Galeri Nasional Indonesia, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Singapore Art Museum launched a long-term collaborative project titled ‘Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories'.

Initiated by Goethe-Institut, the project will mediate the dialogue between all museum partners involved in the four art institutions. It also seeks to explore how interwoven histories within nation-building processes and individual identity formation are reflected in the form of artistic works and exhibition. 

The dialogue will manifest in the form of four different exhibitions in Chiang Mai, Singapore, Berlin and Jakarta, and is curated by a curatorial team consisting of Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Grace Samboh, Gridthiya Gaweewong and June Yap. 

The curatorial team has been working together since 2017, sharing their views into their respective collections and expanding their research towards each other’s collections. Each curator will lead an exhibition in their respective countries and each exhibition will have a distinctive narrative. Art collection of the four institutions will also be displayed in the exhibitions. 

The project will be held from July 2021 to April 2022. It commences with the first exhibition in Chiang Mai, titled ‘ERRATA’ which showcases the errata of local modern and contemporary art history. It also explores the regional networks and women artists’ approaches to performance art, photography and media arts.

The second exhibition will be held at the National Gallery Singapore from August to November 2021, with ‘The Gift’ as its title. It highlights the act of gifting that is simultaneously quotidian yet ambivalent.

It will proceed to the third exhibition in Berlin, titled ‘Nation, Narration, Narcosis’. The exhibition will explore the relationship between critical art forms, such as performative arts, video art, installation and political protests and social developments in Southeast Asia and the former block states.

Joseph Beuys’ works at Hamburger Bahnhof and selected works and documents from the collections of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation from the age of imperialism will be displayed in the exhibition. It will be held from November 2021 to April 2022. 

The last exhibition will be held at Galeri Nasional Indonesia from January until February 2022, titled ‘Para Sekutu yang Tidak Bisa Berkata Tidak’. It highlights the artworks exchanges between artists in the ASEAN region from the 50s to the 60s that were done as G-to-G cooperation.