David Teh
Biographic Data
| ID | 270070 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Teh |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Teh |
| SIGNATURE | TEH D |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3131-964X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The City in Time
For decades, as talk of an “Asian Century” has buoyed Asian art and its promoters, academic art history has lagged behind. Publishers have not waited for it to catch up. On a recent trip in East Asia, in a few days I accumulated over twenty kilos of newly minted art histories—remarkably, almost all of them bilingual—part of a regional glut driven by collecting institutions and the art market. Hence the long-awaited launch of the National Gallery …
Under One or Several Flags
Regionality and contemporaneity
In the last two decades, Southeast Asian contemporary art has secured its place in the global art world, becoming a fixture on the latter’s expanded exhibition circuits and a promising ‘emerging market’ for investors. This consolidation has engendered a burst of scholarly activity, in line with the improving prospects of Asian art history generally and notwithstanding a lack of dedicated academic structures where the region is concerned. But if S…
Thai Art
The Act of Video
This essay explores the historiographic and ethnographic valence of video in Indonesia since 1998, against the backdrop of transition from an authoritarian to a neoliberal regime, and the concurrent renewal of the country's public sphere. The first section takes Joshua Oppenheimer's controversial film The Act of Killing (2012) as exemplary of the moving image's purchase on national trauma, emphasizing its role in the production (and perversion) o…
Travelling Without Moving
In the last two decades, Thai contemporary art has secured a small but conspicuous niche on the international exhibition circuit, despite the country's meagre infrastructure for art education, presentation and promotion. To advance professionally today, Thai artists must navigate between two distinct but overlapping spheres – each with its own practical, aesthetic and political constraints – one national, the other post-national. In this article …
Itinerant Cinema
Commentary on Apichatpong Weerasethakul's work to date leaves much to be desired. At best, it affords a survey of his feature filmography in terms of Western art cinema aesthetics, and sometimes of a 'New Asian Cinema'; at worst, it descends into exoticism. Despite his experimental leanings, and constant appearance in galleries and biennials, engagements from the side of contemporary art have done little to deepen the ahistorical contemplation of…
The Art of Interruption
This text is an edited version of my curatorial essay for 'The More Things Change . . .', the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF 5). I introduce it here with some background on the political flux since the most recent coup d'etat (2006), from which Thailand's political system is yet to recover. I outline two key themes that emerged in BEFF 5's Thai programmes. The first concerns the cycles - 'historical, biological and psycho-social' - …
Thai Art
Itinerant Cinema
Commentary on Apichatpong Weerasethakul's work to date leaves much to be desired. At best, it affords a survey of his feature filmography in terms of Western art cinema aesthetics, and sometimes of a 'New Asian Cinema'; at worst, it descends into exoticism. Despite his experimental leanings, and constant appearance in galleries and biennials, engagements from the side of contemporary art have done little to deepen the ahistorical contemplation of…
The Art of Interruption
This text is an edited version of my curatorial essay for 'The More Things Change . . .', the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF 5). I introduce it here with some background on the political flux since the most recent coup d'etat (2006), from which Thailand's political system is yet to recover. I outline two key themes that emerged in BEFF 5's Thai programmes. The first concerns the cycles - 'historical, biological and psycho-social' - …
Itinerant Cinema
Commentary on Apichatpong Weerasethakul's work to date leaves much to be desired. At best, it affords a survey of his feature filmography in terms of Western art cinema aesthetics, and sometimes of a 'New Asian Cinema'; at worst, it descends into exoticism. Despite his experimental leanings, and constant appearance in galleries and biennials, engagements from the side of contemporary art have done little to deepen the ahistorical contemplation of…
Travelling Without Moving
In the last two decades, Thai contemporary art has secured a small but conspicuous niche on the international exhibition circuit, despite the country's meagre infrastructure for art education, presentation and promotion. To advance professionally today, Thai artists must navigate between two distinct but overlapping spheres – each with its own practical, aesthetic and political constraints – one national, the other post-national. In this article …
The Act of Video
This essay explores the historiographic and ethnographic valence of video in Indonesia since 1998, against the backdrop of transition from an authoritarian to a neoliberal regime, and the concurrent renewal of the country's public sphere. The first section takes Joshua Oppenheimer's controversial film The Act of Killing (2012) as exemplary of the moving image's purchase on national trauma, emphasizing its role in the production (and perversion) o…
Thai Art
Regionality and contemporaneity
In the last two decades, Southeast Asian contemporary art has secured its place in the global art world, becoming a fixture on the latter’s expanded exhibition circuits and a promising ‘emerging market’ for investors. This consolidation has engendered a burst of scholarly activity, in line with the improving prospects of Asian art history generally and notwithstanding a lack of dedicated academic structures where the region is concerned. But if S…
Under One or Several Flags
The City in Time
For decades, as talk of an “Asian Century” has buoyed Asian art and its promoters, academic art history has lagged behind. Publishers have not waited for it to catch up. On a recent trip in East Asia, in a few days I accumulated over twenty kilos of newly minted art histories—remarkably, almost all of them bilingual—part of a regional glut driven by collecting institutions and the art market. Hence the long-awaited launch of the National Gallery …
History (7 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (6 works) · History (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Asian Studies and History (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Law (3 works)