Opening Reception of "detour"

©Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

Opening reception: 11 Oct 2008, 2pm, KayNgeeTanArchitectsGallery.

Autographed "Magnum Magnum" photography book will be in promotion price at the Opening Reception.

Bibliography of Chang Chien-Chi

In his work, Chien-Chi Chang makes manifest the abstract concepts of alienation and connection. “The Chain,” a collection of portraits made in a mental asylum in Taiwan, caused a sensation when it was shown at La Biennale di Venezia (2001) and the Bienal de Sao Paolo (2002). The shocking, nearly life-sized photographs of pairs of patients literally chained together resonate with Chang’s jaundiced look at the less visible bonds of marriage. He has treated marital ties in two books—I do I do I do (2001), a collection of images depicting alienated grooms and brides in Taiwan, and in Double Happiness (2005), a brutal depiction of the business of selling brides in Vietnam. The ties of family and of culture are also the themes of an ambitious project begun in 1992. For 16 years, Chang has photographed the bifurcated lives of Chinese immigrants in New York’s Chinatown, along with those of their wives and families back home in Fujian. A work in progress, “China Town” was hung at the National Museum of Singapore in 2008 as part of a one-man show, “Doubleness.” Chang’s investigation of the ties that bind one person to another draws on his own deeply divided immigrant experience. Born in Taiwan in 1961, Chang studied at Soochow University (B.A. 1984) and at Indiana University (M.S. 1990). He joined the prestigious photo agency Magnum in 1995 and now lives with his wife in Taipei and in New York City.

The Map-Chien-Chi Chang-Columbus 06 June 2006

London 22 June 2006

Taipei 21 July 2006

©Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

「Detour」
by Chien-Chi Chang

Opening reception: 11 Oct 2008, 2pm

「繞道」
張乾琦攝影展

開幕 : 2008 年10月11日（星期六）下午2點

Detour by Chien-Chi Chang

「Detour」
by Chien-Chi Chang

Opening reception: 11 Oct 2008, 2pm
In conjunction with a major exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore, Chien-Chi Chang, a member of Magnum Photos, will present a selection of special work exclusively at Kay Ngee Tan Architects Gallery.

This body of work, handpicked by Chien-Chi himself, offers insight into his private world as an artist and a man, elucidating his approaches, views and philosophy of photography. This exhibit is, as announced by its title, a sort of detour. It is up to the viewer to trace the connections—both subtle and obvious—to his main path.


「繞道」
張乾琦攝影展

開幕 : 2008 年10月11日（星期六）下午2點
譽響國際長駐紐約的台灣籍攝影師張乾琦配合在新加坡博物館的展覽，也將於十月十日在陳家毅藝術空間開展另一系列的作品。 張乾琦為國際頂尖攝影組「馬克蘭」 (Magnum) 成員之一，「馬克蘭」攝影組織創辦至今剛好61年，會員挑選嚴峻，皆行中精英兼國際名師，尤以影像報導世界新聞環球動態而深入民心，張乾琦為其唯一華人成員。

這回在陳家毅藝術空間的展出包括了新舊作，以及仍在進行中的作品，皆由張乾琦親自為藝廊篩選，有些為首次登場的作品。

創作者如此為展名註解：「"繞道"乃靜態影像與動態影像之間存在的一個空間。」

如此貼切的介引，我們隨攝影師繞道進入他私人的幽徑，觀察並探尋張乾琦世界，通過與衆不同或隱澀或明朗的手法，展現出世態炎涼節奏快速充滿喜怒哀樂的現代人生活，其中不乏動人的哲理。

10月11日（星期六）開展的下午2 – 4 點鍾，張乾琦特別為來賓簽書，幾樣書種也包括 Thames and Hudson 去年為60周年紀念精緻出版今年再版的「Magnum」攝影集，萬不可錯過。


Show period at KayNgeeTan Architects: 10 Oct 2008 – 21 Nov 2008

At the same time, Award winning magnum photographer, Chang Chien-Chi will showcase a series of his most extensive photography works in this exhibition entitled ‘Doubleness’ at National Museum of Singapore- exhibition gallery 1, 10 Oct 2008 – 4 Jan 2009. For more information, visit http://www.nationalmuseum.sg/.

