Feathers were ruffled over the opening weekend of the first instalment of National Gallery Singapore’s (NGS) two-part exhibition, “See Me, See You: Early Video Installation of Southeast Asia.” In the museum’s Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse gallery, a coop of live chickens sat in front of stacked crates bearing stenciled images of the Mona Lisa and interspersed with cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions. This, amused visitors with its riotous introduction of clucking fowl to the air-conditioned gallery as they were lectured on the Mona Lisa. Poshyananda’s playful installation, together with the works of four artists from Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, contributed to a light-hearted yet pertinent survey of video works from the region between the 1980s and early ’90s.
