“I leave you my portraits
so that you will have
my presence all the days and nights
that I am away from you”
Frida Kahlo
Memory, time and family are some of the recurring themes in the art works of New York-based Singaporean photographer and visual artist John Clang.
They are in “Fear of Losing the existence” (2002) which it is the way the artist has tried to freeze time applying blurred faces of his parents and parents-in-law. He has lived abroad for many years and doesn’t see his family very often. This work is partly a solution and consequence of what he fears. “I’m very afraid that one day I will not be able to remember their faces anymore and we will become total strangers”, Clang says.
But now we can recognize his parents smiling faces during a family portrait session with their beloved son who has come back to meet them. Even if they are in Singapore and he is in New York, they are in the same portrait.
This was the first idea and personal need behind John Clang’s work “Being Together” showed at the National Museum in Singapore until May 26th. Then his aim evolved , he made portraits of other 40 Singaporean families that were apart in different countries gathered in one picture and one virtual space through Skype video and projection technology.
Following the tradition of the family studio portraits (a common use in Singapore since the late 19th century as the National Museum shows in the second part of the exhibition), Clang went beyond the tradition, the technology can also help to go further from space and time limits.
Clang also achieved a personal and emotional point. In 2010 he did another series of family portraits, “Guilt”. Here we see his father, mother and brother but he removed their faces replacing them with texts remembering of private nostalgic moments spent together when the photographer still lived with the family. Distance and selfishness were his guilt, but now – looking at the last image of the “Being Together” series – John has come back. He stands in front of the doorway of his parents’ home and they are there, looking at their son, but – at the same time – still waiting for him.
Eliseo Barbàra
Being Together: Family & Portraits
Photographing with John Clang
From January 23rd to May 26th, 2013
National Museum
93 Stamford Road
Singapore
