In Singapore, where ‘conserving’ history sometimes means tearing it down and building a replica in its place, art is often misconstrued to cater to the neo-colonialist’s palate (and, indeed, palette). Just finish off an impressionist painting with a floating lotus or Buddha head and out pops the screaming misnomer ‘South-East Asian contemporary art’.

Thankfully, Collectors Contemporary – a newcomer to the local contemporary art scene – seeks to placate no one, choosing instead to exhibit a range of provocative work that often strays from traditional aesthetics, by both experienced and emerging Western artists. American conceptual artist Tim Sullivan is the latest addition to the Collectors Contemporary lineup. On display since 12 June, Sullivan’s multimedia work is as sophisticated as it is bizarre. It makes sense, then, that he’s a former Warhol dealer from Wisconsin.

What was it about growing up in the Midwest that propelled you to where you are now?Lucky for me, my parents loved TV so we had cable television really early. And in the ’80s, this was such an exciting medium. It was also when MTV first started out. Now, it’s just crap. But back then, it was experimental and my window to the world.

Why the fetish for Andy Warhol?
Every kid needs a role model. Actually, Warhol had a short-lived series on MTV called Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes that originated from his ‘15 minutes of fame’ quote. Like, he’d interview Blondie and then you’d see a live performance, or there’d be a fashion designer and he would interview him in bed where the conversation would go nowhere. But I was also into David Byrne, from Talking Heads, and his lo-fi video of ‘Once in a Lifetime’. I was transfixed with his weird performance persona, which like Warhol was a work of art, a living sculpture. It was really Warhol’s showmanship that got to me way before his artwork did.

Since 9-11, it’s been the trend to hate America. Do you bring personal politics into your work?
To a degree. Well, it’s a well-founded trend. We’ve done some terrible things. [President] Bush is a joke. But my work is also drawn from my childhood, pop culture, art history… Like any artwork, it’s an amalgamation of everything. I did do a series, though, that addressed American politics and where our economy is going. I mean, we were a mega-superpower, but not any more. It’s being ripped out from under us.

Which series was this?
The monochrome photographic series [which is part of the exhibition]. There’s one of a Trix cereal box and another of my finger penetrating a vase of flowers.

Uh, explain?
Cereal is a really terrible American sugary thing that’s pumped with vitamins. It’s commercial, a ’50s image of America’s strength and the idea of the perfect family. But I made it monochrome. When you first look at it you think it’s a black-and-white photograph, but then you realise it’s actually a colour photograph of a world made black and white.

And the penetration?
It’s a metaphor for anything really. I was drawing on this old childhood story, The Hero of Haarlem, about a little Dutch boy who saves his city from being wiped away by putting his finger in a leaking dike. So in a sense, I’m trying to save my own city.

Oh Tim, your work is so contemporary! What springs to mind when you hear that?
[Laughs] Contemporary art is such a broad term and it’s basically art of now. For me, it refers to everything after modernism.

So what do you think about Buddha heads and lotus flowers painted in an impressionist style and then labelled ‘South-East Asian contemporary art’?
I don’t want to sound like an a**hole, but that art sounds more decorative. Since Duchamp and Warhol (not to bring him up again), art completely changed. [Art critic Arthur] Danto saw Warhol’s work and said it was the ‘death of art’. Not literally, but the death of art as we thought of it. Picasso and Pollock, who despite obliterating the picture plane, still had a meta-narrative, an aesthetic. The art would still refer to itself. Warhol totally knocked over that major canon and [searches for the right words]…

Made art conceptual so that it would reflect upon the viewer as well? Right. That’s what I’m trying to say. [We cackle.]

To bring back Warhol yet again, people often liken or reference your work to his. How do you feel about that?
To be honest, in high school, people used to call me Warhol as a put-down because of the way I looked. But I didn’t care. I thought Warhol was great. I often reference Warhol in my work, but it is not Warhol-esque. And other artists have referenced him as well. Jeff Koons, who uses a lot of pop [elements]. Street artist Basquiat was friends with Warhol. I don’t think Warhol influenced his art directly but their collaborations definitely helped Basquiat take his work to the next level. Warhol was an early influence, but I became interested in performance artists like Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci. But yeah, the Warhol thing always comes back and I’m wondering if it’s because I have really blond hair.

Maybe. But I notice you often use yourself as a subject.
Earlier on, I was working with sculptures a lot and moving them around within a space. And I was always documenting them on video and then I realised what I could do with film – frame things with and through time while controlling the viewer’s eye. And it became a part of my vocabulary. Somehow, I moved from using sculpture to myself – 12 or 13 years ago. But it wasn’t so much related to me. I was working with the body [as a subject] and it’s easier to use your own body when it’s readily available. So I became an everyman in a way, or a stand-in for the viewer. But when you look at me, I’m not really that much of an everyman. I’m kind of weird-looking.

Distinctive.
There you go. Beautiful. But people responded to it. So I became [like Warhol and Byrne] aware of my persona and then I started taking on other personas.

There was that one video of you covered in foam.
Oh, it was whipped cream and a remake inspired by the album cover of ’60s band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. They always had these great covers of these sexy models and that cover is very iconic of Americana kitsch and camp culture. It started off with me wanting to be the model and then writing a loose script, then playing the album and me just freaking out and reacting to it. It would end up being this thing where you don’t know what happens until it happens.

I love that. I got into an argument with someone recently who said that art has to be beautiful, otherwise it’s not art at all. What do you think of that statement? [Rolls eyes] The notion of ready-made aesthetics is so archaic. I think this person missed about a hundred years of art history.

So now that I’ve raved, what rant do you have?
I’ve a few, but nothing that sticks in my mind. I do hate how curators become a club and it turns into a pi**ing contest among them. Not that they don’t deserve to be recognised, but the focus should always be on art.