Beginning our journey exploring evolutionary change is the work of leading Singaporean artist Dawn Ng at Frieze New York. Investigating time and its emotive associations, she uses ice – the most ephemeral material available to her in her native Singapore, and a key medium in the Lac de Joux’s history – to express time’s shifts and articulations through colour, shape and form.

Over a multi-week period, 60 kilogram blocks of ice are assiduously built by Ng in her studio – one layer after another – evolving into a near-geological confluence of pigments, watercolours, acrylics, dyes. Stratified, these blocks speak to the topography of our planet, where time is read through age-old formations, its gravitational pushes and pulls, an element that is also a key consideration in the history of watchmaking.

Presenting a video, series of photographs, lightbox and painting, the project at Frieze New York explores the cyclicality of these blocks; their own evolutionary change, which is something that speaks to the displayed Breguet timepieces but we also collectively share. The film captures a block melting – an 18 hour period sped up and adjusted to a near 20 mins – the cascades recalling geological shifts as well as time’s elasticity; how it speeds up at moments of enjoyment or slows down at times of langour.

The photographs, part of Ng’s ‘Clock’ series, each capture a particular moment, while the lightbox is derived from each block’s origin instant, or 00:00. Finally, the painting, part of Ng’s ‘Ash’ series, are the last breath of each block. At the end of their melting, the swirl of pigments are collected, and through a process of formation and evaporation, the paintings are created, revealing a surface layer as well as a ‘beneath’.

Ultimately, Ng’s practice speaks to creation and change, existence and passing, how from earth to our own selves there is an evolution, one that is marked by our feeling and reading of time.

As a curator, I’m driven by how art can be one of the most empathetic yet critical mediums to communicate about topics. I’m excited, through the collaboration with Breguet, to explore this conversation through the lens of science, innovation, heritage and craft – unpack stories from the depths of time to the present. 

I’m excited through my collaboration with Breguet to explore evolutionary change, to think of time as something that straddles the worlds of science, emotion, our outer and inner worlds. Unfolding as a series of four chapters with a twin emphasis on global artistic dialogue and context appreciation, we will be unveiling projects with four artists, one at each of Frieze’s locations, connecting different parts of the globe: Singapore to New York, France to Seoul, Yirrkala to LA. – Jenn Ellis

In my work I explore time through the ultimate ephemeral material that is ice. Pervading my work is a question: what if we described time as a colour, shape and form, through the lens of emotion rather than strict numerical terms? Living and growing up in Singapore, we don’t have seasons, and memory is held in a different way; buildings come and go, our country itself is a relatively young one.

Collaborating with Breguet, that is vested in not only time but the notions of heritage, is one that is interesting and makes me think of what predates us, in particular land, topography, geological formations. I’m excited, through my presentation curated by serial collaborator Jenn Ellis, to unpack thoughts around what makes us us, how time can be reflected by the surfaces we stand on, but also how it comes and goes and evolves in a cyclical manner. – Dawn Ng