Opening of "Torn Faces"

"Torn Faces" by Thomas Pfister

"Torn Faces" by Thomas Pfister

I got my first Yashica camera when I was 13 years old and started contributing to local newspaper in my hometown close to Hamburg. My uncle was the one who mentored me throughout the years. Over many years my photography skills developed and I found my passion. I still contribute to regional magazines and work from time to time for humanitarian organizations that appreciate my work, creativity and authorship.

TORN FACES is my first exhibition and hopefully not my last. Wherever I go, I see posters of artists promoting concerts, politicians running for elections or companies simply promoting their products. They appear for a week or so and disappear within minutes. What’s left are these torn faces - often without the original message but faces that sometimes still speak for themselves. What remains leave us with more questions than answer. I am often intrigued by the mixed messages and decided to make sense of these remnants, by making my own picture and stories. I invite you to do the same.

Thomas Pfister

Please join us for the opening reception at 7:00pm, Sept 10, 2008.

Exhibition period: Sept 10 – Oct 06, 2008

Torn Faces

Our next exhibition is Torn Faces, a series of photographs by Thomas Pfister, a German photographer based in Jakarta. The show will be from Sept 10 - Oct 6, 2008.

Please join us for the opening reception at 7:00pm, Sept 10, 2008.

All exhibition prints will be made on the Epson Stylus Pro 3850. The Epson Ultra Fine Art papers are sponsored by Epson Singapore.

All drinks at the opening reception are sponsored by UTO Asia Pte Ltd.

Opening of Tian Tian Xiang Shang

Gallery owner Kay Ngee Tan introduces Danny Yung.

Everyone looks up.

Everyone looks up.

Danny speaks.

And signs his books.

Upcoming Exhibition: Tian Tian Xiang Shang Conceptual Comics By Danny Yung

Comic Arts Exhibition:
31st July – 29th August 2008

Opening Reception:

Thursday 31st July 2008, 7:30pm

Kay Ngee Tan Architects-
Gallery 16-17 Duxton Hill, Singapore 089600

Gallery Hours: Mon – Fri 11am-7pm

Kay Ngee Tan Architects Gallery is pleased to present 30th July- comic arts exhibition by artist, Danny Yung. They are other guest artists included Vivienne Tam, Tsui Hark, Alice Mak, Anothermountainman, Craig Au yeung, Choi Yan Chi, Kan Tai Keung, Douglas Young and Siuhak.

Danny Yung was born in Shanghai, China in 1943. At the age of five, he moved with his family to Hong Kong. After finishing secondary school, he went to the United States, attended the University of California at Berkeley and obtained a bachelor's degree in architecture. He went to graduate school at Columbia University afterwards, where he studied urban planning and earned a master's degree in urban design. Then he returned to Hong Kong in the late 1970's and began his life-long devotion in all aspects of the arts, including experimental films, cartoons, conceptual art, installation, video and performing arts. He founded the avant-garde arts collective Zuni Icosahedron in 1982 and became its artistic director since 1985.

Creative Productions

In the past 20 years, he has been involved in over 100 theatrical productions as director, scriptwriter, producer and stage designer. His "Journey to the East" series, "Two or Three Things" series, "Hundred Years of Solitude" series and "Deep Structure of Chinese Culture" series were staged in many countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Belgium, Germany, England and the United States. His recent "Four Grand Inventions" was staged in Hong Kong and Berlin in 2000. His experimental films and video works were also shown in the 1980's in Berlin, New York, London, Rotterdam, Tokyo and Hong Kong. His installation work was selected in 1999 for INSIDE/OUT: New Chinese Art by the Asia Society in New York to be exhibited in museums across the United States, together with works by 55 other Chinese artists. His latest solo exhibition "Tree‧Man" was held at the Hong Kong Cattle Depot Artist Village in November 2003. In 2007, “Tian Tian Xiang Shang – Danny Yung’s Conceptual Comic Exhibition” was held in 1933 Creative Space during the Shanghai International Creative Industry Weeks.


Cultural Exchange

Beginning in 1997, Yung has initiated several important cultural and arts networks. Among them are the Asia Arts Net and the Hong Kong-Taipei-Shenzhen-Shanghai City-to-City Cultural Exchange Conference. Yung was the ex-Chairperson of the International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD), and hosted the Shanghai biennial international conference in 2005. Yung is also an Executive Committee Member and the Hong Kong regional chairperson of the Conference of Asian Foundations and Organizations, which promotes the third sector in 11 cities in Asia.

