Acting and not acting an experiment and investigation in a monologue a

click to new slide Huang Wei was born in 1914, in Singapore.. I’m sure you all know of click to new slide Liu Kang, click to new slide Georgette Chen, click to new slide Cheong Soo Pien

These Children Are Dead • Kaylene Tan

30 September 2009

<Lecture 1: Introduction to the artist>

Nora enters Followed by paintings

As audience sits down, Nora signals for slide projector Signals for lights She is in complete control

Good evening I’m Nora Samosir Thank you for coming

(pause) I wasn’t expecting a crowd (pause) I am very excited

and happy to share these beautiful artworks with you today Most of you may know me as an actor and a lecturer at NUS,

so this is well these circumstances today, here are how shall I put it… a bit different

This is my first lecture on art, so… I’m a bit nervous, because I know there are many experts out there in the audience tonight

Token gesture to someone in the crowd

Anyway, I am honoured to be able to share my journey of discovery with you all These paintings are very dear to me Let’s begin Begin with he

The artist Huang Wei (click to new slide)

Huang Wei was born in 1914, in Singapore

The paintings that you saw in the gallery and the six before you now were painted in the so-called golden age of Singapore Art

in the late 1940s - 1950s: The Nanyang Style I’m sure you all

know of (click to new slide) Liu Kang, (click to new slide) Georgette Chen, (click to new slide) Cheong Soo Pieng, (click

to new slide) Chen Wen Hsi They were artists who tried to

combine Chinese and Western art influences with South East Asian subject matter

Huang Wei was of that generation, but he painted apart from them He was a could-have-been who never was Huang Wei didn’t paint like his contemporaries He was not trained in Shanghai Never went to Bali

He, painted portraits… mainly of children He painted quietly for years in his house And then one day, he disappeared He left behind a total of seventy-six paintings and a few journals

Huang Wei wasn’t doing too badly as a painter He exhibited at Victoria Memorial Hall in 1952 Sold two pieces for $80 each

He attended the YMCA art club and the British Council meetings until 1955 Then nothing So I take that to be the date

he disappeared… retired…died…

So who was Huang Wei? What do his portraits of children tell

us about Singapore, art and history?

Huang Wei’s father, Huang Qi owned the Southern Star Studios He was a self-taught photographer, who migrated to Singapore from Shanghai in 1912

Huang Qi married Song Gim Choo, a Peranakan lady in 1914 Later that year, Huang Wei was born Huang Wei had three brothers and two sisters

Huang Wei’s family lived and worked in the corner shophouse

on Armenian Street, you know opposite The Substation, where they had the famous char kway teow? No one eats char kway teow? Ok, that’s where Royston made that film…Hock Hiap Leong? You know… dancing like that?

Anyway, that’s where they lived and worked Imagine a living room with painted backdrops from Shanghai and Europe, and various props ranging from potted plants, imitation masonry, drapery, to porcelain dogs and toys for children In the daytime, when they were old enough, the Huang children helped out in the studio At night, they rolled out mats and slept on the floor This was his world as he was growing up

The Southern Star Studios photographed the local elite - Mrs Song Ong Siang, Dr Lim Boon Keng, Tan Kim Seng all had their portraits done there These people and many others had the Huangs immortalize a moment of prosperity in a black and white photograph

Towkays with their wives and their children (click to new slide) Three generations with sons and daughters (click to new slide) Couples on their wedding days (click to new slide) Children, newly born (click to new slide) Children before they were old (click to new slide)

Let me read an extract from one of his journal:

June 1947 I have no memory of my childhood There’s one

of me posing with the Lims, as their make-believe fourth son There’s me, standing in for the deceased third brother The sailor suit is too big and I look nothing like the others Me

again, with a baby holding that stupid bird I don’t remember being there, doing those things

He was an artistic child, always sketching faces, figures He went to Anglo Chinese School at Coleman Street In 1928, he received the Lim Boon Keng Gold Medal for art, then won a scholarship to attend Raffles Institution

He was one of the growing numbers of English-educated Asians, exposed to Western ideas, religion and art

He was taught by Richard Walker, the first Art Inspector of schools Walker was the authority on Western art in Singapore

He influenced an entire generation of artists

When Huang Wei finished school, he stopped painting and started work in the family business He soon took over from his father as the main photographer

The 20s and 30s were prosperous for Huang who was part of the western-educated middle-class He was relatively

unaffected by the politicization of some of the population, who were unhappy with their colonial masters

Huang got married in 1939, to Lim Mei Kim They had two children-

She stares into the distance A very long pause

… sorry Where was I?

You know how you just lose your train of thought sometimes and you are stuck on a word What was that word?

