What makes some of these local or global creatives tick? In this weekly column, fine artist Mike Chang shares his favourite things.
1. Paintings: I enjoy looking at paintings more than anything else. And I have been completely entranced by Charles E. Burchfield’s paintings. The landscapes he created are folksy and charming but with a strange blend of mysticism infused.
The rain, the lightning, the sunray bouncing off the snow on the ground, that’s the vibe; Burchfield is always the vibe.
2. Return to the Obra Dinn: A one-man show, Lucas Pope created this mesmorizing video game titled Return of the Obra Dinn. Detective game is not my jam, but I have never played anything that is so good at making you feel so smart! You play as an insurance agent (lol) whose job is to figure out what happened to the 60 missing crews and passengers of the ship Obra Dinn.
From the art style to the gameplay, I was blown away constantly. And let’s just say the story is not afraid to get weird.
3. One woman shows: One of the hardest things to achieve in the arts is sustainability over time. Things come and go pretty fast, and it takes a lot of drive and work to carve out spaces for yourself and make it a permanent fixture in the scene. I am very lucky to be have known and worked with some of these inspiring individuals: Renee Ting of SG ArtBook Fair, Tricia Lim of Pinch Ceramic Studio, Pey Chuan of I_S_L_A_N_D_S, Audrey Yeo of Yeo Workshop, and Winnie Liu of Jalen Basear Salon, and Michelle Yu of Gentlemen’s Press to name a few.
These platforms and spaces are incredibly important to the scene.
4. Monster Factory: Probably one of my favorite Youtube channels that I watch repeatedly. Justin and Griffin McElroy, two brothers messing around with video game character creation systems until they made…“art”? It is absolutely hilarious at times and downright irrelevant in the best way possible.
5. JoJo Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean: In high school, I had a Japanese classmate who brought two to three issues of JoJo Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable to class every day. Unable to read anything in Japanese I still thoroughly enjoyed Hirohiko Araki’s magnum opus.
It all started in 1987 and now Stone Ocean is turned into an animated series on Netflix, I am re-watching and re-reading everything. Also, JoJo memes are the best.
6. Animal World (2018): There is a fine line between bad movies and bad movies that are fun and enjoyable. For example, Neil Breen’s Fateful Finding (2013) and Claudio Fragasso’s Trolls 2 (1990) made me fall to the floor laughing. I recently watched the Chinese-produced movie Animal World by director Han Yan based on Japanese manga Kaiji.
This movie, man, it’s a hodgepodge of many things that are completely incoherent. These unintentional comedies are candies to my eyes. Also, don’t ever watch this movie alone. It’s too depressing.
7. Robin: Robin is a series of five art exhibitions that take place in a small camping tent. For each show, three artists are asked to make a small work to respond to the idea of temporality and intimacy. The exhibition is an exercise of striping down an art exhibition to the barebone and asking the viewers to make connections without hand-holding.
Also if you stick around during the opening, the curators might just cook you some hotdogs on a portable stove.
8. Jokic: Nickname the joker, is currently my favorite NBA Player right now. The 211cm center from Serbia does not look or move like your typical professional basketball player. Heck, he can barely jump. Whenever I feel sad I just go on Youtube and watch his assist highlights. The angle he sees, the timing, the accuracy, and the creativity.
It’s joyful to watch him play.
9. Fan Fiction: I am not into fan fiction actually. But ever since David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) got a new ending in China’s Tencent streaming platform, I started thinking about it as some sort of authoritarian fan fiction where rebellion against the state always ends in failure. Are we seeing disinformation warfare reaching a maximum peak?
With COVID-19, Donald Trump, the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan 6th, and now Putin spinning tales about why Russia is invading Ukraine… I feel like we are all living in a madman’s fantasy.
Once you’re done with the obsessions of fine artist Mike Chang, click here to catch up with our March 2022 issue!
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