Object size: 102.5 x 84.0 x 4.0 cm
A stark contrast between old and new, past and present, comes to the fore in this playful photographic sculpture (or 'photo-object') by Singapore-based French artist Gilles Massot (b. 1955). It depicts a collaged 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 in Chinatown. While it was originally conceived as preparatory work for Massot's 1991 solo exhibition "Singapore, Boy...Time Flies with You", the artwork 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 photo-object 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. The artist'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 into a collective impression. It also pushed boundaries of the photographic medium by extending it beyond the two-dimensional into a more three-dimensional spatial composition. This particular piece drew inspiration from 'Roots' (1991) and was originally made in the same 3x3 grid-like permutation. Subsequently two panels were re-arranged in 2020 with an extended wooden scaffolding, producing a new dynamic composition that emphasises the artwork's materiality as a visual construction.
