Image size: 38.0 x 26.0 cm,
Object size: 49.6 x 32.5 cm,
Image size: 38.0 x 26.4 cm
A stark contrast between old and new, past and present, comes to the fore in this arresting photo collage by Singapore-based French artist Gilles Massot (b. 1955). It depicts a view of modernist skyscrapers in the central business district, such as the Overseas Union Bank (OUB) Centre and United Overseas Bank (UOB) Plaza foregrounded, by shophouses. While it was originally conceived as preparatory work for photographic sculptures (or 'photo-objects') featured in Massot's 1991 solo exhibition "Singapore, Boy...Time Flies with You", the image has over the years taken on added significance as a historical record of Singapore's rapid urban transformation during the nation building decades of the 1970s to 1990s.Created in the early 1990s, this image also reflected the emerging practice of conceptual photography in Singapore, whereby photographers like Massot delved into exploring the medium beyond its literal, documentational function, to express more abstract and symbolic ideas. Massot's use of the photo collage aesthetic defies conventional straight photography by fragmenting the pictorial plane, and assembling different perspectives of a scene shot across different angles and time together to form a unified whole. This methodology resembles the optics of seeing and remembering — whereby the eye and mind work in tandem to organise various visual information and memories formed into a collective impression.
