| Cover Picture: Robert Indiana, LOVE Blue Faces Red Sides, 1966–1999, polychrome aluminium |

ART SG

We have waited so many years (since 2018 at least?) to finally see the ART SG art fair come to fruition in Singapore! It certainly shares similar vibes to Art Basel in Hong Kong. In its inaugural edition in 2023, ART SG delivered art by the familiar well-loved artists, as well as the strange and kind of wacky!

Why though…?? I don’t know the title of this artwork, but it’s a play on the classical sculpture Laocoön and His Sons in the Vatican Museums…

Enjoyed seeing artworks from Ben Brown Fine Arts again — my usual art fair favourites are Vik Muniz’s collages of famous masterpieces and Gavin Turk’s humorous bronzes! Giraffe refers to the taped banana artwork fiasco that was Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (which was originally shown at Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2019).

Around the World in 80 Days

The exhibition ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ at Alliance Française de Singapour offered something different! Based on the titular novel by Jules Verne, the exhibition was centred around French innovations in transport and travel on land, sea, air, and even in space.

My favourite part of the exhibition was being able to touch and handle these early editions of the novels which are held in private collections. It’s very nerdy of me, but I love having the chance to touch artefacts from centuries past!

Library of Unread Books

The artwork installation The Library of Unread Books by Heman Chong and Renée Staal was so interesting to discover! As what the name suggests, it’s a library and room filled with unread books donated by the public. My sister and I were so fascinated by the concept that we each donated an unread book of our own! It was also great to skim, glance and read all of the different books on display. This artwork was on show in Singapore earlier this year, and travels regularly — currently it’s in Seoul!

Peranakan Museum

The Peranakan Museum finally reopened after a few years of revamp, and it was nice to see the updated gallery displays. This gorgeous table cover is finally on display in the museum, and it sparkles so delicately with actual glass beads inlaid in the cloth.

National Museum of Singapore

NMS – A Voyage of Love and Longing

I enjoyed seeing this small exhibition ‘A Voyage of Love and Longing’ at the National Museum of Singapore. This exhibition weaves stories and poetry about love and longing from the Malay world, alongside drawings of birds, plants, and flowers contained in the museum’s William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings. It provides a new kind of perspective which I thought was very nicely done!

NMS – Now Boarding

I highly recommend checking out ‘Now Boarding: Experiencing Singapore through Travel, 1800s – 2000s’ at the National Museum of Singapore! It’s currently on show till 25 February 2024. I spent so long looking at all the details of the exhibits, and loved seeing an older side of Singapore through the years.

If you can, also take a dance in the NMS Disco with a friend! You can choose from beginner to advanced level difficulty and dance along to some old grooves! A video recording of your dance will be made available to one of the participants (via an app or link or something). It really made me laugh to see my friend and I dancing in somewhat embarrassing fun!

Immersive Disney Animation

2023 was also the year of Disney100, and I embraced that fully!! I watched 3 Disney movies, got a tote, went to Hong Kong Disneyland, watched the Frozen musical… and also visited the ‘Immersive Disney Animation’ exhibition! It is currently showing until 25 February 2024.

The highlight is the one-hour long immersive video experience showing clips from various Disney cartoons and animations. There are only some couches in the middle, so almost everyone sits on the floor out of consideration to allow everyone to watch the screens!

I loved watching my old and new favourite Disney classics in the immersive experience, but I was quite peeved to miss most of the exhibition area before going into the immersive experience. The time slots are tight (and last for 90 minutes only), so the staff were calling everyone to go into the immersive viewing area early. We thought we could return to the exhibition area but weren’t allowed to — so do spend enough time to check out the exhibits before running in!!

Gardens by the Bay

Tulipmania: Origins of the Tulip

I spent more time visiting Gardens by the Bay this year, and I decided to include these pictures specially because I enjoyed seeing these beautiful flowers so much! I finally visited my first-ever Tulipmania, as I thought it was so unique that Gardens by the Bay went for a Türkiye theme this year! Loved seeing the exhibits nestled among the tulips as well.

Orchids of Machu Picchu (and Avatar: The Experience)

I finally revisited Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay after many years, and managed to catch both Avatar: The Experience and ‘Orchids of Machu Picchu’!

‘Orchids of Machu Picchu’ is still ongoing. The flower exhibition includes some very beautiful orchids, along with Peruvian artefacts like these replicas of receptacles (shown above). I’m loving the educational bent that Gardens by the Bay is taking with their recent events with Orchids of Machu Picchu and with Tulipmania this year.

Only after revisiting Cloud Forest now did I realise Gardens by the Bay kept one of the best Dale Chihuly glass sculptures in their conservatories! In 2021, Gardens by the Bay held a Dale Chihuly exhibition, see here for the post!

That’s a wrap! In 2023 I also visited Hong Kong’s new and revamped museums, which I’m also looking forward to sharing more about on Wording Art! At this moment, I’m just happy to have seen all these art, exhibitions, and immersive experiences — including the excellent Van Gogh Immersive Experience — right here in Singapore. :)

The post Art of 2023 appeared first on Wording Art.

| Cover picture: Hiromi Tango, Dr Emma Burrows and Dr Tilman Dingler, Wheel, 2021, at ArtScience Museum’s MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing |

Asian Civilisations Museum – Russel Wong in Kyoto

Russel Wong in Kyoto was first shown alongside Life in Edo in 2021, and then it was extended into 2022! Additional photographs by Wong were added, keeping the focus on an inside look of geikos in Kyoto, but I also really liked the atmosphere of showing Kyoto in flowering season.

National Gallery Singapore – Chua Mia Tee: Directing the Real

I was able to visit this exhibition twice because it went on for about a year — early on in January and one more time on its last day! This is a solo exhibition dedicated to Singaporean artist Chua Mia Tee, and I enjoyed seeing his views of Singapore back in the old days…

Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall (shown on right of painting) is missing its crown at the top of its dome! I found this missing detail so funny, because I only learned a while back too about the building’s crown! Also my favourite work of architecture in Singapore.

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre – Life is Sweet: Ang Ku Kueh Girl Exhibition

Found this a sweet exhibition and I loved these uplifting messages along with these cute Ang Ku Kueh Girl illustrations!

Han Sai Por’s Microorganisms Landscape

The use of the Jendela art space at the Esplanade for Han Sai Por’s mixed-media Microorganisms Landscape was pretty good! I also liked seeing a different side to Han’s work, who is well-known for her sculptures which are easily found across Singapore.

Hong Kong: Through the Looking Glass miniature exhibition《細看香港》

Take me back to Hong Kong!!! Here’s to me doing that in 2023!!! In the meantime, I loved seeing these miniatures of everyday Hong Kong scenes — and there were so many other people viewing this exhibition too!

200 TRUNKS, 200 VISIONARIES: THE EXHIBITION

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Louis Vuitton’s birth, LV launched this exhibition that invited 200 artists, creatives, and some celebrities to reinterpret the classic LV trunk. Singapore was the second stop for this travelling exhibition, which is really cool! Loved the ideas and creativity that was abounding here.

