Nipan Oranniwesna

ISBN : 978-988-19720-1-9
Publisher : Osage Gallery
Date Published : 2012
Author : Anusorn Tipayanon, Ark Fongsmut,
Editor : Agnes Lin
Designer : Joseph Yiu, Oxeye Lau
Curator : Eugene Tan
Artist/s: : Nipan Oranniwesna

This catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition,Nipan Oranniwesna held at Osage Singapore from 20 February 2009 to 29 March 2009.

This exhibition marks the first solo exhibition in Singapore of Thai artist, Nipan Oranniwesna. Oranniwesna’s work has been widely exhibited internationally, most recently at the Busan Biennale in Korea in 2008, and at the Thai Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Oranniwesna’s work explores the fragile state of contemporary societies in the age of Globalization. This can be seen in the installation, City of Ghosts, which in this exhibition, will be the biggest installation of its kind. Using meticulously cut-out maps of ten different metropolitan cities (including Singapore), Oranniwesna uses talcum powder to create a sprawling cityscape that is a combination of all the different cities, reflecting the interconnectedness of our societies in our age of globalization. Its compelling visuality is contrasted at same time by consciousness of its fragility, highlighting the delicate, fragile and precarious nature of our societies. The use of talcum powder, a material typically used for babies, and hence its association with purity, is juxtaposed with the diminishment of utopian ideals in our current age, dominated by global capitalism.

Featured Artists

Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction

ISBN : 978-988-99399-3-9
Publisher : Osage Art Foundation
Date Published : 2017
Author : Charles Merewether
Editor : Agnes Lin
Designer : Yuen Chee Wai
Curator : Charles Merewether
Artist/s: : Au Hoi Lam, Ringo Bunoan, Masanori Handa, FX Harsono, Nilo Ilarde,
Shinil Kim, Young Rim Lee, Ng Joon Kiat, Mee Ai Om, Nipan Oranniwesna,
Bernardo Pacquing, Milenko Prvacki, Jeremy Sherma, Song Dong,
Kishio Suga, Grace Tan, Tang Kwok-hin, Maria Taniguchi, Ian Woo,
Tintin Wulia, Yu Ji, Zhao Zhao

This publication was published as the catalogue to the exhibition, Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction held at Osage Hong Kong from 16 May to 30 June 2014 and at City University of Hong Kong from 16 May to 15 July 2014.

This exhibition is the third in the Market Forces Series. It takes focus on the relationship between the aesthetic and market values of art, posing questions such as: how is ‘value’ created in today’s market? How does the market value of art affect the interpretation of art? How does the art market impact the practices of artists, curators and critics and the development of an art scene? What is and isn’t inherent in material – in other words, what can and can’t be sold or bought?

“The act of erasing—removing traces of existence or presence—entails both the destruction and production of the visual: making invisible what has been previously perceived and surfacing new images in the process… In Erased Erasers, Nilo Ilarde rubs an ordinary eraser until the whole form disappears; the discrete and brightly colored residue produced is then cast using resin, into the eraser’s original form.” (Liminal Materiality, Lisa Ito, Philippine based Art Historian and Theorist, 2014.) Consisting of 15 erasers, Erased Eraser is also a reference to the 15 erasers Robert Rauschenberg used to erase de Kooning’s drawing in 1953 to produce the legendary Erased de Kooning Drawing. Philippine-based artist Nilo Ilarde explains, “I thought to push the material farther. Using it to go somewhere else. To dematerialize. The eraser erased itself.”

‘Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction’ highlights works of artists whose practices are distinguished by intangible factors – either their concept or focus on re-looking at the everyday, working between materiality and the abstraction or spirit – whether it is cognitive, or emotional – of material…”