Josef Ng
Josef Ng | |
|---|---|
| Born | Josef Ng Sing Chor 1972 (age 51–52) |
| Known for | Performance art |
| Notable work | Brother Cane (1994) |
Josef Ng Sing Chor[1] (Chinese: 吴承祖; pinyin: Wú Chéngzǔ; born 1972) is a Singaporean gallerist and former performance artist.[2] He is known for his 1994 public performance Brother Cane, at the end of which he partially exposed his buttocks and snipped his pubic hair. Brother Cane was reportedly staged in protest of the imprisonment and caning of a group of homosexual men in Singapore the previous year; Ng called his hair-snipping a "symbolic gesture for an artistic purpose". He was handed a lifetime public performance ban by the National Arts Council and fined for violating the Penal Code. Ng later became a curator at various art galleries.
Career
Brother Cane
In November 1993, twelve men were arrested in a sting operation at Tanjong Rhu, a notable "cruising" location for homosexual men in Singapore.[3] They were all charged with "outraging modesty, using criminal force to molest, and acts of indecency" and subsequently sentenced to prison. In addition, the six men who plead guilty to the charges were given three strokes of the cane.[4]
Around 02:00 on 1 January 1994,[5] to conclude the eight-day Artists' General Assembly (AGA) jointly organised by The Artists Village (TAV) and 5th Passage,[6] Ng debuted his 25-minute public performance Brother Cane.[4] Through Brother Cane, which was staged at 5th Passage's private office and studio space in Parkway Parade,[7] he allegedly hoped to "protest the use of entrapment by the Singapore police and the caning of gay men caught cruising."[8] Dressed in "a long black robe and black briefs",[4] Ng arranged twelve tiles in a semi-circle in front of him, on which news clippings of the Tanjong Rhu incident were placed.[4] A block of tofu and a bag of red paint were also placed on each tile.[1] Before striking the tofu blocks and paint bags with a cane, Ng remarked, "I will give them three strokes of the cane."[4]
During the denouement, with his back turned to the audience who were seated 10 to 15 metres away,[4][9] Ng partially exposed his buttocks and snipped off a clump of his pubic hair,[4] which he then placed on the central tile.[10] As he puffed on a cigarette that had been handed to him by an audience member, Ng declared, "Sometimes silent protest is not enough."[10]
Ng was arrested on the same day and charged with violating the Penal Code by performing an "obscene" act.[8][11] The National Arts Council (NAC) condemned both Ng and fellow AGA performer Shannon Tham, who had vomited into a bucket as part of his act: "By no stretch of the imagination can such acts be construed and condoned as art."[12] Ng and Tham were consequently banned by the NAC from ever performing in public again.[4] The NAC also announced an indefinite moratorium on funding for forum theatre and performance art;[4] it was only lifted some ten years later, in 2004.[2]
At the time of the offence, Ng was a naval sergeant in the Singapore Armed Forces.[13] Ng himself claimed, "Because I am in the army, I have little hair on my head that can be cut. So I cut off my pubic hair instead."[14] He added that his hair-snipping was a "symbolic gesture for an artistic purpose", and was not intended to "shock people or to be offensive".[14]
The Parkway Parade management team had already warned 5th Passage in January 1993, after performance artist Vincent Leow publicly consumed his own urine at its premises. Nonetheless, even after the expiry of their rent-free tenancy agreement in March 1993, the group had been allowed to continue its activities at the shopping mall. Following Ng's performance, however, the group was ordered to leave Parkway Parade.[5]
On 22 January 1994, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Information and the Arts opined in a joint statement that "new art forms such as performance art ... pose dangers to public order, security and decency, and much greater difficulty to the licensing authority."[10] Minister for Information and the Arts George Yeo added, "We do not want artistic license to degenerate into pornography."[10] Ng declined to stand trial and pleaded guilty to his charges on 16 May 1994. He was fined S$1,000.[13]
