neotraditional in Art [2]

The neo-traditional in art deals with the question of traditional. What is traditional? Who defines it? What is traditional in present context? Before we touch further on the idea of traditional in Kai Lam’s work, we would have to look at what is the constructed, motivated belief of Kai, and how does it came about? Kai was trained in Sculpture at Lasalle- SIA College of the arts. There is this constructed belief that Lasalle students are “contemporary” and are influenced by Western Art History.

Neo – traditional art is the reinterpretation of the traditional art form which is influenced from the Western style art through colonization. Different community preserve a particular culture differently, thus varies according to culture.

With knowledge of his education background, maybe it would put certain things into place. I feel that Kai’s work have strong influences of Singapore. An example is the use of national symbols - 5 stars, a crescent and the statue of merlion. This questions our preconceived meaning of objects, which is due to our constructed belief of the symbols of Singapore. As mention by him, the symbols are owned by Singaporean, as the country is owned by all of us. It is also about the idea of empowering ourselves, how we define ourselves in the state control society.

Is he questioning the traditional idea of the symbols and coming up with his own meanings of what it means to him? The act of using is actually in a way 'preserving'? It is interesting to ask ourselves, who actually came up with the urban myth of the Merlion. I believe colonization may have a part in influencing the creation of symbols to create a sense of shared history (cultural identity of Singaporeans?). To me, the traditional in his work are the themes/symbols that he used in his work. Kai thus combine this with ideas from the West – performance art.

The use of symbols in his work (which may seem ritualistic and traditional) is combined with the idea of performance art. Based on the readings, we know that tradition is not neutral or natural but is motivated and constructed based on experience. It built through time, recirculating the ideas from the past ("stereotyping of the past"). We want both modern and tradition and at the same time we don't want to lose our tradition [problematic].