National Museum of Singapore – OFF / ON: Everyday Technology that Changed our Lives, 1970s – 2000s

More throwbacks to an older Singapore, I really liked these room set-ups like the barber salon and the photographer’s studio!

i Light Singapore

i Light finally returned after its last showing in 2019! It was really nice walking around the Marina Bay area again at night to see all the lights.

My favourite from i Light this year was Firefly Field! They are electronically controlled but appear to sway naturally in the wind.

Botanic Gardens Gallop Extension

I finally visited the new(-ish) Gallop Extension at Botanic Gardens, and I definitely want to visit again! There are two black and white houses named Inverturret and Atbara, and you can explore their interiors, learn more about the colonial era architecture, and see exhibitions and highlights from the Singapore Botanic Gardens collection.

Asian Civilisations Museum – Batik Kita: Dressing in Port Cities

Popped by ACM again to see the exhibition Batik Kita, that featured batik in textiles in both its traditional and contemporary forms.

Malay Heritage Centre – Cerita

I visited the Malay Heritage Centre before it closed for renovation, and its last exhibition was Cerita (Stories). The highlight piece for me was this stunning painting by Raden Saleh!

Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum

Finally visited the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum for the first time ever — after so long! It’s situated within the campus of National University of Singapore, and the museum exhibits are set across two stories. I thought it was really well done; it’s cool to see Singapore’s very own dinosaur exhibits, and I was also particularly taken by the molluscs section!

National Gallery Singapore – Wu Guanzhong: Travelling with the Master

I still think that the best Wu Guanzhong exhibition at National Gallery Singapore was Wu Guanzhong: Beauty Beyond Form in 2016. The latest showing Wu Guanzhong: Travelling with the Master was a little cobbled together, but it was still nice to see some really great works by Wu.

National Gallery Singapore – Nothing is Forever: Rethinking Sculpture in Singapore

Running from 29 July 2022 to 5 February 2023

Haha, I couldn’t help myself! It doesn’t matter when one doesn’t ‘get’ the art, just pose with it and have fun…!

House of Dreams

I loved this display of Barbie dolls at House of Dreams hosted at the Ion Orchard art gallery space, it was so pink, bright and fabulous! Loved the vintage looks to the contemporary ones, with my favourites below!

Asian Civilisations Museum – ACM and Anima Mundi: Chinese Christian art from the Vatican Museums 

Currently showing

This exhibition of loans from the Anima Mundi (Soul of the World), Vatican Museums at ACM featuring Chinese Christian art seems to be getting little traction, but it’s a really nice display of works incorporated within ACM’s Christian art gallery! The works of Chinese Christian art makes for both a strange and interesting combination that I’ve never really encountered before.

ArtScience Museum – MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing 

Running from 3 September 2022 – 26 February 2023

I thought that MENTAL was both fun and a little quirky! The exhibition’s take on mental health and wellbeing was not exactly what I was expecting (I thought I should come out of it feeling nice and cosy or something like that??), but there was a good variety of responses and artworks that related to the theme.

Even in Fear by Zhou definitely made me feel a little more anxious than I should have! The white balloon in the bright pink container keeps expanding and filling up the space until it looks like it’s going to explode — and then it deflates, and the cycle repeats again.

I thought this work Hello Human, Hello Machine was really fun because you could pick up the payphone and it connects you to someone and start a conversation! But, spoiler alert, I am convinced that the person on the line is pre-recorded……

In Mirror Ritual, you look into the mirror and the AI machine presents you with a poem based on the emotions on your face. I gave it my best neutral expression and this is what I got, which cracked me up!!

I thought this was the perfect note to end this post with. Thank you 2022, you’ve been a ride — and of course, one of my ultimate highlights of the year was visiting London, and I should do another highlight post of that! I hope the new year 2023 treats you well, and that you be kind on yourself too! Let’s see what it will bring…

The post Art of 2022 appeared first on Wording Art.

National Gallery Singapore

The art of 2021 began with National Gallery Singapore’s Light to Night festival, which is always pretty fun with their art installations! Just went to see some at 2022’s edition too.

Something New Must Turn Up: Six Singaporean Artists After 1965

I’ve seen Eng Tow’s Grains of Thought twice at Asian Civilisations Museum and now at its spot at Jewel Changi, and I found it fun to see these maquettes / models for the actual artwork in the exhibition Eng Tow – the sixth sense (part of Something New Must Turn Up), which were a lot smaller!

My favourite exhibition in Something New Must Turn Up was Jaafar Latiff: In the Time of Textile — really liked seeing these colourful, Futurist-looking, abstract pieces.

Antony Gormley – on view 6 August 2021 – 30 October 2022

My first encounter with Antony Gormley’s human figures was back in 2016, when ‘Event Horizon’ Hong Kong placed several of these standing men at the top of buildings and in the middle of the streets in Central — and I had fun posing with one of them! And this one has now fallen face-flat on the Gallery’s beautiful floors…

Kind of weird / funny to see this steel mass in the middle of such colonial architecture! A bit out of place or an interesting contrast?

Horizon Field Singapore on the rooftop of National Gallery Singapore looks fantastic (and different from so many angles), and it’s great to take photos with!

Nam June Paik: The Future is Now – 10 December 2021 – 27 March 2022

Nam June Paik is such a big name and an important artist, so I definitely had to check out this exhibition! It’s a travelling exhibition, and it’s making its last stop at National Gallery Singapore. I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of his work, but it’s a good exhibition to see nonetheless.

Also be sure not to miss these three works located in the basement of the Gallery — Sistine Chapel is probably the most seminal work of Paik’s.

Siapa Nama Kamu? Art in Singapore since the 19th Century

I’ve wandered through Siapa Nama Kamu? [What’s Your Name?] quite a number of times, and it’s always nice to see some refreshed works in this permanent exhibition. I just saw Wu Peng Seng’s photographs, and I really liked the ones with the ballerina: The Long Shadow and First Step.

Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th Century

Siapa Nama Kamu? is much smaller than Between Declarations and Dreams (3 galleries in the former and 14 galleries in the latter), and I only realised last year that I haven’t actually seen the whole of Between Declarations and Dreams properly before. So I took the afternoon to track down all the galleries and had a look at everything.

My favourites are still the works of Raden Saleh — Boschbrand is stunning, but I wish there was more explanation of the work. While we see these animals driven to the edge of the cliff due to a forest fire, I’m inclined to think that there is a deeper, or symbolic meaning to this image. In any case, here’s to a roaring Year of the Tiger…!

Gorgeous pieces giving me Turner-esque vibes.

National Museum of Singapore

Modern Colony: 1925–1935

I’m not sure how or why, but I can’t believe I’ve not seen these galleries in National Museum of Singapore on the second floor?! They trace the modern history of Singapore, and I really liked this one on the ‘Modern Colony’. It’s the Twenties vibes for me!

PSM50: Celebrating the Golden Jubilee of Singapore’s Preservation Journey

I stumbled across this exhibition presented by the Preservation of Sites and Monuments division of the National Heritage Board (to mark 50 years of preservation in Singapore), and there were these small artefacts and models of the 73 National Monuments of Singapore!