In 1997 Yung organized Munich–Hong Kong Joint Cultural Conference. In 2000, Yung organized the Festival of Vision — an 11-week program of cross-cultural festivals and conferences held in Berlin and Hong Kong. The festivals involved 1,000 artists and cultural practitioners from 35 cities in Asia and Europe. In 2001, with the support of Ford’s Foundation of New York, he directed the formation of a tri-yearly World Culture Forum Alliance, planning global cultural research programs.

Yung is currently the International Consultant of the UN Consultant System (UNCS) of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, the Roaster Chairperson of the World Cultural Forum, the Asia Pacific Alliance Chairperson of the Hong Kong–Taipei–Shenzhen–Shanghai City-to-City Cultural Exchange Conference and the Vice President of the Asia Pacific Performing Arts Network.

Policy, Research, Planning and Education Yung is always giving a close watch on the arts and cultural development in Hong Kong as well as in the Asia Pacific regions. Beginning from 1987, Yung has set up a ‘Hong Kong Cultural Policy Study Group’ at Zuni Icosahedron, organizing a series of art and culture policy discussions. It generated an independent research and an in depth reviews depending on the concerns from the cultural groups according to the cultural policy of the Hong Kong government. In addition, Yung has delivered a set of significant reports in relation to ‘In Search of Culture Policy’.

In 1995, under Yung’s proposal, Hong Kong Arts and Development Council (ADC) established, Yung became a founding member responsible for the establishment of art policies in Hong Kong and chaired the Arts Education team. Yung was reappointed as the member of ADC in 2000. Yung was also a former part-time member of the Central Policy Unit (CPU) — a Hong Kong Government think tank — closely in relation to the creative education, creative economy, creative city and creative interaction of the fundamental development and policy research. He is now a policy consultant to various governmental cultural and creative industry entities included the member of the Consultative Committee on the Core Arts and Cultural Facilities of the West Kowloon Cultural District, the Hong Kong Copyright Tribunal and one of the board of directors of the Hong Kong Design Centre, which holds the annual Business of Design Week.

Yung is also paying close attention to the local education development, he is currently the Chief Executive of the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, the member of the Advisory Board of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, School of Design, the member of the Advisory Board of the Hong Kong Lingnan University, Department of Cultural Studies and the member of the Advisory Board of the University of Hong Kong, Centre for Civil Society and Governance.

Photographic Exhibition by Paul Kohl, Simple, Opening Reception: 9 May 2008

Upcoming Exhibition: Simple by Paul Kohl, Opening reception: 9th May 2008

Photographic Exhibition:

09 May – 31 May 2008

Opening Reception:

Friday 09 May 2008, 7:30pm

Kay Ngee Tan Architects- Gallery

16-17 Duxton Hill, Singapore 089600

Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 11am-7pm, Saturday 11-6pm, by appointment.

Kay Ngee Tan Architects Gallery is pleased to present Simple/Simplicity - a twin solo-exhibition of Colour/Black&White photographic works by Paul Kohl.

Simple showcases a series of color photographic prints made from 1983 to 1986 by Paul Kohl during his stay in the Baltimore and Indiana before the work upon his Black and White series began.

Paul Kohl’s color works reflect his attempts to translate his fascination and emotions with the environment. He engages himself to objects and spaces, committing solely to the solipsistic process of relating himself to his surroundings through the camera.

Paul draws influences from jazz music like that of John Coltraine, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and others in the American Pantheon into his works. His first encounter with the work of the photographer Harry Callahan at the Hallmark Gallery in New York City inspired his decision to convey himself through images- of his perceptions towards the time and space that held his existence.

In his images, we see a plant spray painted blue, oppressed by its man-made environment, a tennis court held by primary colors of red, blue and green, pushing an image of a famous final scene of tennis court on Antonioni’s film “Blowup” into our minds. In the film the photographer watches a mimed tennis match, he enters the mimes' own version of reality by picking up the invisible ball and throwing it back to the two players- an illusion reciprocating the artificiality of these landscapes by Paul.

Through his lens, Paul seeks the chance to celebrate the transitory beauty of the real and to participate in the ecstatic potential of the simple.

Paul Kohl graduated from The San Francisco Institute in Photography with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1973. He further pursued his Master Degree in Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana in 1985. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and the States from 1974 - 2009, with Simple/Simplicity being his first solo-exhibition in Singapore.

