HEY!!! Do you remember last month when I advertised a show called CAPITAL at Post-Museum? Well, I didn’t make it down to the opening, but I did turn up before it closed… and guess what? There’s some seriously good stuff.

I’d liked some of Seelan’s stuff before: his brutal Tamil graffiti and video collage works, for instance. However, sometimes his explicitly political works didn’t hit home: they were all message, with not enough aesthetics in the medium to really provoke an art critic.

A lot of this success, of course, is thanks to his new collaborator/girlfriend, Shikin Ali:

They say they’ve collaborated pretty much 50-50 on this exhibition: discussed its themes of capital punishment for the last six months. Above, for example, is a poster based on a childhood photo of Yong Vui Kong, a Malaysian sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Singapore at the age of 19. Obviously, the group’s been placed behind bars for a reason.

I’m afraid the shots I took with my iPhone won’t load (these images are courtesy of Seelan himself), so I can’t describe some of my favourite pieces. A fluorescent pink and yellow portrait of capital punishment critic Alan Shadrake raising his fingers in a peace sign, only with his fingers bloodily blown off. The motto of the prisons unit written in rope, ritually burned, its scorched remains on display together with photo documentation of the ceremony.

Oh, and there’s this:

That’s a visual pun on how President SR Nathan claimed he had no power to grant clemency to death row inmates, as he was bound by the Cabinet. So here’s Nathan, trapped in a Cabinet! (You can sign petitions all you like in the drawer below; nothing will change.)

The work’s got everything: spectacular heft, an interactive element and political relevance. Why won’t TNAGS buy this to complete the portrait of Southeast Asian activist art? Seriously, art collectors might want to buy a few of these pieces. Once the government loosens up, they’ll be regarded as iconic and historic works of Singaporean protest art.

Oh, and here’s one of everyone’s favourite pieces:

It’s called “5:59 am” (I think), and it was exhibited at Shikin’s NAFA graduation show this year. It’s a reference to the ritual of hanging prisoners at 6 am in Changi Prison.

The portraits on the clocks are those of victims of Singapore’s mandatory capital punishment laws for drug trafficking: Shanmugam Murugesu, Van Tuong Nguyen, Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi – all of them are stopped one minute before their deaths, except for Yong Vui Kong, who’s still ticking, still alive, waiting his order of execution.

For those of us who’ve been keeping up with activism in Singapore, who’ve rallied around each of these figures to protest the fact that we’ve got such draconian laws (did I mention that even the judge expressed doubts about Tochi’s guilt before sentencing him to death?), the work actually produces a visceral reaction – dread, mixed in with the hollow nostalgia for the forever deceased.

Unfortunately, the clocks are being sold individually – good luck to the curator trying to collect them again for a retrospective.

At this point, I’d like to mention that one clear contribution of Shikin’s is the sophisticated use of photography in the exhibition. The dramatic chiaroscuro of her photos contrasts with Seelan’s more organic, hands-on practice – the net result is an exhibition as varied in its artefacts as might be a show by a dozen different artists on the same theme.

Will upload more images from this exhibition when I get home to Singapore. Till then, a luta continua.