Gajah Gallery gets into the NFT game

GAJAH Gallery's first non-fungible token (NFT) showcase involves both young and veteran artists, and is possibly the first of its kind by an established commercial gallery in Singapore. But the quality of the works is a mixed bag, suggesting the transition from traditional media to a digital one is anything but smooth.

Among the better works are those by Loi Cai Xiang, a 29-year-old painter who's made a name for himself in recent years painting surreal images of wild animals roaming in or strange rock formations floating above contemporary Singapore landscapes.

His new NFTs depict human figures surrounded by planets and stars, a meditation of our place in the cosmos (pictured, below). These images were first rendered as meticulous paintings (which are also on display), but Loi has taken pains to transform them into psychedelic animated shorts to be minted as NFTs.

In one of them, 2 headless figures walk towards each other and merge into an exploding supernova. In another, a naked torso floats like a star around which planets orbit. The NFTs are on sale on the Foundation marketplace, with the starting price of 0.65 Eth.

Appearing equally at ease with the transition into NFT is filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua, who first gained notice in 2018 when his existential noir mystery film A Land Imagined won the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival.

In 2020, Yeo made a superb short film titled An Invocation To The Earth which transposes into contemporary dance the popular children's tale of the mousedeer outsmarting the crocodile.

Inspired by the tropical forest that formed the backdrop of that film, Yeo has created several NFTs that imagine spirits of the forest writhing and twisting into being.

According to the wall text, Yeo is referencing the "formulations of male and female archetypes" in Singapore cinema from the 1950s and 1960s. Hence the works' specific titles such as "The Lover", "The Ascetic", "The Nasty", and so on.

But Yeo has also radically reimagined these stock characters as bizarre arboreal forms that retain only a vague hint of their original inspiration. As a result, they are compelling in and of themselves as mysterious vegetal apparitions waiting to be encountered.

Besides Yeo's NFTs, Uji "Hahan'' Handoko's work is also a standout. He has taken his usual critique of the art world's excesses and sent it hurtling into the galaxy: His animated NFT shows a sculpture shot with arrows and spinning through space, a metaphor of how NFTs have disrupted and shaken up the art market, forcing it into the future. The work has wit and beauty, and bodes well for Hahan's expansion onto the NFT space.

Less impressive are the NFTs by Arron Teo and Suzann Victor. Street photographer Teo has taken 36 of his snapshots and grouped them into 4 sets of 9 images, each set purportedly telling an incidental story. But the photographs are too ordinary and unremarkable (a kissing couple here, a pair of legs there) to compel the viewer to hold her gaze and formulate a story.

Victor, on the other hand, has turned to her famous 2006 installation, Contours Of A Rich Manoeuvre, for inspiration. The original work is made up of red chandeliers swinging dangerously overhead in a pattern, marking time and space in a fascinating way.

Transformed into NFTs, however, the chandeliers appear as generic and monotonous digital images, lacking the scale and grandeur of the physical thing.

It's impossible to calculate or even estimate how many NFTs there are in the world. But the market is so saturated by now, even established artists struggle to get the attention of NFT collectors spoiled by cheap, attractive options. At press time, most of the NFTs at the show are still available.

(A sixth artist, Ashley Bickerton, did not complete his NFT in time for the show opening.)