Paul works were collected internationally by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Fogg Museum, at Harvard University and the Awagami Paper Museum among others. No stranger to grants and awards, he received the National Endowment for the Arts Artist’s Photography Fellowship in 1976 and became the only writer in English awarded with the Takeshi Kaikoi Award 1997. He is currently a guest lecturer in NTU.

For further information, please contact Ee Peng at gallery@kayngeetanarchitects.com or (65)64230198.

We're Hiring!

Since opening in July 2006, our gallery has established itself as a choice space for photographers in Singapore and in the region. Our Saturday forums are also well-attended and referenced.

We are now looking for a full-time gallery manager/assistant and a few part-timers, as we prepare to move into the next exciting stage.

The ideal candidate is one who is a self-starter and not afraid to try new things. Being a very small outfit, we value teamwork and a sense of mission. Since our gallery is still very new, we want people who really believe in making a difference.

We expect you to have an excellent command of written and spoken English, and ability to do so in Chinese will be an added advantage.

Needless to say, a keen interest in photography, art history and arts in general is a prerequisite. Excellent organizational skill is also a big plus.

As a member of our team, you will be involved in all aspects of our gallery operations, including but not restricted to writing, curating, programming, organizing and maintaining our websites.

Interested? Please send your application, including CV, salary expectation & references, to co-founder Tay Kay Chin at kaychin@kayngeetanarchitects.com.

Transcript for FreeFlow #7 Forum by Paul Kohl & Shannon Castleman (watch this space for further updates of the Q&A session)

Paul Kohl: Hi everyone,

My name is Paul Kohl, I’m American. I was educated in the San Francisco Institute in California. For my undergraduate work I went to graduate school at the Purdue University. Lafayette, Indiana, a big school for engineering, agriculture and has a very small art department. Which I thought it is good because I was at that point, matured where I won’t like a lot of external supervision.

I was in New York city, I was in the army for a while, I was a nurse… Kind of a nurse, in Vietnam in the prisoner-of-war camp. After the army, I started photographing. When my works came to be what I thought as my own.

Right, so this is my first body of works that I recognized to be fairly unique to me. It’s hard to see here, but the surface of the print is very grainy. They are intentionally over exposed, over developed. I did whatever is necessary to make the surface of the prints as important as possible.

A phrase constantly buzzes in my mind,

“the map is not the territory… the map is not the territory… the map is not the territory…”. And what it means to me is that photography has been used as a map, when u take a picture, you intend to refer to something. But I was determined to take something, where the images lose their referents. I wanted the audience to look into the prints and not think about where it came from, what it means, what-has-been. But to think of them as only an experience, contained and fixed onto the surface of the print. Nothing else.

So in order to achieve that, I gave as many things as I could. I chose papers with textures and make the images as grainy as I could, to stop the break-down, that recognition of the referents. These works continued, until, I got a national endowment arts grant to work as an artist for a year. I took that money and went to Japan. I’ve been interested in Japanese culture, I was practicing the martial art aikido in San Francisco, I’ve been wanted to get out of the United States.

So I went to Japan and started making pictures. Photographs like this.

These images are pretty much the same kind of image I was making in United States. The difference was that, when I was in Japan, I didn’t have the same kind of chemicals as I would have in the United States. So, I have to change the way I was making pictures once I was in Japan for a period of time. And I started working with square films, 6 x 6 negatives. The process became much simpler.

As you can see here, my images before was much of a landscape, where now, I was taking an interest in symbolism. The pictures I’m making, I don’t want them to stuck on the surface, I want them to go inside and work on the sub-conscience reaction. So, I think they are not about photography, more about emotions. I’m not sure where these objects I’ve photographed go, but they are not the surface images like what I was doing before.

I lived in Japan for about four years, working as a linguist teacher. So I was taking pictures and having a good time. It was in the middle-late 70s, when Tokyo hasn’t had that bubble experience. Before the bubble, Tokyo still had that experience coming out of the Second World War. They are still recovering, and Japan hasn’t seen itself becoming top of the world. It was quite a wonderful place to be.

I eventually went back to the United States, went to graduate school and began working in color. I’m not going to show whole lot of these, as the next exhibition I’m having here, they’re going to be color prints coming out of this series. But just to give you a taste of it, it’s from the vernacular landscapes through exploration on foot in the cities and country-sides of United States.

My shadow, starts to crept in a lot of these pictures, which I couldn’t keep myself out of (hehe).

