Jendela Visual Arts Space

The word ‘home’ usually conjures images of  comfort and cosiness, but in the hands of  Yeo Chee Kiong, the head of  the Sculpture Society of  Singapore, a typical house gets a surreal and thought-provoking makeover. ‘The House’, Yeo’s installation at the Esplanade’s Jendela Visual Arts Space, occupies the entire curve of  the 150 metre-long waterfront space. Set up as rooms in a house, the piece’s five sub-areas are designated ‘Bedroom’, ‘Home Theatre’, ‘Living Room’, ‘Dining Room’ and ‘Courtyard’. But beyond the familiarity of  these domestic-sounding labels, any similarity with a real family dwelling is illusory. Here the standard furnishings and architectural features of  home are subtly subverted to make Yeo’s ‘House’ a conceptual, tactile and visual social commentary.

The ‘Courtyard’, which visitors encounter first, features a tangle of  dangling, apple-green vegetation made of  yarn, which gallery-goers can touch as they walk through. Beyond, four mock-Corinthian columns mark the entrance to ‘The House’. These are also made of  dangling strands of  knitting wool (white this time) and greet viewers with a tongue-in-cheek reference  to the prim neo-classical dwellings of  middle-class suburbs the world over. Labelled ‘unbearably light’ by the artist, the texturally appealing columns playfully set the scene for an obliquely drawn critique of  consumer culture, using the most globally recognised symbol of  social and material arrival: the generic suburban house.

In the ‘Dining Room’, a white table dubbed ‘The Last Supper’ is set with plates floating in a milky liquid that forms its surface. The effect is both incongruous and seductive, the banality of  the table made intriguing by its viscous top layer. Opposite, a bookcase is stuffed not with books, but shiny black wigs. In the ‘Living Room’ two black sofas invite and then repulse as the viewer sees their upholstery is peppered with spiky protruding pins. Yeo’s message is that nothing is what it seems, his surreal fantasy pointing to the absurdity of  our acceptance of  so many conventionally dictated social patterns.

Fun, visually appealing and thought-provoking, the installation is testimony to the fact that conceptual art, when well made and revolving around universally important ideas, needn’t be cynical or obscure to be successful.

‘The House’ is on view at Jendela Visual Arts Space until 24 June. See Listings, Other spaces.