<Sound>

Right (She scans through notes.) Let’s move on

Ah yes

Huang Wei was painting his lost children… I mean his lost childhood Post-war Singapore… No… the war World War Two, 1942-1945

To the British, Singapore was the impregnable fortress, but she fell to the Japanese in just seven days

Huang Wei survived the sook ching – that was when the

Japanese screened the Chinese population for hostile elements

And tragically, Huang Wei lost his studio and his entire family during the war

Journal entry:

Back in my father’s house Someone has been here Bodies familiar, but beyond recognition They wasted their bullets on the little ones Nowhere to bury the dead One match finishes

it all off

Huang Wei’s paintings express the trauma of war on the psyche and on the body

He created these paintings after the war He was in his thirties

by then

It was an exciting but tumultuous time Singapore was struggling for independence

This is a good time to start anew What to paint? The oils sit

in the box Possibilities

(Lecture 2: The discovery)

I’d like to share with you how I discovered these paintings My sister in law’s father is a building contractor He told me about the paintings he was about to dispose of in this shophouse in Joo Chiat

He knew I liked old things, I’m a bit of a history buff if you must It’s not so much the politics I’m interested in, but the stories, especially the ones that didn’t make it into the history books

I like to travel and visit historical places… sites of ruins [Two years ago, I finally made it to Machu Picchu after dreaming about it for seven years

You trek for hours to visit a pile of rubble And standing there, you imagine the lives there, once lived All the little things that

add up to a life All the lives, including mine There (pause)

The feeling is pretty overwhelming, in a good way That’s how

I felt in the middle of the ruins in the Joo Chiat shophouse I suppose you could call it an affinity with humanity?]

Anyway I’m rambling… So, my sister-in-law’s father knew I liked old, you know…well, unwanted things so, he called me

The paintings had sat in that room for over 50 years, untouched Waiting for me

Unlooked at Inglorious Filthy Layers of dust, mould and

mildew Not even fit for the karung guni man When I held the

first- Possibilities

<Sound>

I took them to the artist, Alan Oei I knew he had an interest in old paintings He oversaw the restoration of the paintings and emailed daily updates Slowly, slowly they revealed themselves

to me

I never lost faith in them

I’m quoting my mum, here You have not disappointed me You are my children You are real I will never lose faith in you As the rotan marked our skin Again and again Lessons in love

She smiles She closes her eyes

She opens her eyes Slowly -

The first one takes you by surprise

The second teaches you difference

The third, that the same rules do not apply

The fourth, that there is room for more

The fifth, renews your faith

The sixth child, breaks your heart

She looks around the room Smiling She goes to a painting

<Lecture 3: Conversation with girl, 6>

Look

Pause

What fascinates me in these paintings is that they are never still They resist being pinned down Each time you think you get it, the children surprise you

Long Pause

<Sound >

Huang’s children are receding into the canvas They are being swallowed by the world around them Childhood never seemed

so bleak, so melancholic

Paint made flesh

They reach out from their dense clotted murky backgrounds, beckoning, magnetic

They draw us in and we submit, quite willingly

When you close your eyes, they are still there, ghosting your eyelids

I want a reaction in human terms I want to open your eyes, your heart Is it possible for people to weep before my paintings? To experience the feeling of… salvation – question mark – that I had while creating them?

(Journal entry March, 1950) I’ve had such a range of responses to these works Earlier in the gallery, an academic, a real hardass, said they gave him vertigo

He was scared of falling in

I showed my niece these paintings I have two gorgeous nieces

- my sister’s daughters They are six and three-going-on-thirty-three The older one, likes to draw people When she was younger, she drew potato people A big oval face with stick arms and legs These days her people have bodies They have detail like hairclips, eyelashes, lace on dresses, high heeled shoes

She goes for art enrichment classes, not because her mother wants to turn her into artist, but because of how focused she is when she is creating something Totally absorbed When she colours, she knows about shading She has figured out what happens when light hits the body

She spent a long time looking at these works And of course she has her opinions And I am interested because these

children are her age Were, I mean No… what am I saying Are These children depicted are her age

She spent a while with her frozen playmates

Nora goes to a painting and removes a hair from it She looks, it is still there She picks it up, it is stuck on her hand She shakes it off and begins again

Do they have names?

The artist didn’t name his paintings

She called them silly names – Pee Chye, Ding Dong… you know, just silly

Too dark Funny face Is that a boy? He has silly hair Why isn’t he smiling? Et cetera But this one… I like her dress… That’s me, she said But I am sad

Why?

Don’t know

Maybe someone I love doesn’t love me anymore?

Julian?

He is the rough boy from the neighbourhood

I stopped liking him ages ago

Oh sorry I’m so yesterday

Maybe daddy He doesn’t love me anymore because I did

something to make him angry… like I didn’t share my care

bear with meimei

He wouldn’t stop loving you because of that, you know

Maybe he died

What?

