Yeo Workshop presents part one of “only losers left alive (love songs for the end of the world)”
10.07.2021

Curated by Louis Ho

The three works that constitute Paradise Now’s installation, in this show, portray a deconstructed campsite, manifesting a mood of nonchalance in the face of an apocalypse. The objects here are informed by the artists’ personal repository of memories, seeking a sense of the lyrical in a nervous predicament. Mirroring the space of the artist’s studio as a home away from home, the campsite reflects a sanctuary of instinctual pursuits.

It’s Not Even the End of the Day (2021)

Acrylic Paint, PVC banner, Deck Chair, Ceramic Tiles, Wood, Metal Box, Windshield and Beer Cans

Conceptualized as an installative assemblage, It’s Not Even the End of the Day was influenced by the Arte Povera movement and the visuality of the Californian squatter community, Slab City, embodying attitudes of nonchalance, indifference and defiance.

The work consists of a deck chair on a tiled platform and a box of beer cans. An image of a wooded area is reproduced on the canvas of the chair, and a slice of graffiti intersects the platform. In the spirit of summer vibes, this assemblage represents a staged utopia, holding out the promise of a camping experience at the end of the world, with a potted plant added to the work to maintain some semblance of life in an apocalyptic atmosphere.

Welcome to Paradise (2021)

Metal Lightbox with Sticker, Card and Acrylic Sheets

Welcome to Paradise is reminiscent of the repurposed salvage that comprises California’s Slab City, as well as pawn shop signage once a common part of Singapore’s urban fabric. The lightbox features, on one side, the personal phone numbers of the Paradise Now artists, and the collective’s logo. On the other are the lyrics to the song, “The End of the World”, first made popular by Skeeter Davis in 1962, in the form of the BSoD (blue screen of death), an error screen displayed on the Windows operating system following a crash. The artists remark: “We like the visual element of lit signage, and the humorous aspect of self-advertising without any indicated service. There is nothing to figure out except to enjoy the words to Skeeter’s song.” Here, the lightbox masquerades as salvage, utilized as the decorative identity marker of a reconstructed dwelling.

Light Year Projection Sheet (2021)

Silkscreen and Mixed Media on Watercolour Paper

A campsite is a safe harbour, and perhaps even home to some. To personalise their deconstructed campsite, the two artists of Paradise Now have included aniconic self-portraits in the form of zeroing target sheets. Such sheets are used to calibrate and zero firing arms, before hunting, by collecting data through bullet holes statistics. Using prints of a modified zeroing sheet as a base for their drawings, “the imagery here”, the artists observe, “is emblematic of our being.”