Clara Che Wei Peh & Kaushik Swaminathan:
Appetite
SEP/OCT 2021
The upper-level Listening Room contains over 3000 vinyl records, Appetite, Singapore, 2021. Photo: Appetite
As soon as you step inside Appetite, located on the second floor of a two-storey shophouse right at the heart of the central business district in Singapore, you will notice the artworks hanging along the hallway. Lindy Lee’s ethereal Reaching for the Moon in Water, 2018, and forgetting, remembering, 2020-2021, commanding you to come closer and admire the details of her liberating use of Chinese ink, fire and paper. To the left of Lee’s large paper works, Yang Yongliang’s Prevailing Winds, 2017, plays on loop. Both artists make use of, and play with, the tradition of Chinese ink and calligraphy, bending the rules and reinventing our understandings of ink paintings to reflect a contemporary understanding of materials. Up another narrow flight of stairs, the Listening Room. Mere minutes later, you have a cocktail in one hand and a spoonful of corn custard with uni in the other, as your gaze falls on the library of over 3,000 vinyl records: Yang’s The Streams from his series Time Immemorial, 2016, is nestled on the shelf behind you.
