Archive of "Out of the closet", The Straits Times, 19 February 1993

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Out of the closet

Art

FLOWING FOREST, BURNING HEARTS

By John Goss and Tan Peng

The Gallery, Substation

Tomorrow to Feb 28: 11 am - 9 pm

Ng Sek Chow

How do you represent something which you are not supposed to talk about?

This "something" has been declared sick, perverse, even criminal through the ages, although, according to most surveys, at least 10 per cent of any population has "it”.

Because of its unspeakable nature, this "something" has spawned many euphemisms: The Forbidden Colour; Passion Of The Cut Sleeve; The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

Not any more.

Homosexual love (yes, that is "it"), a long-taboo subject in the Singapore visual art scene, has found a startlingly frank expression in Flowing Forest, Burning Hearts, a joint exhibition by Singaporean artist Tan Peng, and John Goss, an artist from Los Angeles who graduated from the California Institute of the Arts.

Despite the slightly purple title, the show marks a milestone for Singaporean visual art in being the first full frontal, unabashed attempt to examine homosexual love and desires from a more positive point of view.

The two artists have adopted different approaches in tackling this highly complex issue. Tan's chosen medium is pastel on paper, while Goss culls his “ready made” images from Japanese pop idol magazines and American scientific journals.

In Tan’s case, one experiences subdued echoes of Tom of Finland, a well-known American artist specialising in homosexual drawings and illustrations. Men with gym-perfected bodies in various homoerotic positions are what the two artists have in common.

Untitled, by Tan, whose last solo exhibition was in 1990, is a particularly intriguing formal study showing a male torso rising out of a pool of dark water. The subject, caught in the midst of undressing, is depicted from a slightly elevated perspective, which lends an air of voyeurism. Further down, one sees a yellow condom-sheathed penis. This is homoeroticism in the age of safer sex: It warns even while it seduces.

Other works display surprising tenderness between couples. In Care, one man lovingly pours water over another's head. The image is closely framed within the rectangular format (a frequently repeated strategy), giving it a feel of intimacy and togetherness.

But not everything is sweet and tender. Harsher emotions like anger and deceit are also registered. Take for instance Bad Bad Policeman. It makes reference to last year's police raid on the homosexuals at the East Coast Parkway. A nasty-looking man, clad in a policeman cap, a tight-fitting T-shirt and jockstrap, wields in one hand a handcuff, and in another a I net. Further in the background is a faceless man, entrapped by the net. The message is too obvious to need explanation.

Tan’s work is not without a sense of humour. TV For Everyone pokes fun at the fact that all one ever sees in the popular media are depictions of love and passion between straight couples. Two men in an embrace are seen hovering above a television set, showing a man kissing a woman. This bears direct witness to what Tan, a former student of LaSalle School of Fine Arts, claims in his artist’s statement: “Being gay, as a viewer in art exhibitions, I am tired of drawing meaning from works which ignore my existence. At the same time, I feel a desire to serve the community — to do my bit to help comfort and heal a world ailing from prejudice, intolerance and hatred.”

One can quarrel with the artist on some grounds. First, is it not a cliche to portray all homosexual men as having bulging biceps, protruding pectorals and thunder thighs?

This tyranny of idealised homoerotic beauty leaves out the rest who are scrawny, middle-aged or overweight. The images are more air-brushed pin-up fantasy figures than flawed flesh-and-blood characters who make up the bulk of any community, homosexual or straight.

A more serious drawback is that most of the works delineate sexualised scenarios of one kind or another, further reinforcing the false impression that homosexual life is permeated with sex and nothing else.

As an objective viewer, one cannot help but yearn for images which would depict homosexual men in more down-to-earth, less sexually charged situations. This would have been more effective in furthering the artist’s objective to lessen the public’s ignorance and prejudice.

Goss’s works are more cerebral and j conceptual by comparison. Generally, they combine pictures of pop idols or fashion models found in Japanese teen magazines with seemingly unrelated images from wrestern science or news journals. They are in turn blown up, mounted on foam board, and juxtaposed against one another. The aim is to “excavate” new meanings in the images.

The INAH 3 series investigates the purported differences in the brain structures of homosexual and straight men. In one, Homo/Race/Hetero, specks of the brain’s neurons, possessing a strange, almost calligraphic beauty, frame a picture of three athletes representing the ideal types of three races. The subtext points to the highly manipulative — and hence far from neutral — nature of ready-made images, be they pop or scientific. All in all, Flowing Forest, Burning Hearts is a show noteworthy for its outspokenness and courage. It highlights a facet of our society which has long been in existence, despite denial and discrimination.

Ultimately, this is the kind of exhibition in which the subject matter overrides aesthetic consideration. Singaporean art has finally come out of the closet, so to speak.

(Inset: Idealised beauty ... as in Care (detail). Tan Peng's images are more pin-up figures than flesh-and-blood characters.

Flowing Forest, Burning Hearts is a show noteworthy for its outspokenness and courage. It highlights a facet of our society which has long been in existence, despite denial and discrimination.

The three ideal races... John Goss’s Homo/Race/Hetero (detail))

=See also=
 * Singapore gay art
 * Singapore gay artists
 * Singapore gay history

=References=
 * Ng Sek Chow, "Out of the closet", The Straits Times, 19 February 1993.

=Acknowledgements=

This article was archived by Roy Tan.