This cube was exhibited on a turning display, and the top has an image of a war memorial. Unfortunately, I forgot to record what this piece is about and what monument it’s displaying, but I took these photos of it as I was taken by what it says of the ‘Folly of War’.

Singapore History Gallery

This amazing portrait by John Singer Sargent is in the basement gallery of the National Museum of Singapore — the Singapore History Gallery — and I’m sure I’d seen it before years ago but didn’t know of Sargent at the time. I was part of a British Art class in the last semester, and my professor mentioned that there was a Sargent in the National Museum, so I had to track it down!! It’s huge, lush and the paintwork is gorgeous.

The Sargent painting is situated between two other portraits painted by John Edgar Williams (left) and William Orpen (right), but those are just not as impressive.

Kranji War Cemetery

As part of that aforementioned British Art class, we did a field trip to the Kranji War Cemetery, also known as the Kranji War Memorial. It’s part of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) that maintains cemeteries across the world, remembering the “men and women of the Commonwealth Forces who died in the First and Second World Wars”.

It was my first time at the Kranji War Cemetery, and it might seem a bit surprising that it is so beautifully maintained. I posted about this on my IG earlier, and my mixed feelings still remain the same. Seeing these individuals’ names and their families’ messages for them is both sad and humbling in a way.

Out and About

A cute display at Funan Mall of Lego displays of Singaporean / hawker food that I spotted back in May!

Another random, gorgeous Lego display of the Fullerton Hotel located at One Fullerton opposite that I saw in November!

I always like to glimpse at the window displays of fashion houses as sometimes, there are some really well-done and interesting displays! Hermès at Liat Towers frequently has these fun, quirky or just aesthetic window displays.

Burberry’s Olympia bag installation

This was just fun and random! The Burberry’s Olympia bag installation made its third appearance in Singapore’s Ion Orchard after floating down London’s River Thames (stunning!) and appearing in Dubai too.

KAWS:HOLIDAY

KAWS is just so popular now, and no matter what you think of the art or of the character, I think it’s good time to embrace it! Was quite surprised to see the crowds lining up to see KAWS:HOLIDAY at the Floating Platform, and I still like to keep my social distancing, so I zoomed in on the KAWS balloon (?) installation from afar on the Helix Bridge!

A good reminder to look up — some of Singapore’s architecture have these stunning ceilings that you might not notice on the daily, but it’s nice to take a moment to look up every once in a while.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel

Speaking of ceilings, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel has this absolutely stunning Gormley installation scattered across the ceiling right at the front entrance of Tower 1. The picture does not do it justice! Fun fact: the work is suspended across levels 5 and 12 of the atrium of Hotel Tower 1.

Seeing Dale Chihuly‘s The Setting Sun and The Moon in the Gardens by the Bay from high up on Marina Bay Sands Hotel’s rooftop!

Panoramic view from the window of the MBS Hotel room we were staying in — so, so incredible.

Breakfast in style — this staycation at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel was The Highlight of 2021, and I felt very lucky and blessed to be a plus one to my sister of City Girl, City Stories who was invited to view the exhibition Orchestral Manoeuvres at ArtScience Museum, which was also amazing!

Basically the Marina Bay Sands Hotel is a work of art, and they also have a lot of artworks displayed across its premises, which I’ll love to post about at a later time! Till then, best wishes for 2022 / the Year of the Tiger and let’s go forth and embrace where life takes us!

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I like to say that in my ‘previous life’, i.e. before I discovered art history, I used to play music, picking up varying instruments at different times in life with the piano, saxophone (school band days) and guitar. I don’t think I ever did get accustomed to the discipline that regular musical practice requires, or learned how to play music ‘for fun’ or for myself — but I would say that music and songs are still very present in my everyday!

So I was also pretty heartened to hear during the exhibition tour preview of the curator Adrian George’s own personal attachment to the themes of Orchestral Manoeuvres revolving around music and sound. This exhibition is curated by the ArtScience Museum to mark its 10th year anniversary (already!), and I loved hearing the stories behind each work and seeing the care and effort that was taken in putting this exhibition together.

I was a little hesitant to see an entire exhibition on sound, particularly in contemporary art — because I thought it might not be for me, too avant-garde perhaps?? — but this was really excellent! It’s a quiet, as in understated, exploration of sound and music in art without being overbearing or overly pretentious. It actually feels like a calming exhibition interspersed with works that produce sounds or music (it’s a sound exhibition, after all!), and other artworks that describe the music instead.

I like how the didactic for this work calls Rage Fluids a “self-portrait in sculpture and sound”. The noise that plays in this installation makes the foil in these curved panels vibrate, and it’s meant to be a reference to the artist Perry’s childhood and car culture.

This is a series of photographs showing the effects of sound, set at different frequencies (that determine pitch), and how they create different vibrations or patterns on the surface of milk! I’ve never been good at physics and so don’t really understand this, but apparently low-frequency sounds, i.e. low-pitch sounds, cause the most impact on milk and create the most elaborate patterns!

These two Resonance in Frames works are in fact moving artworks, because the mechanisms (probably the microcontrollers) periodically tap against the copper pipes to create sound. It’s like the machinery is making music on its own!

This installation is a series of six works that have been so well-placed together. The top two hanging in the air Forest-Sounds – Bird NO.3 and Insects Chirping – Chinese Medicine Box move up and down, while the tree branches of Bird Song flap up and down! There’s also chirping sounds emanating from this corner, that seems to sound more like bird chirping (preferred!) than insect chirping.

I keep seeing the promo posters for the exhibition showing Chair of Concentration and declaring this as “Not your Usual Headphones”, haha! The objects in this definitely give it a traditional Chinese feel, but counters usual expectations of what you’ll see.

I really liked this one! Kim writes a sort of musical score for the sounds of different activities, expressing it in terms of volume (meaning loudness) and frequency (meaning rate of occurrence). I keep feeling like I have to clarify my word usage, in case I make a pun or when words could be understood differently in terms of sound!

For a bit of background on musical notation, specifically dynamics (i.e. loudness in music), p stands for piano meaning ‘quiet’, pp stands for pianissimo meaning ‘very quiet’, f stands for forte meaning loud, and ff stands for fortissimo meaning very loud. Kim uses these dynamics in her works to illustrate her sounds — and another interesting note (excuse the pun) is that Kim was born deaf, and she combines such musical notations with American Sign Language in these works.

Don’t these three works just so well express the tune of COVID-19 lockdowns……

I like how Khan takes inspiration from Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, and re-interprets their musical scores by overlapping the pages on top of each other to create these blotted prints.

I first saw Ang’s works in the restaged (is this a pun??) exhibition of Music For Everyone: Variations on a Theme last year at National Museum of Singapore, that was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2019. I like how Ang’s patterned versions of Western-style five-line staves in musical notation are included here in Orchestral Manoeuvres too!

I was quite fascinated by this, as I mostly know Luigi Russolo for his Futurist paintings, but not for his music. I’ve also been fascinated with the Futurists since learning about them, because I find them so bold and nuts enough to hold on to their ambitions to envision the future of a modern city (when the movement formed in 1909), though keeping things purely on an artistic level and not actually acting on their radical ideals.

