I think "surprise" possibility are the best words to capture what the audience is looking for. Although some artists seem to misunderstand and overuse "shock" until it actually becomes boring. That is almost an art into itself I think.

Michelle says:
Very today, when you think of what we have to deal with in the news all the time.
So perhaps we will see a return to simplicity and sincerity
If you follow art market trends, you may have heard that East European art has become extremely 'hot' recently. It is very realistic art, not fancy or abstract, but attention to loving details.

Michelle says:
It will be interesting to look back on art history a century from now, and wonder if all this abstraction and obscurity that developed in the past few decades was perhaps a reaction to too much encounter with *life*/death during the World Wars of the 1st half of the 20th century

Michelle says:
Going back to art in Singapore, we actually have a chicken and egg problem.

Michelle says:
I would say that quite often the work often doesn't reflect enough thought in the process, and that goes for both writing and art-making I think. It doesn't necessarily mean that they need to *show* that they think a lot. Like how it is so hard to tell a good joke.

Michelle says:
It would be very nice if our art had a sense of humor that was actually shared with the audience, instead of the self-conscious semi-satire that is really not very helpful to creating a positive climate for arts development. I mean, who wants to support an artist that is always bitter and sour about life? Life is already hard enough.

Michelle says:
I mean, I'm not saying that we should all have 8 goldfishes and mountains of oranges in our paintings... but the art does not necessarily have to be simplistic, even if it uses the simplest of visual patterns.

Michelle says:
A little melodramatic e.g. here, "I love you" is often over-used, badly-used, carelessly used, but at the right moment, right place, between the right people, it can be beautiful. And sometimes words are superfluous.

Michelle says:
Anyway, I would say that a lot of my projects are geared towards doing a little to build the community and simultaneously trying to grow and learn, and not sacrifice on the crafting of the final work, whether it's a piece of writing, artwork or an exhibition. Will that happen? Who knows?



Michelle says:
I think if you are sincere, it will show in the work. And if you know how to live life (there must be a reason why art flourishes in Europe!), it will again reflect in the work. And I suppose that's one of the reasons why people enjoy art ( and some even get a little addicted, like us ), it's a little window into a different life from the one they are living at that moment.

Rajinder says:
I want to quickly talk about the book you are writing about the V&I exhibition that you curated. Can you tell us a little more about it?

Michelle says:
Ok. As you know, V&I was a project I started in 2003 - and dragged you into. It's very much a project about the collaborative process, athough most people know it as the Reconstruction of the City exhibition in 2004. The current project is the publication phase. It is not a post-exhibition catalog, although it will also function in that respect.

Michelle says:
We are approaching it as a new phase that recognises the publication of work that comes after the exhibition as existing within its own particular space and time and not simply referential to the exhibition that took place more than 2 years ago. For e.g., for sciSKEW, one of the collaboratives involved in the exhibition, we are doing a discussion over MSN with Hsing Yao, who was URA's head of conservation at the time of the exhibition, and another with Steve Chen, from the Dept of Architecture at Princeton, who has worked on sciSkew's projects in NYC.

Michelle says:
What is the pt of this? Will we be talking about V&I the exhibition? Maybe, but maybe not.

Michelle says:
Hsing Yao is interested in the formation of collectives and perhaps we will talk about that, since when ROAC happened, it was sciSKEW's first project as a 3-person architectural collective. And we might also talk about how that that first project, Inhabitations NYC-SIN has shaped their practice, and how it influences their current work in Shanghai and New York.

Michelle says:
Through these discussions, we hope to update and renew the V&I process, because it is meant to be a experiential (and somewhat shape-shifting, as you know so well) project. So to go back a little to your earlier question abt "contrive"-ing platforms, I might add that engagement is essential, though it might be sustained at a very low level, if that works best.

Rajinder says:
Thanks Michelle. I wanted to ask about your many other collaborations but we will leave that to another chat. Where do you see yourself going from here as an artist, curator and writer?

Michelle says:
I suppose, right now is the pointt in my life where I've tried many things. And I want to spend some time working on crafting the areas I will be active in the next few years. I am not sure I have time for art-making anymore, at least not right now.

Michelle says:
Well, Raj, I really don't know how to answer that question, except to say a lot of energy will be on making current projects turn out well and looking for the next new one to live life with.

Rajinder says:
Brilliant Michelle. I wish you all success and I look forward to working with you again sometime soon. Will you come and chat with us again in the future with your new projects?

Michelle says:
Of course... if I'm invited to..

Rajinder says:
Thanks and goodnight to you and Princeton...

Michelle says:
nitez

In the becoming..an art exhibition

My paintings and sketches as the first part of three solo exhibitions in preparation for my Malaysia exhibition on March 3rd.


Dear folks,

You are cordially invited to the opening reception of an exhibition of sketches and drawings by artist Rajinder Singh at Tavolo Restaurant on the 17th of December 2006. The art exhibition explores how the artist uses paper to brainstorm about the mysteries, mechanics and mathematics of life and the universal rules of nature.


The reception will begin at 6pm and continue till 9.30pm. Tavolo restaurant is located at 5, Boon Tat Street off Amoy Street. There are carpark lots around the area of Telok Ayer and Amoy Street. The nearest MRT station is Tanjong Pagar - about 5 to 7 minutes walk from the station.

Please RSVP before Tuesday the 12th of Dec to joseph@tavolo.com.sg or call 64231123.