My wife is Japanese, we had two children. We lived in the United States together until about 1995, I taught at art school from United States, the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. But in 1995, the economic situation became tough and we had to return to Japan thereafter.

Then, I was working on this body of work, it’s called “Two Fish, Out of Water”. There’s a couple of images here, and this little thing right here, is called a “fugu”, the blowfish. The Japanese love it, they’ll tease themselves with death and eat it even if it’s poisonous. It killed a couple of people every year, from eating contaminated blowfish.

Two Fish, Out of Water
http://www2.gol.com/users/pkohl/two%20fish-slideshow/slideshow.html#1

Anyway, this is the fugu, and this is me. And these are the two fish. Both of them are out of the water. And it’s my reaction once again alien, being in a culture not my own. Being sort of outside, photographing from my point of view. Again, my shadow’s in a lot of these pictures. They’re taken mostly in Otaka, Kobe, Yokohama, some western parts of Japan.

Very often when I start a new body of works, I’ll end up changing the camera that I use. That helps me to get a fresh viewpoint. From 35mm to 6 x 6, to 6 x 7 and back to 35mm negatives, all I can do to mix it up, to question my way of seeing. To change developers, whatever I can do to retain the process fresh.

Also, I’ve sort of moved from darkroom printing, to digital imaging. I still do shoot with films and scanned them with a film scanner and print them with large Epson printers. I love films, and to me, they are still sort of a safety net.

So I moved from “Two Fish, Out Of Water” to the series you see on the walls. Once again I changed films, to 645 negatives, but its printed on using digital process. What u see in this series is that, I put it on very special paper. Each sheet is handmade, in Japan, by the Origami paper company. And I went to stay with them for sort of a week, in helping to put on a coating for the papers.

It’s really really beautiful. So I came to realize, that whenever people look at these photographs they say “Wow! The paper’s great!” (laughs) So it’s like getting a new suit and walking out of your house and everybody says wow! Your suit’s wonderful! (it’s not you), it’s not the pictures it’s the paper so, you’ve got to walk the fine line around here and not let the paper take over the imaging. But, for me, I’m happy. It works.

The print was wonderful, had a great time working on it. The next show, the color show, will be printing on a different kind of paper. So you’ll be seeing the images, not just the paper (laughs).

So, we were in Japan for about ten years and my kids graduated from high school and then went back to University in United States. They’re out of the house, so my wife and I decided to just leave Japan. We came to Singapore where I’m teaching in NTU. Hopefully, I’ll be here for a few years, even though I have to live with Singapore heat.(laughs)

Kay Ngee: Why B&W for Japan? Especially when coming from such a colorful city…

Paul Kohl: You think so?

Kay Ngee: Of course….

Paul Kohl: When I was in the country, I walked around all the time and I thought nothing around was colorful. I saw only Black and White, I saw Japan as only beautifully graphic places. There is always the sense of being arranged compositionally, even though just casual architectures. But still I see no colors, even the people there... They don’t dress so colorfully, they wear very subdued shades of greys, browns... The most colorful thing was the pachinko corners, the big orange, reds and yellows.

Of course, I really love Black and White. Another issue is that, for me I want to do as much as I can to be in control. I can develop my own films, I can control the exposure during printing, and also control how the images go.

Kay Ngee: I have a second question to ask, but we’ll continue later. Let’s hear from Shannon first.

Shannon Castleman: Alright, now, just a question hm… how many people here saw my photo exhibition in this gallery before?

Hanoi về đêm

(laughs) Yup… I didn’t have much to say about the history of me, so, here I’ve got two bodies of works with me that I think they’re kind of relevant to Paul’s. The rest of my works, I shoot more of people.

But I guess, I’ll give you a little of my history. I went to my undergraduate at the Tisch School of Arts in New York. And their program is fine arts and commercial and kind of a mix, and after graduating, my works were very, kind of staged documentary. It was at that time when it was very popular with Nan Goldin and Philip-Lorca diCorcia.

I never really plan to be a commercial photographer, but the works I was doing in a fine arts context was very commercially viable. So I suddenly thought about working as a commercial photographer, I kind of worked in the fashion. I thought that was really great, because I was doing the work I loved and I could do my personal work if I do paid work.

For about eight years down the road, I had a crisis. It felt wrong…so very wrong. So I had a trip down to Cuba, with a group of students from San Francisco I taught. I really want to practice and go back to grad school. So, this is a project I did in grad school, called Relevant Case Notes.

