Title: Ho Tzu Nyen: A for Agents
Author: Ho Tzu Nian, Chika Kinoshita, Andrew Markle, Tomoyuki Arai, Kyung Hwa Choi
Design: Hiromi Fujita
Language: Japanese/English
Publisher: torch press
Size: 21.0 x 13.5 cm
Ho Tzu Nyen has created films, video installations, and performances that explore Southeast Asia's historical events, ideas, individual and collective subjectivity, and cultural identity from a unique perspective. The images and scripts are rearranged from materials taken from existing footage, films, and archival materials, abstractly and evocatively depicting the dynamics and multilayered historical discourses that weave Southeast Asia's geopolitics. Ho's works have been exhibited at cultural organizations and biennales around the world, and have been featured in theater festivals and film festivals. In Japan, he has participated in many exhibitions, including the "Time of Others" exhibition held at the museum (2015), and in recent years has participated in the International Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama (2018, 2020) and the Aichi Triennale 2019 (2019). ), Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] (2021), and Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2021), which attracted attention by presenting new works.
In order to trace the trajectory of Ho's historical explorations, this exhibition will display six video installation works, including her earliest works, as well as her latest work, which will be shown for the first time in Japan. to introduce. Ho's debut film Utama - All Names That Appear in History Are Me (2003), directed and written by Ho, is about the origin of the country's name, Singapura (Sanskrit for city of lions), and its location. While exploring various theories about San Nila Utama, who is said to have named the country, we dismantle the modern founding story of the country's founding by the British colonial administrator Stamford Raffles. One or several tigers (2017), which uses 3D animation, depicts the belief that tigers are the ancestors of humans, the myths surrounding were-tigers, and the stories of surveyors who were colonists commissioned by the British government in the 19th century. The relationship between the ruler and the ruled in Singapore's history, such as George D. Coleman's encounter with a tiger and Yamashita Hobun, a soldier who surrendered the British army during World War II and was nicknamed the ``Malay Tiger,'' The story is told through the ever-changing characters of a tiger and a human.
The exhibition catalog is organized around six exhibited works, including installation views, video still cuts, scripts, and valuable materials created during the production process of the works. It includes four essays that decipher Ho's multi-layered works, as well as previously written texts by Ho, and approaches the essence of Ho's constantly updated production.
Ho Tzu Nian
Born in Singapore in 1976 and lives there. By referencing and reorganizing a wide range of materials and discourses, Ho Tzu Nian's videos, video installations, and performances depict the complex intertwining of history and power, as well as the complex subjectivity of individuals. Ho's work has been featured around the world, and in 2011 he represented the Singapore pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. In recent years, the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, 2022), Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2021), Crowe Asian Art Museum (Dallas, Texas, USA, 2021), Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] (Yamaguchi City, 2021), Hamburg Museum of Art (Hamburg, 2018), Ming Contemporary Art Museum (Shanghai, 2018), etc., and has held solo exhibitions at Thailand Biennale (Chiang Rai, 2023), Aichi Triennale 2019 (Nagoya City, etc., 2019), and the 12th He has also participated in many international exhibitions such as the Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju, 2018). Also, the World Theater Festival (all parts of Germany, 2010, 2023), the Netherlands Arts Festival (Amsterdam, 2018, 2020), the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlin, 2015), the Sundance Film Festival (Park City, Utah, USA) , 2012), the 41st Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival (Cannes, 2009), and other theater festivals and film festivals around the world. In 2019, he co-curated the 7th Asian Art Biennale held at the National Taiwan Museum of Art with artist Xu Jiawei.