Art & Market | Review of ‘Progressive Disintegrations’ at Objectifs

Riley Yuen, Art and Market, February 10, 2021

Photography is an increasingly accessible art form. However, the convenience of taking a photo at any time with one’s phone makes one wonder how documentation of something through a camera reconstructs the way we view our lived experiences. Furthermore, as images begin to decay and diminish, it is difficult to pinpoint how impermanent photographs and paintings frame our ways of being. 

These are the ideas explored in ‘Progressive Disintegrations’ at the Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film in Singapore. It is curated by Marc Gloede, whose practice focuses on relationships between bodies, their lived-in environments, images and technology. 

Featuring the multi-media works by artists Chua Chye Teck, Hilmi Johandi and Wei Leng Tay, the exhibition brings together themes of modernisation, shared histories, development and time through photography and painting. It presents a variety of materials, from old images of Singapore, family archive photos spanning from the late 1960 to early 1970s scanned by Tay, the effects of mould on wood as documented by Chua and paintings of constructed paradise by Johandi.