Ng's prosecution was negatively received by members of the local performing arts community. Singaporean diplomat and lawyer Tommy Koh, who was the NAC's chairperson from 1991 to 1996, conceded that "no one from NAC witnessed Josef Ng's performance."[15] However, he also claimed that "I could not ... defend Josef Ng from the wrath of some ultra-conservative elements in the government."[16]
Brother Cane was restaged by Singaporean actor and filmmaker Loo Zihan, whose one-night-only performance Cane was held at The Substation Theatre in February 2012. However, while Ng's performance was unscripted, Loo had to submit a script to the Media Development Authority (MDA) in order for Cane to be approved for public viewing.[17] Additionally, in view of the National Environment Agency's guidelines on indoor smoking, Loo decided to replicate Ng's cigarette-smoking in the theatre's outdoor smoking corner.[17]
Post-Brother Cane
Ng was involved in the August and September 1999 The Necessary Stage production BrainStorm (what's that in your head?), which was held at the Singapore Art Museum and comprised 16 unique installations and performances that were altogether two hours long.[18] Ng's piece (a collaboration with Green Zeng titled "Picture the Mirroring") involved numerous television screens that showed Ng brushing his teeth, shaving, and washing.[19]
Ng subsequently left Singapore and variously lived and worked in China, Thailand, and Japan.[11] From 2006 to 2011, Ng served as the artistic and executive director of Chinese art gallery Tang Contemporary Art. In 2013, he succeeded Mathieu Borysevicz as the director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art. In 2016, Ng became the managing director of Pearl Lam Galleries' Asian operations.[2]
References
Citations
- ^ a b Turnbull 1997, p. 236.
- ^ a b c Lee 2016.
- ^ Goh 2023, pp. 43–44.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Goh 2023, p. 44.
- ^ a b Lim 1994, p. 14.
- ^ Martin 2008, p. 28.
- ^ Goh 2023, p. 48.
- ^ a b Goh 2023, p. 36.
- ^ Lagenbach 2016, p. 183.
- ^ a b c d Turnbull 1997, p. 237.
- ^ a b Taylor 2016, p. 734.
- ^ Goh 2023, p. 49.
- ^ a b Lim 2009, p. 253.
- ^ a b Lim 1994, p. 12.
- ^ Magro 2001, p. 192.
- ^ Koh 2015, p. 11.
- ^ a b Chia 2012, p. C12.
- ^ Davis & Lee 2000, p. 513.
- ^ Davis & Lee 2000, p. 515.
Works cited
- Chia, Adeline (21 February 2012). "Cane bound by red tape". The Straits Times. p. C12.
- Davis, Lucy; Lee, Weng Choy (2000). "Play in the house of order: The Necessary Stage's BrainStorm". Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. 1 (3): 513–517. S2CID 144474107.
- Goh, Wei Hao (2023). "Performing Protest in Singapore: Performance Tactics in Brother Cane and Don't Give Money to the Arts". .
- Koh, Tommy (2015). "The Development of the Cultural Ecosystem in Singapore, 1991–2011: A Personal Journey". In Renee Foong Ling Lee (ed.). Art Hats In Renaissance City: Reflections & Aspirations Of Four Generations Of Art Personalities. ISBN 9789814630795.
- Lagenbach, Ray (2016). "Looking Back at Brother Cane: Performance Art and State Performance (1996)". In Jeffrey Say; Seng Yu Jin (eds.). Histories, Practices, Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary Art. ISBN 9789811268649.
- Lee, Jian Xuan (19 January 2016). "Curator Josef Ng, whose 1994 performance led to proscription of performance art, joins Pearl Lam Galleries". The Straits Times.
- Lim, Ovidia (5 January 1994). "Is This Art?". The New Paper. pp. 12, 14.
- Lim, Peter H. L. (2009). Chronicle of Singapore, 1959–2009: Fifty Years of Headline News. Editions Didier Millet. ISBN 9789814217750.
- Magro, Aiden (2001). "Exposing the State: Loo Zihan's Queer Performance". Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia. 5 (1/2): 175–203. .
- Martin, Mayo (19 August 2008). "Village people: Their legacy lives on". Today. p. 28.
- Taylor, Nora A. (2016). "Have Performance, Will Travel: Contemporary Artistic Networks in Southeast Asia". Asian Journal of Social Science. 44 (6): 725–739. .
- Turnbull, David (1997). "Soc. Culture; Singapore". In Nan Ellin (ed.). Architecture of Fear. Princeton Architectural Press. pp. 227–240. ISBN 9781568980829.