THE FEATHER OF MA?AT IBD

Sinopse

This text attempts to address the question, âÇÖwhat is the weight of a painting?âÇÖ A question that came to me not quite as a question, but as a musing. From a painter nonetheless. And perhaps more significantly, from Ng Joon Kiat, a painter who has long been questioning painting, and not just through the question of âÇÖwhat is a paintingâÇÖ, that is the materiality of what is added to, dabbed onto, plastered on, a canvas, on wood, onto aluminium, on a surface, but who is on a quest to explore âÇÖpaintâÇÖ itself, on a journey of âÇÖplaying with paintâÇÖ.áSo, a question that might never quite have been meant for me. Thus, quite possibly only a quest that I am embarking on only because I have heard it as a question, have heard it call out to me, heard its call as a question, have taken it as to be a question, have inscribed the mark of a question on it. Have made it significant because I first started marking on it, have let it weigh on me.ááâÇÖWhat is the weight of a painting?âÇÖáWhich is not the same question as, âÇÖhow much does a painting weigh?âÇÖ For that, all you have to do is to get a scale.áBut rather, a question of âÇÖits weightâÇÖ: of how much it âÇÖweighs downâÇÖ - not just on you, even as that is certainly part of the question, but perhaps even on itself.áAnd where the text opens the possibility that the image is âÇÖthe weightless weightâÇÖ one encounters - is the site of a coming-together of the work and the one who stands before it, whether by sight or in the mindâÇÖs eye - in the âÇÖgap between the frame and the viewerâÇÖ, and like the feather of MaâÇÖat, is the juncture in which judgment occurs, where there is a weighing out, where the status of the work as art is quite possibly weighed up, where there is a weighing in by everyone involved, and where what is considered âÇÖgoodâÇÖ might well entail an absence of weight.