Fiction@Love

虚拟的爱

China : 7 January 2006 to 26 March 2006 at Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art

Singapore : 12 May 2006 to 2 July 2006 at the Singapore Art Museum

In this era where the boundary between fantasy and reality blurs, Fiction@Love seeks to explore the concerns related to the satire and fantasy of love through contemporary artistic expressions. The participating artists present diverse perspectives of the flux of ideals through the whimsical, simple and yet at times, fast paced aesthetics of Animamix Art (Animation and Comics).

Within the exhibition, artists like Ai Yamaguchi and Claire Lim highlight the two differing standpoints within Animamix Art - the lingering nostalgia for a perfect world and awareness through simplistically deceiving aesthetics. Yamaguchi’s works carry the influence from the Japanese Ukiyo-e “pictures of the floating world” as the asexual subjects convey a longing through their pensive poses while Lim’s Hidden Ghost directly imposes horror of the blood stained room on the unsuspecting audience. Though moving the audience through two different ends of the emotional spectrum, Fiction@Love finds a way to bring both adult awareness and youthful naivety together in one exhibition.

Organized by Singapore Art Museum and Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Fiction@Love examines the influence of contemporary popular culture such as anime, comics, graphic communications, and manga in art. Through paintings, murals, sculptures, videos and interactive installations, the exhibition looks at ways in which emotions like 'love' are expressed, transformed by the crossovers of the real and the virtual,  and exposure to the aesthetics of the internet and comics.

Featuring 51 pieces of paintings, murals, sculptures, videos and interactive installations from Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Denmark and America, the exhibition brings together a constellation of renowned figures across Asia such as Singapore contemporary artists Claire, Lim, Lim Shing Ee, fFurious, Joanne Lim and ZERO; Chinese artists Chen Fei, Gao Xiaowu, Qian Gang; Taiwanese artists Jimmy and Pan Chen-ju, Japanese artists Yayoi Kusama, Ai Yamaguchi and On/Megumi Akiyoshi, Korean artists Kwon Kisoo and Lee Minkyu, Malaysian art collective www.theclickproject.com, Danish artist Trine Boesen, American artist Nathaniel Lord and other artists from the Nokia ‘Connect to Art’ Initiative.