The art exhibit “Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger” is like a blast from the past with a modern twist. It’s a cool collection of the artist’s work from the last 20 years, including paintings, films, performances, and video installations. Ho’s stuff is all about digging into history, myths, and different identities. Plus, there’s a brand new video installation called “T for Time” that explores how we experience time. This awesome exhibit is put together by the Singapore Art Museum and Art Sonje Center.

Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger
Date: 24 Nov 2023 to 3 Mar 2024
Venue: SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Gallery 1

General admission is free for Singaporeans and PRs.

Artist: Ho Tzu Nyen

The exhibition Time & the Tiger gets its name from Ho’s fascination with how tigers have spread across Asia over time. Over the course of two million years, with glacial shifts and rising sea levels, tigers have gone from freely roaming Asia to being on the brink of extinction today. In more recent times, tigers have been a powerful symbol of Japan’s invasion of Southeast and East Asia, while the weretigers of the Malay world connect humans and ancestral memory. Basically, tigers let us think about time in different ways: from the geological changes in Asia to the cosmic scale of ancestral memory. For Ho, time isn’t just a straight line, but a multi-dimensional thing shaped by cultural, ecological, and historical forces, with the tiger representing its fluidity and complexities. While putting the exhibition together, Ho wondered, “Can all these different scales of time co-exist and thrive simultaneously? That’s what fascinates me.”

Presenting Two Decades of Artistry and Beyond
The exhibition, “Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger,” is set to take place at SAM, spanning Galleries 1 and 2, with an off-site presentation at public libraries. The exhibition will feature a selection of major artworks primarily from SAM’s collection, which is currently home to the most extensive collection of Ho’s works. Notable pieces to be showcased include The Cloud of Unknowing (2011), The Name (2015-2017) and The Nameless (2015), CDOSEA (2017), One or Several Tigers (2017), and Hotel Aporia (2019). These iconic works form the centerpiece of the exhibition, with Hotel Aporia being prominently featured.

Originally commissioned for the 2019 Aichi Triennale as a site-specific installation, Hotel Aporia is a multi-channel video installation that reimagines a gathering of characters amidst Japan’s militant nationalism and imperial ambitions. The work delves into the enduring impacts of Japan’s militant nationalism on the region and the intricate relationships that arose from it. For its presentation at SAM, a series of pavilions, furnished with tatami mats and shoji screens, have been constructed to provide an immersive experience in the architectural style of a Japanese inn.

Central to Ho Tzu Nyen’s practice over the past two decades is The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2012 –), an evolving framework under which the artist has produced and organized works such as The Name, The Nameless, and One or Several Tigers. This ongoing project serves as a platform for Ho to gather research materials and construct a parallel model of the region’s complexities within the broader context of global history, encompassing the Left, decolonization, and imperialism. This reflects the evolution of Ho’s artistic practice over the years.

Eugene Tan, Director of SAM, and Lead Curator for Time & the Tiger, describes Ho’s art as emblematic of a radicalism in constant flux. It sheds its skin when necessary, defies easy categorization, and avoids classification. However, one certainty remains: amidst a time where complexity is often oversimplified, Ho’s art serves as a reservoir of reflection and critique. His exploration of history construction, particularly within Southeast Asia, aligns with SAM’s focus on illuminating global and contemporary issues through a Southeast Asian perspective. Audiences are eagerly anticipated to immerse themselves in the worlds and narratives Ho has crafted over the last two decades.

About the New Commission: T for Time
As part of SAM’s commitment to promoting Singaporean artists, the museum has engaged in various artwork commissions with Ho over the years, including the most recent installation, H for Humidity (2022), featured in SAM’s group exhibition Lonely Vectors. For the upcoming survey exhibition, SAM has commissioned the new work T for Time (2023)—a two-channel video installation that delves into the cultural histories of time and time-keeping traditions across Asia. Time is a crucial element underlying most, if not all, of Ho’s works created over the last two decades.

Artist Ho Tzu Nyen states: “T for Time is, in a certain sense, the most personal work I have created, and yet nothing of my own person is present within it. There are embedded parallels, rooted in it, echoing various aspects of my experiences. Its foundation lies significantly in the transformative 1980s, a pivotal decade in my relatively privileged Singaporean childhood. Symbolizing a significant shift on a broader scale, the 1980s marked the flourishing of Southeast and East Asian economies, giving rise to the term ‘Tiger Economies’. Ultimately, T for Time presents numerous anecdotes about time from different historical periods and cultures, yet it does not lay claim to universality. Nevertheless, the work remains profoundly subjective, rooted in my specific moment and trajectory.”

The commission for this work is a collaboration with the exhibition’s co-organizers ASJC and international partners including M+, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and Sharjah Art Foundation. This multi-institutional partnership for the new commission underscores SAM’s endeavor to broaden and globalize the production and curatorial support offered to contemporary artists from Singapore and the region.

The exhibition is gonna be at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark in Singapore from November 24, 2023, to March 3, 2024. Then it’s gonna be at ASJC in Seoul from June 3 to August 4, 2024, and finally at the Hessel Museum of Art in New York from June 29 to December 1, 2024. General Admission (it’s free for Singaporeans and PRs) applies for SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. You can find more info about Ho Tzu Nyen: Time & the Tiger at bit.ly/SAM-HoTzuNyenTATT.

About the artist

Ho Tzu Nyen, born in 1976 and currently residing and working in Singapore, is a multifaceted artist involved in visual arts, writing, theater, and filmmaking. He has been the focal point of numerous solo exhibitions in esteemed institutions worldwide such as the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles for “Hammer Projects: Ho Tzu Nyen” (2022), the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art for “Night March of Hundred Monsters” (2021), and the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media for “Voice of Void” (2020). Additionally, his presence has been notable at renowned international film festivals including the 42nd Rotterdam International Film Festival (2013), Sundance Film Festival (2012), 64th Locarno International Film Festival (2011), and the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival (2009). Ho Tzu Nyen’s contributions extend to theater and performance festivals such as TPAM in Yokohama (2018, 2020), Vienna Festival (2018, 2020), Summer Festival at The Kampnagel in Hamburg (2018), Theatre der Welt in Germany (2010, 2023), and Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels (2006, 2008, 2017). Furthermore, his artistic endeavors are highly regarded and collected internationally by institutions such as The Guggenheim, Tate Modern, and the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. Noteworthy residencies include the prestigious DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Program (2014–2015) and the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong (2012–2015).