Relevant Case Notes

When I first moved to San Francisco, I don’t know how many years back then, but there were very huge human death cases. San Francisco is a place where everything’s politically correct, everyone does everything right and also everyone pretends all these people aren’t there. And once I have this experience of where a human being just died in my arms and nobody seem to care. I was terribly affected by it.

And the ENP was saying that 200 people died a year on the streets in San Francisco, they were very cold about the whole thing. So I started researching on this whole issue and this is the same time I was really struggling with school project, like what I can work on, I’ve always photographed people. I don’t really know what kind of projects I wanted to do, so I started research on this interesting thing that I was concerned why everybody was ignoring.

So I came across something call the human death report, it states cases of where all these people have died in the last couple of years. And I had the information of one two lines about the last moments of their lives, how they died, how they were found, and so, that was the Relevant Case Notes.

Using these Relevant Case Notes, I’ll go to the locations and sort of became the interpreter of their last moments that occurred there, at the exact time of their deaths. Which was always known when they were found, so this is one body of works…

Here, I began to use lightings, kind of using the lights to structure what happened there. These were shot with 4 x 5 with very long exposures opening the aperture to nearly an hour, very long.

In the beginning, when I was doing more of an installation, I would put the case numbers down and show them in a filing cabinet. The angles were much more dramatic. People could go to the filing cabinet to find the case.

I hope people could begin to see all these places in San Francisco were the last moments of someone’s life. For me, San Francisco is mapped with all these stories, all these people who wouldn’t be here anymore. How we don’t really think about these spaces when we walk over it, all that could have happened there. So, it’s the history of place as well.

This is one of the ones, the later ones that I did with lightings.

Sometimes, when I go to these places I can really imagine where this person has been.

This one says Wilken Berkeley, the MRT there.

It’s not like shooting here or even Hanoi at night, there is danger in San Francisco at night. So it was a very difficult project, because most of these places are inhabited by violent populations. To be there working in the alley, is very dangerous.

Paul Kohl: Are these the years?

Shannon: The year and the case number.

This one was violent, it was a knife stabbing. For many of them, they were alone.

This one in particular, you can really feel someone has taken the place. It happened in 1998 and I took it in year 2005. How many people have laid in the exact spot since then?

Nothing changed.

A lot of buildings have changed, places have changed, it’s kind of tough to find the exact spot then. So I have to sort of interpret, almost use my guts to sort of feel it.

Ok… not a very up-beat project (laughs), but it paints the way I look at things.

Peripatetic Entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia 2007

It affected my last project I did in Hanoi because I became very aware of the history of the States and what has gone on before there. So, I’m just going to show you a little bit of this, to contextualize why I was in Hanoi. This is a long term project, where I have a grant through the ADM, School of Art, Design and Media, where I’m also a lecturer, to work about mobile businesses and sort of the space of mobile businesses.

Particularly, mostly focusing on Hanoi and Mumbai, but looking at how as these places are becoming obviously mobile and more consumer culture that more of Hanoi are getting phased-out. So, this project will involve media film here in Singapore and some sculpture elements, but, we’ve been in Hanoi documenting these businesses.

And, these people are photographed whenever in we’ve been in Hanoi all the time. We constantly photographed, the beauty of photographing with a 4x5 camera, my camera, is that people they love it, because they’re so comfortable in front of it, because you’re not behind it when you’re photographing. And I’m shooting in Polaroid, and they actually get the prints. And it kind of draw the crowd and it ends up being something that we do together because they see and want what they like to see.

This project has a lot of different aspect, but the first part of it was photographing people and also to use that to get something for the grads. So this project was on my mind when I was shooting the works that was in this gallery. So, early in the evening we will work on this.

I love this film, I’m going to start making it. It really changes street photography. People who were photographed, received this little print. And I have the negative, so I just take away.

So, this is the last project, I really was looking at the changes in Hanoi. So I did this really to have a show for this gallery, so this was… their fault (laughs).

Hanoi về đêm

I was also thinking much about this space, but it really was different if I knew what kind of a life it was going to have at night afterwards. But I was thinking about kind of my last project in San Francisco in the history of a space. At the same time, looking at the streets and the landscapes, how the space, the streets and the people I’ve photographed in the early parts of the day were chained. So I was really looking at the whole business of consumerism in the backdrop of the old world landscape in Hanoi.