Anyway, most of Russolo’s musical compositions were destroyed during the Second World War, but music archeologists (this is a great term) have rediscovered the first seven bars of Il risveglio di una città (The Awakening of a City), as seen here!

Below the Russolo, there’s a display case showcasing some of John Cage’s compositions or musical instructions. And of course, there needs to be the inclusion of Cage’s seminal 4’33” of silence… and I love how there are ‘notes’ for this composition (such a pun).

This is a really interesting gathering of early scores from centuries past, and from cultures independent of the Western musical canon!

So I learned that a pianola is a self-playing piano, and this pianola can be turned on by pressing a giant red button at the back of it! 4’33” (Prepared Pianola for Roger Bannister) also references Cage’s 4’33”, but the duration here is in fact a reference to the British athletics sportsman Roger Bannister, who set a British record at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki for the 1500m Men’s Final. There are a few accompanying posters (seen above in the cover picture) as part of this work, but I think the pianola — especially when it starts playing really loudly — steals the show!

I really like these pieces by Yoko Ono, which are so whimsical, introspective and playful at the same time.

I really like this one of Gillian Wearing dancing in a South London shopping mall — but there’s no music playing. Instead, she’s dancing to songs playing in her head. That whole music playing in my memory totally happens with me too, and then I’ll have to actually play the actual song! Also, I like how this video piece was presented on an old-school small SONY TV.

This is probably the most popular or significant work in the entire exhibition, which I think resonated with many people too. I just took a photo of the forty speakers, but ultimately the work is really about the forty-track recording of the choir singing A reworking of “Spem in Alium”. Each speaker plays a recording of each of the choir members singing their part, and you can choose to listen to each individually, or just take it all in right in the centre. I’ve heard that many people felt moved by the experience, but for me, I would say that it felt pretty epic, like I was right in the middle of a choir, listening to their singing amplified.

This interactive space was pretty fun! You can step on a pedal, and that will make these various ‘installations’ of household objects to start moving around in a circle, and the objects jangle and clink against each other to make music!

This video was taken in Stuttgart, Germany, where the artist Nevin Aladağ spent her childhood. It’s a compilation of actual musical instruments being placed or moved around different parts of the city, and how they can be ‘played by the city’!

I thought this shot of a balloon attached to a cornet (I think??) just screamed aesthetic!

This final work of the exhibition pays tribute to Drei Klavierstücke (“Three Piano Pieces”), Op. 11, that was written by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1909, but it’s also a tribute to the roles that cats play in our lives… It’s a compilation of various clips taken from YouTube videos featuring cats stepping on pianos, but all the notes culminate to perform the Op 11 piece! It’s both fun and random, and I also appreciate the love for cat videos (also so present in my life)!!

I also love the giant reproduction of the score on the wall next to the video screen, which are in fact the first few bars of Arnold Schoenberg’s Op. 11.

I would highly recommend a visit to this exhibition, which is different from the usual fare, but also so creative and thoughtful at the same time! It’s still showing for the first two days of the new year until 2 January 2022. Find out more at their exhibition link here.

I’m so glad I caught this exhibition, and it’s amazing to think that ArtScience Museum has already been around for 10 years in Singapore! ArtScience Museum still remains one of my favourite places to go to in Singapore, and it’s exciting to see what they will present next!

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The exhibition is split into three main sections: The Flower Dome & Cloud Forest conservatories, the Outdoor Gardens and Gallery, and the free (!) public exhibits. I chose to skip the conservatories because I thought the price for that was too steep… There are varying admission rates for visiting the different sections, but I paid $16 to see the exhibits in the Outdoor Gardens and Gallery, and went to hunt down the public exhibits too!

Public Exhibits

I’m starting off this post with Blue and Purple Boat, simply because it took me so long to find the Victoria Lily Pond! I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on this one — the spiky blue and purple ‘baubles’ (?) look so great within this beautiful pond. I felt a great sense of accomplishment after finally finding it!

I’d never heard of ‘Walla Wallas’, and I was wondering what the title of this work was referring to… But it occured to me that these floating pieces looked a lot like onions! Turns out my visual analysis was on point, because I found out that they are made after the Walla Walla sweet onion, also the state vegetable of Washington in USA!

I think End of the Day Persian Chandelier might be my favourite exhibit, and I love how it matches the pattern of the SG50 Lattice so well. This is the day view of how it looks like, and the picture below was taken in the evening when the sun was beginning to set. So gorgeous at all times of the day.

There is one more glass sculpture Paintbrush Tower that’s located outside Gardens by the Bay, and it’s at the Fullerton Bay heritage area outside the Fullerton Bay Hotel. This was the only work of Chihuly’s that I viewed at night, and I like how it looks lit up at night too.

Outdoor Gardens

The Setting Sun was in fact the first work I saw at Gardens by the Bay, in The Meadow. This photo was aptly taken when the sun was beginning to set. I really like how this work looks like a fiery ball of energy with so many individual curly glass pieces in red, orange and yellow.

And then there is its quieter counterpart The Moon, located on the slope-y part of The Meadow.

I thought that the way Black & Green Striped Herons and Green Grass almost blends in with the natural scenery of Serene Garden here was very nicely done!

I remember discovering this small stream in the midst of the Japanese Zen garden-inspired space of Serene Garden early last year, and I just love it! Now it leads to Yellow Herons in the pond situated in front of a small waterfall.

I love the detail of Ethereal White Persians, and I also find it fascinating how there’s a black outline for each of the white flowers! Actually, it seems like my favourite of Chihuly’s is all those from the Persians series…

Appreciated the dramatic jutting out of Turquoise Reeds from the middle of this rock installation, especially as we are viewing it from below.

I’m not sure if I have visited the World of Plants section in Gardens by the Bay before, but it’s not my favourite area… Out of the four works shown here, I liked Pearl and Obsidian Fiori the most!

Gallery (next to SG50 Lattice)

I was surprised to find that the Gallery contained a small exhibition of its own featuring smaller-scale works by Chihuly, including sculptures and abstract mixed media pieces. The first exhibit in the Gallery was Macchia Forest, and I was trying to decide which piece(s) were my favourite and that I’d love to own in my ideal home…

I really liked these ikebana-inspired works on paper, showing another side to Chihuly. They look like they were made in a very free and relaxed manner, and it’s interesting to contrast them with the glass sculpture version (shown below).

The effect of this series of Glass on Glass paintings looks really nice in person, but it just doesn’t translate very well on my camera! It’s meant to look a little different every time you shift positions in viewing them, and I loved how the colours of each seemed to shift too.

Ended off my visit with a bang with this massive Radiant Yellow Icicle Chandelier! I just like how Chihuly’s glass is so ‘easy’ to look at, and I love all the varying shapes and colours. I’m giving this exhibition 4.5 stars! Share your opinion too by giving your rating below. :)

Dale Chihuly: Glass in Bloom runs until 3 October 2021, and you can find more info on the exhibition and the works at this dedicated site!

