Review: Fiona Tan “Rise and Fall”

Currently On View: Montréal
Galerie de l’UQAM. Curated by Bruce Grenville.
26th Feb 2011 – 16th April 2011

“Rise and Fall” (2009) courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery

Fiona Tan’s exhibition “Rise and Fall” has started its journey from Aargauer Kunsthaus, Switzerland, via Vancouver Art Gallery, Freer & Sackler Gallery in Washington DC and it is currently on view at Galerie de UQAM as its final tour date.

The exhibition at Galerie de UQAM consists of three video installations: “Provenance” (2008) is a black and white six-channel digital installation originally commissioned by Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and inspired by seventeenth century Dutch portraits on display at the museum. Tan filmed her close circle of family, friends and acquaintances engaging with their day-to-day activities in their own environment such as home or work place. Carefully composed and lit, as the camera slowly moves capturing each activity, their personal possession and interior as well as view of Amsterdam from the window, one may gradually assemble each persons identity. Each video lasts a few minutes and at one point in every video, viewers are fixed with the gaze of the protagonist as if they were posing for the portrait painting. In this short moment, nature of interaction has slightly shifted from the viewer as an observer to as been observed. Perhaps this could be experienced in the same way for the portrait paintings. While she was filming, Tan questioned herself whether it is possible to look at a film as if it were a painting.

Provenance (2008) courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

“Rise and Fall” (2009) was commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery and filmed in Niagara Falls, Belgium and the Netherlands. Two women, one older and the other younger, perhaps the same person shown at two different times of her life, are interwoven in the video, by showing intimate, daily rituals like bathing, writing a diary, putting on make-up, stroking with tenderness and contemplation. Each moment unfolds with a sense of mystery, while building a strong connection between the two women. Water is a central metaphor for this video, either cascading waterfall or gentle stream of water, reflecting the relentless passage of time as well as resonating a sense of loss, dislocation and isolation. It is used sporadically as a mediator between past and present, as well as between acts of rememberance and forgetting.

Projection (2010) courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery

“Projection” (2010) is Tan’s self-portrait. The piece is a single channel video projection, a one minute loop, based on Tan’s enduring investigation of portraiture. Tan filmed herself standing motionlessly most of the time, occasionally adjusting her clothes to evoke a fidgeting state of self-consciousness. The footage is projected on a suspended bed sheet and recorded a second time. As the bed sheet wavers in a gentle breeze, ripples pass through her body as if becoming a mere reflection on water, suggesting the ambivalence of Tan’s identity.

All these works reflects Tan’s enduring pursuit of identity issues, using a simple visual language to encompass profound meaning. Her compositions seem effortless, flowing and yet thoroughly meticulous. Her investigations to use video portraiture as a sheer representation of one’s identity has effectively reached uncharted territory.

Fiona Tan was born in 1966 in Pekan Baru, Indonesia, the daughter of a Chinese father and an Australian mother of Scottish ancestry. She grew up in Melbourne, and relocated to Amsterdam in 1980s, where she continues to live and work. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, in international institutions including the Dutch Pavillion at the 53rd Venice Biennale. She is represented by Frith Street Gallery in London, Wako Works of Art in Tokyo and Peter Freeman, Inc. in New York City.

by Miwa Kojima