So all these were shot between midnight and 4am… My husband and I would drive on the motorbike around for hours and hours until I found them. Sometimes I would see them the night before and think about it the next day. I was really more of a hunter, finding the exact spaces that I wanted. Articulate what out of some of these places I see in Hanoi.

So things, buildings that have always been down there where everyone has their own little restaurant, but now we’re seeing Coca Cola, being used as covering for the restaurant. So there’s this juxtaposition between this new consumerism and corporate culture with small entrepreneur where it’s still happening there.

Audience: Did you create the lightings?

Shannon: Ah… this one is natural. The only one down here at the bottom, I still use the motorbike lights. Because there were motorbikes that were going by, and I really liked that light. And the other beauty of the 4x5 is that you can close and open the shutter, so I still have to avoid a lot of traffic by shut and open, opening and shut.

This one also has an added light at the bottom. But there was a construction site going round here, so this area’s lighted up by the construction area.

Hanoi is really a unique city and I’ve always liked photographing at night. There’s no one around at night, Hanoi is so busy and vibrant during the day. At night, there’s nothing. It’s like the streets closed down, there’s not a single person, everywhere in Hanoi. It’s a very safe place, but they think is dangerous. So they put everything away, to make sure nothing is stolen. But comparatively with shooting in San Francisco it is safe here (in Hanoi), other than I can’t communicate if somebody tries to do anything (laughs).

As you can see these numbers everywhere on the walls… is anybody curious about what these numbers are?

KC: Advertising for properties?

Shannon: Yup. They’re advertising for home improvements.

So as Kay Ngee’s pointed out… I don’t know if you were here for my exhibition opening, that I am an American. So I would definitely notice my culture kind of coming in. And to go back to where my crisis started in photography… my crisis in photography started in Cuba. Also, my American culture in New York.

(to be continued, watch this space for further updates of the Q&A session with Paul Kohl and Shannon Castleman)

Opening reception: Simplicity, 18th Apr 2008

Ongoing Exhibition: Simple/Simplicity by Paul Kohl, Part I

Photographic Exhibition:

15 April – 7 May 2008

Opening Reception:

Friday 18 April 2008, 7:30pm

Kay Ngee Tan Architects- Gallery

16-17 Duxton Hill, Singapore 089600

Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 11am-7pm, Saturday 11-6pm, by appointment.

Kay Ngee Tan Architects Gallery is pleased to present Simple/Simplicity - a twin solo-exhibition of Colour/Black&White photographic works by Paul Kohl.

Simplicity showcases a series of black and white photographic prints made by Paul Kohl during his Artist-in-Residence program with the Awagami Paper Factory, Japan in 2006- becoming one of a few pioneering photographers to produce images on handmade Japanese papers (washi).

Contrasting himself as a photographer in America, a nation where individualism and freedom is celebrated, against Japan- a country with a society full of codes in behaviors, Paul Kohl’s works reflect his attempts to make sense of an unfamiliar country, a strange culture. Journeying through the streets of Japan, he engages himself to objects and spaces, devoting this process solely with his camera.

Paul draws influences from jazz music especially that of John Coltraine, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus into his works. His interests in Zen, the martial arts and Meditation propel the heavy Buddhist symbolism in his images. Paul’s prints remind us of the course-grained prints favored by William Klein and Daido Moriyama.

A rubber tire triumphal half-emergence from the ground, a withering decayed poster of a man against a polished concrete metal surface and a sleeping faded Buddha flattened, contrasting itself up against the man-made metal structure. Paul symbolically closes up on his subjects, leaving his images fully non-existent of suggestions to time and space. He denies imagination, always embracing the heightened reality the camera is able to capture.

Through these images, he conveys his desires to record the simplicity through Black and White Photography, in his opinions, essentially strips his subjects naked with its monochromes where color photography solely fixes itself to surface of things.

Paul Kohl graduated from The San Francisco Institute in Photography with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1973. He further pursued his Master Degree in Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana in 1985. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and the States from 1974 - 2009, with Simple/Simplicity being his first solo-exhibition in Singapore.

His works were collected internationally by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Fogg Museum at Harvard University and the Awagami Paper Museum, among others. No stranger to grants and awards, he received the National Endowment for the Arts Artist’s Photography Fellowship in 1976 and became the only writer in English awarded with the Takeshi Kaikoi Award 1997. He is currently a guest lecturer in NTU.

For further information, please contact Ee Peng at gallery@kayngeetanarchitects.com or (65)64230198.