press release
Have you ever been disturbed by medieval paintings of the infant Jesus? (see Duccio: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Duccio/1.L.htm
In 2004, the exhibition's curator, Alan Oei, then an art history undergraduate, felt exactly that way coming face to face with the much talked about "Madonna and Child" by Duccio. Recently purchased by the Metropolitan Museum at an astounding USD 45 million, it had been also been accused of being a poor forgery. But what drew Oei's attention was the strangeness of the infant Jesus in Madonna's arms.
Oei says, "Babies are cute, but this multi-million dollar baby looked so scary!"
Six years later, this forms the premise of the upcoming exhibition presented by Oei in partnership with Valentine Willie Fine Art gallery – that children were invented in the 19th century. Or at least the modern idea that children are innocent, exuberant and full of curiosity, needing adult supervision of both love and discipline.
Oei uses the seminal essay, "Centuries of Childhood" by Philip Ariès to challenge the contemporary concept of childhood as historical and contingent. Ariès suggests that pre-modern European culture thought of children as incompletely formed, whose lives, work and needs were similar to adults. For instance, knowledge of sexual relations were considered normal, and children also attended the spectacle of public executions. Thus artists, in approaching children as (incomplete) adults, did not feel a need to represent children with different physiognomies. Instead, they applied painting conventions and techniques – based on adults – to represent the infant Jesus, with the result that children looked scarily more like mini-adults with mature faces and adult proportions.
For Oei, how we describe and depict children tell us more about the authors and artists than it does about the actual subjects. With a selection of 10 artists like :phunk, Huang Wei and Zhao Renhui, the exhibition turns to the 21st century visual representation of children as subjects as well as cultural ideas of innocence, play, wonder and nostalgia that we project onto childhood.
For instance, Andre Tan's work is a carry-over from his childhood. Growing up, Tan had never been able to tell why Batman or Captain American was any different or less important than someone like Mao Zedong - now his canvases intermix the real and fictional together, somehow succeeding in being ironic and sincere at the same time.
Zhao Renhui, who is exhibiting a photograph of a girl emerging from the forest, says, "My childhood is about belief, believing in icons like Jesus, water and wine. I have a feeling my work is about wanting to believe in that faith because all the spectacle around belief today seems to be a huge joke. I miss that childhood."
Curator quote: "There is a list of adjectives - sincere, precocious, lively, innocent - we always ascribe to children. These form our image, yet look at any child today. Isn't it more likely their parents will impose the exact opposite - torrid, rigorous schedules from tuition to ballet to speech and drama? There is clearly some kind of dualism in how we approach children, and that deserves a closer look. The artists exhibited here expand and redefine our conceptions of childhood."
"On that note, I think it really sucks to be a kid in Singapore these days…"
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