In this talk, art critic Lee Weng-Choy will speak about two of his favourite performances, one by Singapore artist Amanda Heng, and one by New York artist Tehching Hsieh, who is famous for his one-year performances in the 1980s. While thinking about performance art has been instrumental to Lee’s own art education, he is hardly a specialist in the field. Therefore his presentation therefore does not aim to provide a historical overview of performance art in general, or in Southeast Asia or Singapore in particular; nor does he aim to offer a serviceable theory about performance. Rather, he hopes that by looking at concrete examples, by exploring the idea of what is exemplary or exceptional, we can tell moving stories about art. This talk draws from an ongoing project that Lee is working on: a collection of his essays on artists, called, “The Address of Art and the Scale of Other Places”.

About the Independent Art Critic

Lee Weng-Choy is an independent art critic and consultant based in Kuala Lumpur, and is the president of the Singapore Section of the International Association of Art Critics. Lee was Artistic Co-Director of The Substation in Singapore, and has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art — Singapore. He has done project work with various arts organizations, including Ilham Gallery Kuala Lumpur, the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and National Gallery Singapore. Lee writes on contemporary art and culture in Southeast Asia, and his essays have appeared in journals such as Afterall, and anthologies such as Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture, and Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985.