Documentary of Josef Ng's performance "Brother Cane"

DOCUMENTARY OF JOSEF NG’S PERFORMANCE “BROTHER CANE” was recorded shortly after the start of the New Year 1994. Ng’s performance took place as part of the Artists’ General Assembly (AGA), a week-long art festival held during the final week of 1993 at the Fifth Passage Gallery in Singapore. The artist Josef Ng and Fifth Passage Gallery manager Iris Tan were arrested afterward and charged for presenting an obscene act, later amended to performing without a license. The performance, which objected to the entrapment and arrest of twelve men for homosexual acts, led to the closure of Fifth Passage Gallery, the most progressive feminist artist-run space in Singapore, two court cases, two convictions, and the government’s gradual elimination, through various means, of a small group of foreign intellectuals, as well as a decade-long restriction on the licensing and funding of performance art in Singapore. Ray Langenbach’s documentary provides invaluable recording of the historic performance. Josef Ng is an artist, curator, and critic from Singapore, who has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary Chinese and Southeast Asian art. In 1994, his performance “Brother Cane” caused a media-fuelled uproar in Singapore and resulted in a de facto decade-long ban on performance art in Singapore. Later, Ng worked in Thailand and China for many years, for example as the director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art and the artistic and executive director of the gallery Tang Contemporary Art (Beijing, Hongkong, Bangkok), or as the director of Gallery Ver in Bangkok. He currently is based in Shanghai. DOCUMENTARY OF JOSEF NG’S PERFORMANCE “BROTHER CANE” is part of the Asia Art Archive. The archive was founded in 2000 in Hong Kong to make visible the multiple recent art histories of the region. With offices in Shanghai, New Delhi, and New York, AAA builds tools and communities to collectively expand knowledge through research, residency, and educational programs. The collection comprises a vast range of documentation, including the personal archives of significant artists, educators, and art professionals, as well as of key exhibitions and art spaces.