Cruise

Chan Hampe Galleries presents Cruise a group show featuring Hilary Schwartz, Khairullah Rahim, and Simon Ng at Shophouse 5 in Geylang.

In this exhibition the works of the three artists consider locations of queer desire.
Expanding on discussions of these locations as experienced by the community, the artists navigate past and future encounters by presenting peripheral spaces as stages of secret connection where anonymity and community converge. The works highlight the duality–public or private, real or imagined–inherent in these sites, and testify to the intention, potential and longing replete within them.
Drawing on observations of outdoor cruising sites as part of a complex response to and appropriation of the patriarchal dynamics of gaze and spectacle, Khairullah Rahim explores intimate notions that linger within these proscribed spaces. Presenting a series of paintings and manipulated found objects, the artist’s attention to the architectural landscape and multifaceted function of such spaces set the backdrop for fictionalised narratives of eroticism, sensuality and life present within these alternative terrains.
Inquiry into queer world making as shaped by individual and collective activities persists in Hilary Schwartz’s video-based exploration of an isolated swimming complex. In approaching such urban spaces and temporal structures as fictional utopias charged with notions of prolonged youth and liberation, the artist considers the consciousness of physical space when occupied by a circumscribed group.
Exploring highly eroticised zones of desire, Simon Ng’s paintings portray fictional locations where fleeting yet forbidden fantasies come to life. Steeped in codes and symbols, these realms serve as a cache for intimacy and longing among an invisible community–a reflection of the discourse involved in the establishing of private spheres of social interaction.