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The great thing about this exhibition is that you can see works from a range of street artists all in one place, saving the trouble of trekking across sloping streets to hunt down street art (yes, I’m referring to HKwalls at Tai Ping Shan!) But beyond arguments of the ‘institutionalisation’ of street art by showing them as museum exhibits, or losing the site-specificity of these works, I think that there is something about the dynamic nature of these works that belong solely to the streets, which is lost when placed within a museum setting.

| Cover picture: Futura, Spray paint on concert background, 1982, spray paint on canvas |

Futura, Electric Orange, 1984, spray paint on canvas

Still, that’s not going to stop me from appreciating these works of art as they are! Right from the beginning of the exhibition, I was particularly attracted to Futura’s Futuristic “abstract graffiti style”.

Is this possibly inspired from Futurism, an early 20th century art movement that started in Italy? Futurists, as supporters of the movement called themselves, celebrated modern life and the city. Aesthetically, their artworks showcased vivid colours and abstract forms that highlighted speed and dynamism. On a darker note, their violent rejection of old forms of culture also formed an aspect of the movement. Personally, I find this bit of art history quite fascinating, and it is really interesting to see this allusion to the movement in street art today too.

Crash, Silver, 1981, spray paint on canvas

I love how spray paint can create this blurry effect, particularly clear in Crash’s Silver. Futura’s two works above also look a little unfocused along the edges as you pan out from the centre.

Stéphane Bisseuil, Graffiti, New York, 1991, digital wallpaper print

There are a few works in the exhibition that were captured in a large wall print so you can see the artwork in the context of its street, which I thought was very nicely done!

Invader, Pong, 2001, ceramic on wood panel

Ah, Invader in Singapore… though not in his usual secret “invasion” mode! In Hong Kong however, he has already invaded the city three times, with his last visit around October last year.

In Pong, notice the lone silver mosaic tile – it’s actually a reflective mirror-like piece!

Zhang Dali, Demolition: Forbidden City, Beijing, 1998, photograph

This is another favourite of mine! Zhang Dali is really one of relatively few Chinese artists who also work on street art. From 1995 to 1998, he spray painted an impressive 2,000 images of his head onto walls of to-be-demolished structures as an act of protest against the rampant demolition of traditional buildings in China, especially common in Beijing. In some cases, like this work here, he punched through the wall while keeping the shape of his head in side profile.

Banksy, Rat & Heart, 2015, spray paint and emulsion on canvas

Of course, Banksy has to be included in this exhibition of street art! But it’s perhaps due to the popularity of his works that I feel like I’ve seen this image of Rat & Heart many times elsewhere.

There’s actually one more Banksy work in the form of a wallpaper print located at the entrance/exit of the exhibition, which made it inconvenient to take a picture! I wished it was placed inside the exhibition galleries instead!

Jef Aérosol, Sitting Kid and Butterflies, 2016, stencil on cardboard; Sitting Kid, 2015, stencil

I like Sitting Kid in stencil more than its companion Sitting Kid and Butterflies, but here they are shown side by side.

Rero, One More Picture On My Phone, 2017, digital wallpaper print

Wow, I haven’t had an artwork speak to me as much as One More Picture On My Phone does, HAHAHAHAHA! I can just imagine this on a pristine white wall in Tiong Bahru, where so many people take OOTDs…

Remi Rough, Concise, 2018, created on-site at Artscience Museum

Felipe Pantone, Chromadynamica, 2018, created on-site at Artscience Museum

There were a couple of works created on-site at ArtScience Museum, which I thought was really cool! Two of them are pictured here, by Remi Rough and Felipe Pantone (also seen in my HKwalls post).

Vhils, Fondations [Foundations], 2017, advertising posters recovered from the street, hand cut and carved

I got so caught up looking at these faces that I didn’t realise that they were actually cut out from street posters!

Os Gemeos by Stéphane Bisseuil, Houston x Bowery street mural, New York City, 2009, photograph

Such a fun and colourful pop of colour on the street.

I don’t often participate in interactive activities in museum exhibitions, though I really should especially when Singapore museums always seem to have fun activities! For Art on the Streets, you could fill in these old-school Hello my name is stickers and paste them onto an in-house graffiti wall!

Check out this exhibition before it closes next Sunday, 3rd June 2018. There’s a 1-for-1 offer for this exhibition now!

I’m pretty shameless to say that I always go to ArtScience Museum when they have 1-for-1 offers, and I went to see Art from the Streets along with Treasures of the Natural World when the latter exhibition was in its last week! Treasures of the Natural World was just fantastic, more on that exhibition soon.

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The annual light festival has apparently been here for six years already, but it’s only my first time catching it! I think such a light festival is perfect for a place like Singapore, where digital installations and light shows always seem to be very popular. I also really liked that it made me go on a nighttime walking tour of the Marina Bay area, which I would always want to do but not actually not do it because of excuses like humidity, heat, so on… ;)

The entire walk took me about one and a half hours, starting from Esplanade Park, crossing the Helix Bridge to the Marina Bay walkway and completing the circuit near One Fullerton, with a total of 22 light installations situated along the way. I will be highlighting 10 installations in this post!

Studio ALEX, Flawless

I’m starting with the last installation listed on i Light’s map because Flawless was the first one I saw while walking along Esplanade Park on one afternoon – without realizing that this was a part of i Light! I really like how it gives a fluttery leaf effect.

Yuree Hong and Siyong Kim, Dancing Grass

Perfectly placed on the large grassy patch at Esplanade Park.

Luzinterruptus, Transistable Plastic

I was a little, er, alarmed by the immense use of plastic in Transistable Plastic, but of course, it’s meant to raise awareness of the amount of waste we generate, and all of these plastic was ‘waste’ contributed by the community and corporate partners.

It’s a huge installation of hanging bags of plastic which you could walk through and be enveloped in – but I always have a few misgivings about these kinds of work that raise awareness of certain issues or products by performing or making use of such issues or products, like in this installation. I just think, are there perhaps better ways of raising awareness and getting to the heart of these issues?

Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media, Starlight

Starlight was one of a couple of interactive pieces. The suspended balls start off unlit, and you could bang one ball at the end against the next, and the rest will light up in sequence. That’s me lighting up the upper row! :)

Serge Maheu, Passage

I didn’t walk through the Passage, but I found it really cute to see so many people walking through it, and it’s fun to see it changing colours as well!

Nanyang Polytechnic, School of Interactive Design and Media, Kloud

I think the various structures of Kloud were supposed to change colour when you touched them but I couldn’t seem to get it right…

Christopher Simpson, Isabella Bain, Khanh Nguyen, James Rotanson, Anthony Zeater and Steven Bai, Mailbox

So many people were crowded around Mailbox with their phones out, which made me very curious to see what it was all about! Turns out you could tweet emoijis/messages to it and your message would appear on the giant digital mailbox.

Franck Pelletier, With Love…

Ended my tour and i Light adventure With Love… which is my favourite of all. The large heart (that kinda looks like an apple from some angles) was pulsing along to the sound of a heartbeat and the red colour was going on and off to the beat.