Maybe daddy died

That’s horrible

He is going to, you know So are you And me

But I hope Daddy doesn’t die when I am a child And I’ll be sad and I’ll look like that girl

Then she said

Aunty Nora… I think the girl is in her coffin Like grandpa

My father died a few months ago, and I suppose that was her first encounter with death It will probably be her first memory

of loss

I love talking to my niece What doesn’t she see? How does she look at you?

Children are more robust than we give them credit for They are unfazable, unfrightened of the world And sometimes you don’t know whether to run alongside them and cheer them on,

or stand in front of them and shield them from what lies ahead

[I have been spending so much time on this project, I have been neglecting my family It’s been weeks since I’ve eaten at home This Sunday – family day

Last night, when I snuck in at midnight, my mum who

happened to be up waiting for me said, “Jojo looked very sad at dinner time She only had one chicken wing!” Usually, she has

at least five My mum, she knows just how to get me And I submit

In many ways I feel like I am still my mother’s child – young,

in her eyes She won’t let go and I don’t let her At my age, can you imagine?

Sorry.]

She scans through notes

(Lecture 4: Incomplete paintings/ context)

Post-war Singapore was a mess No water, electricity No food, leading to malnutrition, disease There were revenge killings, crime and violence Food prices shot up There was little work and those who had work were discontented This led to strikes and riots

There was little to keep Huang Wei in Singapore He left at the first available opportunity He traded his camera equipment for

a ticket out A ship, any ship

How do you calculate a departure? Not by the hours or minutes but a moment An instant when the decision was made

He found himself in Europe, home of the great master painters

Huang haunted the galleries Staring (click to new slide) These images, all those years ago (click to new slides)

Then, he took a boat to Malta

Malta was one of the most intensively bombed countries in the war There, amongst the ruins, an old painting

<lights dimmed>

(click to new slide)

The Beheading of St John the Baptist

I, myself saw Caravaggio’s altar piece when I was in Malta I spent some time on the beaches, but it was there at the foot of this work, where I found silence

The light directs our gaze, from the warden’s index finger, to the executioner's left hand, holding Saint John's partially severed head in place like a butcher in an abattoir, while he reaches for his dagger to finish the process off Then our eyes are led to the platter, held low by Salome in anticipation of receiving the head, then to the old woman

The old woman is horrified But she covers her ears rather than her eyes The sound of a killing, worse than the sight

I look past the line of the blade, at Saint John's painfully bound body Just a moment before, he was a seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking human being like us; now he is a stroke away from being a mere carcass

This is a good time to start anew What to paint? The oils sit

in the box Possibilities

<Lights on>

When I found Huang Wei’s paintings, I imagined beautiful oils

in the style of the old masters As they were being restored, I thought Alan had made a mistake

Where is the rest of his arm?

There is no arm There is no arm

No arm

Yes

No arm

The next section undercuts the seriousness of the section before Light A bit silly

So I thought that maybe it’s like during the time of the Renaissance; for example, if you wanted your portrait done, the painter would charge you by how many hands he had to do because hands are difficult to paint

So I looked at some of the children and thought maybe the parents couldn’t afford a full portrait Like this child, you can see one hand but the other hand is cleverly disguised in the

Manchu dress

Goes to another painting

And maybe this child is precious because she’s got gold jewellery on and a big jade pendant and she’s got both hands painted

Goes to another painting

This child is obviously spoilt because not only does he have both hands he’s on a bicycle!

Goes to another painting

So I thought “oh (looking at no 1 boy) his parents didn’t pay

and Huang Wei stopped painting.”

Looking at Indian boy

Another cleverly disguised hand there

But you know, this child doesn’t look right Stared at him He looks back I go over his arm Softly… softly There, like a caress All better now Until blue became black… In these times, you can’t paint whole figures

Look

Along with hundreds of men at Victoria Street, we were interviewed then detained Guilty of being what I am, a recorder of images That’s all

Bound, six to one length of rope Transported by lorry to Changi beach A command was a command in any language You all mine Shuffling into the darkness We knelt

Bayonets to heads I prayed With no notion of god I prayed Others had been here They lay along the beach, dead Those who didn’t die when they were shot were knifed I had heard about this Now I’ve seen it

The man next to me said why should we let ourselves get shot? He waded into the sea, we followed, all being bound together The moment my knots came into contact with the seawater, they came loose

I swam outwards regardless of what was happening A whistle An ordinary whistle…then machine guns opened up

I took a deep breath and went under water

The bullets ricocheting above me The sound of a killing Then silence Playing dead in the blood black salty sea I prayed With no notion of god I prayed once more

A motorboat came out to sea, pistol shots to finish off the wounded When the searchlights went off, I swam to shore Why did God let me live? This God that wasn’t

Huang Wei was lucky He was an escape artist

Nora stands still, staring

In these times, you can’t paint whole figures

You couldn’t because the peoples’ identities were in flux We had been part of British Malaya After the war, Singapore became a crown colony, separated from Peninsula Malaysia The communists tried to stake their claims And there were our