A solo exhibition by Zulkhairi Zulkiflee
Lower Gallery, Objectifs
11 to 30 Jan 2022
Free admission
Opening: Tue 11 Jan, 12pm to 9pm / Artist present: 6pm to 9pm
Artist tour and sharing: Sat 15 Jan, 3pm. Register here.
Visit the exhibition’s microsite www.proximities.cargo.site for more content
Click here to purchase the exhibition catalogue via our store.
Proximities is the first solo exhibition by Singaporean artist-curator Zulkhairi Zulkiflee. This exhibition at Objectifs presents a new video work surrounding Malay masculinities and their plural representations.
At the beginning of 2020, artist-curator Zulkhairi Zulkiflee focused on the trope of the Malay Boy found in the works of Singaporean artist Cheong Soo Pieng. An indirect extension that included a visual study of colonial postcards depicting the implicit relationship of boy and crocodile, and personal photographs of his father in the eighties, Zulkhairi’s consistent interest in images and visuality is rigorously anchored by the Malay male body. Here, his works circulate key themes like representation, racialized masculinities, and Malay male identity formations.
In the many Malay boy(s) of Cheong’s multiple yet elusive renditions, Zulkhairi attempts to locate the Malay male in art history while unpacking underlying systems of power that have shaped and naturalized understanding of difference. When exorcised from the framings of art history – one informed by overlapping lenses of pioneer artists and their Western predecessors, the Malay boy now stands as a figure (re)molded by contemporary currents and various intercessors.
Against such discourses, the exhibition primarily focuses on a video that foregrounds Malay masculinities and their plural representations — intersecting wide-ranging sources from art history to personal meditations.
PROXIMITIES is part of Singapore Art Week 2022, held from 14 to 23 January 2022. It is supported by Objectifs – Centre for Photography & Film, National Arts Council, and Goethe-Institut Singapore: AUSSICHT Support Fund.
Press:
:: The Straits Times: Singapore Art Week 2022: So much to see, too little time
Proximities exhibition programme
:: Exhibition opening Tue 11 Jan 2022, 12pm to 7pm
:: Recorded artist talk with Noorshidah Ibrahim Available on microsite from 11 Jan
:: Video/Film Art programme Available on microsite from 11 Jan. New videos released weekly
:: Accompanying Essays by Noorshidah Ibrahim, Tan Yong Jun, Nissa Abdurazzak Available on microsite from 11 Jan.
About the artist
Zulkhairi Zulkiflee (b. 1991) is an artist-curator committed to a practice centered on Malayness and its social ontology. He creates lens-based artworks that see Malayness through the racialized Malay male body and its relation to local and global contexts. Some exhibitions include The Body as a Dream, Art Agenda SEA, Singapore (2021); 10th France + Singapore Photographic Arts Award, Alliance Francaise, Singapore (2020); Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With, MOCA, Taipei (2019); and The Direction I Rub One Matters, Grey Projects, Singapore (2018). He is the recipient of the Chow and Lin mentorship (2019), Objectifs’ inaugural Curator Open Call (2019), and the IMPART Award (2020) Curator Category.