REVIEW: "Perdido Eden" @ Ode to Art
The sense of dislocation is immediate, and visceral.
Sitting in the center of the gallery’s pristine space—which is situated in one of Singapore’s most upscale malls—is a small pyramid of broken concrete slabs, topped by a lightning-shaped shard of aluminum. It appears as if the elements have reduced These Weeks Scatter Like Seconds (2012), by Filipino artist Paul Mondok, to this pile of wreckage, which functions here as a memento, an evocation of the gritty milieu from whence it emerged. What is most compelling about Mondok’s piece is its context. The disjuncture between rough-hewn construction debris and the gallery’s smooth, glimmering surfaces constitute a broader statement on two antithetical urban ecologies: that of Manila and Singapore.