I really enjoyed the added liveliness and colour that i Light brought to the area at night, and it’s fun to see tourists and locals alike taking in the extra sights as well, haha! The entire i Light circuit felt a little unexpectedly big, but it seems like there are plans to go even bigger for next year’s edition in conjunction with Singapore’s Bicentennial, marking the 200th anniversary of Sir Stamford Raffles’ founding of Singapore. Let’s see what comes up next year!

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Spring is here! And along with that is a range of art events in Hong Kong for its Art Month in March. This year, the range of art fairs is happening in the later part of the month starting this week, and there’s a number of “satellite” exhibitions ongoing now which I’m interested to see!

HONG KONG

Art Fairs

• Asia Contemporary Art Show

I didn’t realize that this art fair opened a few days before the others! In case you missed it like I did, there’s also a Fall edition that will be held in September.

17 – 20 March 2017, Conrad Hong Kong— Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Hong Kong, more info here.

• Art Central

Art Central tends to show more edgy and provocative contemporary artworks in its giant marquee! To see more from the past two years of the fair on the blog, go here.

21 – 25 March 2017, Central Harbourfront Hong Kong, ticketing info here.

• Art Basel Hong Kong

Art Basel shows a vast mix of contemporary and modern artworks that takes hours to trek through. I recommend checking out the magazines booths after you are all done looking at the art, I tend to bring home a number of free art magazines! To see more from the past two years of the fair on the blog, go here.

23 – 25 March 2017, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Wanchai, ticketing info here.

• Kingsley Ng’s Twenty Five Minutes Older

There are events part of Art Basel happening outside the HKCEC as well! One of it is local artist Kingsley Ng’s Twenty Five Minutes Older that is happening in trams going between Wanchai and Sheung Wan! I’m so excited because I love love love trams and it’s so fun to have them incorporated into an art piece. The trams will become moving camera obscuras (first form of cameras), displaying images of Hong Kong streets. It sounds like a great way to experience Hong Kong in a new way – in a tram, through art.

20 – 28 March 2017, aboard trams going from Wanchai to Sheung Wan, free admission but requires tickets, limited tickets still available – go here, more info here.

• Sir Michael Craig-Martin’s Bright Idea, 2016 for ‘Love Art at The Peninsula’

Photograph of Bright Idea 2016 at the evening discussion with Sir Michael Craig-Martin (right) and Tim Marlow (left) at HKU last night

I don’t know why I’d missed The Peninsula Hong Kong’s collaborations with Art Basel every year since they started their ‘Love Art’ series with Tracey Emin’s My Heart Is With You Always displayed on the facade of the hotel in 2014 (which I very unfortunately had to miss). So I am determined to catch Michael Craig-Martin’s Bright Idea 2016 at The Peninsula this time!

Bright Idea 2016 continues in Martin’s style of taking mundane objects in daily life, producing them in much-larger-than-life forms and placing them in unexpected sites, like The Peninsula’s fountain for one.

20 March – 31 May 2017, The Peninsula Hong Kong, more info here.

Exhibitions

• Picasso and Jacqueline

I wished I had known about this earlier, so I would have more time to go check it out! The exhibition centres around 13 artworks of Picasso’s that were dedicated to his last wife Jacqueline.

Some points to note: It’s free admission, but you have to queue outdoors for quite a long time, I heard. And no photography is allowed, sadly.

26 February – 21 March 2017, Times Square Living Room Museum, more info here.

• The Legend of Hong Kong Toys

This is such a great exhibition that I recommend for all kids and adults alike! It gives a look into Hong Kong history through the toys people played with over the last century. I will be sharing more photos from the exhibition on the blog soon!

2 March –  15 May 2017, Hong Kong Museum of History (closed on Tuesdays), 100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, HKD10 standard tickets, HKD5 concession tickets, more info here.

• Zaha Hadid: There Should Be No End to Experimentation

Zaha Hadid’s architecture is so iconic and creative, and I’m waiting for the day when I can finally visit one of her creations Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul! In the meantime, I’m so glad that an exhibition of her paintings and drawings is now in Hong Kong! The exhibition also includes a few virtual reality experiences, which should be interesting.

17 March – 6 April 2017 (17-21 March: 10:00-18:00; 22 March – 6 April: 10:00-21:00), ArtisTree, 1/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong, more info on Taikoo Place’s site and on Serpentine Galleries’ site.

• It Speaks to Me

Ng Lung Wai’s exhibition ‘It Speaks to Me’ features mixed media paintings that uses objects such as shirts and architectural models to create large-scale pieces, which sounds like a fun way to make artworks! To see more of Ng’s previous exhibition ‘1960s Big Era’ which featured portraits of historical figures made out of pins, badges, and other collectibles on the blog, go here.

21 March – 3 April 2017, G/F, Open Space, Central Plaza, Wanchai, more info here.

SINGAPORE

• i Light Marina Bay

Singapore’s also having some really cool stuff going on with its fifth edition of i Light Marina Bay, a sustainable light festival. Wish I could be there to see it! Check out the video above to see more.

3 – 26 March 2017, Marina Bay Waterfront, more info here.

• Shakespeare In Print:  The First Folio

Something a little different from the other exhibitions above – an exhibition that displays Shakespeare’s plays in their first printed form. I can’t say that I am the biggest fan of Shakespeare, but his works are so influential and I think it’s good to have an understanding of them. For all fans of the Bard and literature fanatics, I think this should be fun to check out!

11 March – 23 April 2017, Level 10, Gallery, National Library Building, more info here.

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Anish Kapoor, Untitled (Stellar Green Pearl / Transparent Black), 2014, aluminium and paint, kamel mennour

Anish Kapoor, Mirror (Magenta), 2016, stainless steel and lacquer, Kukje Gallery

Julian Opie, Runners (individual titles: Running men; Running women), 2015, pair of screenprints, Alan Cristea Gallery

Looks like Julian Opie’s theme for the year is all about exercise and running…

Julian Opie, Soldier and Pilot, I., 2015, vinyl on wooden stretcher, Lisson Gallery

Julian Opie, Teacher and Waiter, I., 2015, vinyl on wooden stretcher, Lisson Gallery

Julian Opie, Plastic Umbrella, 2014, silkscreen on painted wooden board, Gerhardsen Gemer

Julian Opie, Kukje Gallery

There were also these two works that are not part of the exercise theme and are more in line with his images of city walking, a lot of which was shown at Art Basel in Hong Kong last year. I missed getting the didactic for this last artwork, but it’s a moving image of women walking continuously over and over again.

Lee Ufan, Dialogue, 2014, oil on canvas, Lisson Gallery

Lee Ufan, Dialogue, 2015, oil on canvas, Kukje Gallery

Lee Ufan, Correspondence, 1995, oil on canvas, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Lee Ufan (이우환) is Korea’s answer to a Minimalist artist, and his works with a smooth dab of paint in the middle of a large white canvas are always around at Art Basel Hong Kong. I’m not really a fan of any kind of Minimalism, but I guess the precision and simplicity of such works appeal to people.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (Last Light), 1993, light bulbs, extension cord, plastic light sockets, dimmer switch, Andrea Rosen Gallery

Morimura Yasumasa, Portrait (Futago), 1988, type C print, transparent medium, frame, ShugoArts

This was such an art history moment!! Granted, this probably looks really out there for first-time viewers, so a bit of background is needed here. Morimura is a well-known Japanese appropriation artist, and his photography features him dressed up and acting after models in famous paintings, artists, and famous figures in history, whether male or female. This work appropriates Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), an art history favorite, which at the time of its showing outraged viewers for its depiction of a prostitute holding a boldly confrontational stare. Traditionally, (male) artists painted female mythological figures in the nude that made it comfortable for the “male gaze,” since they were not “real” people and most never look directly towards the viewer. Manet however started something new, and while not particularly appreciated at the time for his efforts, he is now often known as the artist who began the wave of modern art.

Morimura’s enactment of the scene of Olympia is more extravagant but he gets the details of the painting down pat. He adds a Japanese flair to his work, with the black waving cat at the right corner and the blanket with a gold crane motif. Morimura’s work has come up in class on quite a few occasions, so it was great to see a properly blown up version of this photograph at the fair!

Keith Haring, Untitled, 1989, acrylic on canvas, Gladstone Gallery

Tracey Emin, You Saved Me, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Roma

Not all of Emin’s works appeal to me, but I’m a big fan of her neon word art. There really needs to be a Tracey Emin font.

Also, I found the showing of this work at the fair over the Easter weekend nicely fitting, since it ties in with the commemoration of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. :D

Alexander Calder, Small Moths, 1974, Dominique Lévy

One of my favorites by Calder I’ve ever seen!

Alexander Calder, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder, Black and Blue, 1975, painted sheet metal and wire, Acquavella

Looking at Calder’s mobile from a different angle. And trying not to get blinded by the spotlights.

Alexander Calder, The Golfer (John D. Rockefeller as a Golfer), 1927, wire with wood base, Van de Weghe Fine Art

A different kind of style from Calder, and equally well done.

Jeff Koons

True story: I was trying to get a shot of Koons’s work from the side, but two women taking a selfie with the work told me to move aside because I was appearing at the side of their photo. -.- I don’t think a super crowded Art Basel fair is exactly the best place to exercise your supposed right not to get photobombed in your selfie.

Edgar Degas, Dancer Looking at the Sole of Her Right Foot, 1919-1937, bronze, Acquavella

I have to commemorate my first time seeing a Degas! He is now well-loved for his paintings of ballet dancers that examine the physicality of their bodies in movement. I would love to travel and see the masterpieces of modern art for myself one day, but I’m definitely happy to view these smaller works in Hong Kong!

Claude Monet, Route de Monte-Carlo, December 1883, oil on canvas, Acquavella

I patiently waited to get this MONEY SHOT. Monet is worth it, yes. On another note, Acquavella always brings in the bulk of modern art to Art Basel Hong Kong.

Pablo Picasso, Femme aux mains croisees II, December 19, 1960 – January 1, 1961, oil on canvas, Acquavella

Niko Luoma, Self-titled adaptation of the Young Ladies of Avignon (1907, Pablo Picasso), 2015, archival pigment print, diasec with floater frame, Atlas Gallery

Hmm, I’m not really buying it. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon) is also an art history favorite (and also features prostitutes). Funnily enough, it was never fully completed as Picasso tossed it aside after his friends and peers criticized the painting while he was still working on it. I don’t actually think it’s his best and most groundbreaking work as a lot of people probably put it; I find his Cubist works with Georges Braque (his collaborator on Cubism who has been kinda forgotten) much more interesting and forward-looking.

Tom Wesselmann, Blue Nude #3 N125, 1999, oil on cut-out aluminium, Gmurzynska

This references to Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude, which was a motif that Matisse went back to over the years. Again, not really buying it…

Roy Lichtenstein, Water Lilies with Cloud, 1992, screenprinted enamel on stainless steel with painted wood frame, Edward Tyler Nahem

Rudolf Bauer, Furioso XII, 1918, oil on canvas

Andy Warhol, Mao, 1973, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, varnished, Ben Brown Fine Arts

So much of Warhol at the fair this year!

Andy Warhol, Mao (set of ten), 1972, screenprints on paper

Discussing serious business under the gaze of Mao. I find this quite amusing.

Andy Warhol, Flowers (portfolio of 10), 1970, screenprint on paper, Galerie Thomas

Andy Warhol, Self-portrait, 1966, synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen ink on canvas, Van de Weghe Fine Art; Self Portrait (Red), c. 1966-67, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Elvis, 1962, silkscreen ink and acrylic on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Andy Warhol, Diamond Dust Shoes (Green), 1980, acrylic, silkscreen ink and diamond dust on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Diamond Dust Shoes (Green) and Campbell’s Elvis appeals more to me than Warhol’s more well-known serial artworks for some reason. I guess it’s one of those things about art.

Andy Warhol, Dollar Sign, 1981, synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, Van de Weghe Fine Art

Jaume Plensa, Slumberland XXXI (Patricia), 2015, graphite on paper, Richard Gray Gallery

Subtle, charming, and so beautiful.

Jaume Plensa, Roots (Study), 2015, painted stainless steel, Richard Gray Gallery

Nice to see this again, albeit in a smaller size! The big one sits at Raffles Place in Singapore.

Jaume Plensa, Laura Asia; Paula Europe; Mar Asia, 2015, marble, Galerie Lelong

These three sculptures are pretty large in size, and are based on portraits of women who Plensa knows. Feels like a bit of quiet amid the bustling fair.

And that’s it for my review of Art Basel Hong Kong this year! To see the first half of my review of Art Basel featuring contemporary artworks, click here, and if you’ll like to see my review of Art Basel last year, click here to see all of the related posts!

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This is the first part of my review of the fair, featuring contemporary artworks by many artists who seem to be new faces at Art Basel Hong Kong. I think a lot of the galleries who showed this year were first-timers at the fair as well, which would explain the fresh selection of artists.

The second part of my review features the works of old and famous modern masters (and a little contemporary), which you can read here!

Tromarama (Febie Babyrose, Ruddy Hatumena, and Herbert Hans), Private Riots, 2014-2016, video animation, LCD monitor, boards, metallic wire, metallic frame, Edouard Malingue

This giant installation is part of the Encounters sector, which is a selection of large installation works placed across the grounds of the fair and which I considered the anchor of the event. Private Riots was one of the better works, but I was honestly disappointed by this year’s choices. My expectation was that the Encounters would be the most eye-catching works, but I was mostly disinterested.

Private Riots is so named as it means to talk about the different components involved in protest, and each image on the boards represents one such component. I seemed to have missed the TVs and the animations they will playing altogether, oops! I’m not too sure about the protest idea, but it appeared as if the images represented different aspects of our daily lives, and that appealed to me.

Huang Yong Ping, L’Arc de Saint-Gilles, 2015, wood, iron, fiberglass, taxidermic deer, gold leaf, kamel mennour

Huang Yong Ping just had an exhibition at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai with one work featuring headless animals which honestly creeped me out, so I’m glad to see that this deer has its whole body intact, HAHAHA.

Lina Ben Rejeb, Mémoires, à Toucher, 2015, mixed media on paper, Selma Feriani Gallery

Charles Avery, Tree no. 5 (from the Jadindagadendar), 2015, mixed media, Ingleby; Pilar Corrias

Huang Rui, Monkey, 2015, steel and restored furniture, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Huang Rui, Quadruple Happiness, 2014, steel and restored furniture, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

This is a fun play on the “double happiness” character often seen on Chinese red decorative papers for weddings, but Quadruple Happiness is just more happiness to go around! (By the way, the “double happiness” character doesn’t make a real Chinese word, but a “single happiness” actually is a real word.)

舟 Fune, 1982, ink on Japanese paper; Wang Keping, Sitting Woman 1 WK14, 2012, plane, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Fune totally passes off an ink painting of a sitting woman, doesn’t it? I totally thought so until I realized it was purely a work of Japanese calligraphy.

Zhang Ding 張鼎, 18 Cubes 18個立方, 2016, man-made crystal, stainless steel plated in gold, ShangART; Krinzinger

Zhang Ding’s 18 Cubes is my favorite Encounters piece! It consists of 18 gold reflective cubes, which apparently you’re encouraged to “destroy” or “vandalize” or scratch off the gold or something. I wish there was a sign saying that; the kids could have gone crazy on this instead of reportedly touching and knocking artworks that they weren’t supposed to.

On that note, if you have noticed in the photos above, there were just SO MANY people when I went, definitely much more compared to last year. There were announcements repeated every few seconds asking visitors to please not touch/bang/knock into artworks, although there were really so many people it was quite easy to accidentally back into an artwork.

Ebru Uygun, LOVE, 2016, mixed media on canvas, Dirimart

There was quite a collection of mirrored/cracked mirrored works…

Lee Bul, Civitas Solis, 2016, acrylic mirrors, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Zhao Zhao 趙趙, Fragment 碎片, 2015, brass, Tang Contemporary Art

Tatsuo Miyajima, Moon in the ground no. 2, 2015, stainless steel, light emitting diode, IC, electric wire

Yang Fudong, Ms. Huang at M Last Night 5, 2006 (left), Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, Part 5, 2007 (right), black and white inkjet print, Marian Goodman Gallery

Liu Ye 劉野, Snow White 白雪公主, 2006, Dominique Lévy

I was drawn by the light effect of Liu Ye’s painting! The contrast between light and dark got exaggerated on camera, but the painting essentially depicts Snow White in a circle of light on a blue background.

Kader Attia, Sacrifice and Harmony, 2016, sanded steel and feathers

Zhang Xiaogang 張曉剛, Flashlight 手電筒, 2008-2015, oil on canvas, Pace

Claire Fontaine, Foreigners Everywhere (Chinese), 2008, suspended, wall or window mounted neon (ruby red) framework, electronic transformer, cables, Air de Paris

Paul Chan, Greene Naftali

This was really quite… questionable. It’s made of those long balloon things that are pumped from the bottom and the air moves upwards – I always saw them outside estate showflats. Here, three of them have been shaped into women’s puffer jackets, in black to match the Hong Kong taste, and they move from side to side in a mad fashion. I had to capture a bit of it on video, which will be coming up soon!

Stella Zhang, all part of 0-Viewpoint series, Galerie du Monde

This felt like a continuation of what was happening just above, with a smattering of black stuff covering the entire gallery booth. I’ve seen other works by Zhang, but this just doesn’t work for me.

Zhang Xiao, Since there is a dream, 2015, archival inkjet print, clocks, Blindspot Gallery

The images on the multiple clocks come together to form a big picture of Tiananmen (Gate)! The outside of the clocks have some prints about CCTV… I wonder if this work is making a jab about Chinese politics. Very interesting.

Chen Zhen 陳箴, Opening of a Closed Center 打開密封的中心, 1997, mixed media of wood, metal, found objects, furniture, de Sarthe Gallery

Big question: Are the security staff part of the artwork?

I mean, this could be a new form of half-installation, half-performance art (with live people performing an act as part of an artwork)! I thought the title could give me a better idea, but it just sounds as if the security staff could possibly be part of it. I couldn’t stand not knowing, so I decided to get over any potential embarrassment and ask them.

So, it turns out they weren’t part of the artwork. They were there to prevent people from possibly knocking everything down. Only in Hong Kong, people! I’m convinced there won’t ever be such a sight at Art Basel in Basel or Miami.

Antony Gormley, rooftop sculpture part of Event Horizon, Nov 2015 – May 2016

Antony Gormley, Transfuser IV, 2002, mild steel rings, Galerie Thomas

What happens when the standing man goes horizontal.

Keiji Uematsu, Invisible axis – distance and angle, 2016, stainless steel, granite, stainless steel wire, Yumiko Chiba

Tintin Wulia, Five Tonnes of Homes and Other Understories, 2016, mixed media of metal, paper, ink, Osage

This Encounter installation is made up of cardboard “waste,” and it stems from the artist’s involvement in the cardboard recycling network in Hong Kong’s Central district. I didn’t know there was so much cardboard recycling going on in Central, but that’s good to know. I appreciate artists putting a focus on ideas or issues that we might not easily encounter in our daily lives in their art, but aesthetically, piles of cardboard would understandably not look so great. I think it’s not the most well executed artwork, but that could be said for many other contemporary artworks too.

Gavin Turk, American Bag, 2015, painted bronze, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Another piece of trash Refuse – okay, it’s come back as an American Bag this year.

Vik Muniz, Golden Gate Bridge (Postcards from Nowhere), 2015, digital C-print, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Qiu Deshu 仇德樹, Fissure, ShangART Gallery

Qiu Deshu 仇德樹, A Lot of Snow Looks Very Clean and Cold 積血清寒, 2005, acrylic on rice paper on canvas, Alisan Fine Arts

I’d seen an exhibition of Qiu Deshu at ShangART in Singapore last summer, and I was really impressed by Qiu’s contemporary take on shanshui (literally mountain water) paintings pieced together by torn bits of tissue paper, if I don’t remember wrongly. It comes out really nicely, especially in his immense wall-length quad-typch piece.

It was nice to see Qiu’s works again at Art Basel, but here they’re smaller in size and made with different materials, and have some stylistic differences as well.

Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, A Thief Caught in the Act, 2015, wood, metal, canvas, modelling clay, acrylic paint, Lisson

It’s not one thief, it’s a bunch of birds stealing jewelry in the last Encounter installation of this post. There are lamps on each table that alternately go on and off, highlighting the whole caught in the act thing. I like that pink owl on the left because, pink! owl!

Overall, I thought that the fair this year was a step down from the fairs the last two years, and I found myself walking by too many artworks without being attracted to look at many in detail. The setup of an art fair itself, especially with so many visitors cramped into the space, doesn’t allow for long insightful studies of artworks. I just hope to discover new works and artists by how well artworks were able to attract my attention. I definitely prefer to go to orderly curated exhibitions, but going to an art fair is still fun – it’s not often you get to see so many artworks of different media, styles, sizes, and cultures all gathered under one roof.

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