Developed in collaboration between MFA Boston and NGS, Into the Modern presents a selection of over 100 Impressionist works from MFA Boston’s (clearly impressive) permanent collection. In NGS’ ten-year history, this is the second time we have the privilege to view French Impressionist works on such a large scale in Singapore. This blog Wording Art has also turned 10 (!!!), and I have loved sharing about Impressionism throughout the years, and so it’s super timely to end the year with nineteenth-century French Impressionism.

Nature and the Impressionists

Into the Modern begins — perhaps a little surprisingly — with the Barbizon School of painters, before Impressionism was fully formed. Located about 60km outside Paris, artists gathered in the village of Barbizon and painted in the nearby Forest of Fontainebleau. Artists like Théodore Rousseau embraced these scenic landscapes untouched by modern developments. I have a soft spot for Rousseau’s paintings of nature, so it was wonderful to see Pool in the Forest. The Barbizon artists painted nature in a Realist style, and influenced the next generation of painters to radically approach nature through Impressionism.

1874: The First Impressionist Exhibition

The reproductions of two prints and a photograph (most right) on this gallery wall offer a look into the annual Salons held in the Palais de l’Industrie from 1855 onwards (where it was previously held in the Louvre). Artists could submit whatever artworks they wanted to the prestigious Salon, but only those that met the academic criteria of the time would be accepted.

It’s probably not surprising that the Impressionist style of loose, rapid painting especially en plein air (in the outdoors) did not fit what the Salon wanted. A group of Impressionist painters gathered together to form the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc (Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc.). They staged their first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, independent of the Salon, which later came to be a landmark moment for the Impressionists.

Very interestingly, Renoir and Monet painted the same ‘models’ in the portraits above: Monet’s first wife Camille, and their son Jean. Monet made many paintings with Camille and Jean set within lush gardens or fields. In Renoir’s take, Camille looks directly to the viewer (although I find her face not well-portrayed), while the toddler happily wanders off.

I just realised that a reproduced version of Meadow with Poplars was shown at Impressions of Monet at Gardens by the Bay last year! Now we get to see the real thing!

I particularly loved this stretch of four paintings by Renoir, Monet and Cézanne, showing how they depicted people within landscapes.

Waterscapes and Landscapes

This landscape painting looks very much like a Renoir, but reminded me of Cézanne somehow… Turns out Renoir visited Cézanne in the village of L’Estaque in 1882, which Cézanne regularly visited and painted since the 1860s. Together, the two artists painted the same view of the mountainous terrain.

I really like Renoir’s painting of The Seine at Chatou, which was known as a boating spot in the Parisian suburbs. Particularly, I love the details of the girl’s red hat and flowers, and the small boats in the distance.

A Little Post-Impressionism

It’s also a treat to see more of Cézanne’s works. While he shared the Impressionists’ penchant for painting nature, his compositions look quite different as Cézanne began exploring his own painterly style (flatter and with a kind of slanted perspective). Retrospectively then, he’s better known as a Post-Impressionist.

Camille Pissarro’s career was probably the most varied among the Impressionists. His early influences came from the Barbizon School of painters, later becoming the ‘father of Impressionism’. He helped to establish the Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc, and acted as a mentor and father figure to key Impressionist figures.

The two paintings pictured here marks Pissarro’s late period when he explored Pointillism. After meeting the Neo-Impressionist artists Georges Seurat (not included in this exhibition) and Paul Signac (included in this exhibition but not pictured in this post), Pissarro experimented with the technique of placing dots of complementary colours next to each other. Seurat is best known for the Pointillist technique, which is actually so painstaking! Pissarro brought his own take on Pointillism in these scenes of ideal rural life and labour.

City Life and Paris

At this point, we reach the final Gallery 3 of Into the Modern at National Gallery Singapore. Out of the countryside and into the city! This is my favourite section of the exhibition, as we shall see…

Perhaps the ultimate ‘painter of modern life’, to borrow Charles Baudelaire’s words, was Édouard Manet. Although he did not exhibit in the Impressionist Exhibitions, he did his fair share of challenging the artistic status quo. In 1865, he exhibited his scandalous painting Olympia (which somehow managed to get accepted!) at the Salon. The stark image of a nude figure who confronts the viewer in Olympia was modelled by Manet’s favourite model, Victorine Meurent. The exhibition includes a print etching of Olympia. Meurent also appears in Street Singer below.

It’s so interesting to compare a self-portrait with a portrait of the same person… Manet’s portrait of Victorine Meurent and Meurent’s Self-Portrait were painted over a decade apart, and they certainly present different views of the model and artist. In Meurent’s Self-Portrait I find it intriguing how she is almost fully turned to the side, and she appears quite fierce or confrontational here.

Renoir’s Highlight Piece

A highlight of Into the Modern is definitely Renoir’s Dance at Bougival! I can’t believe we get the chance to see this in Singapore, as it supposedly rarely leaves Boston on loan. This is probably the best work by Renoir in my opinion. A couple dances in a café in Bougival, a popular recreation town along the Seine outside Paris. Dancing outdoors in a public setting — isn’t that so modern?

Degas and Cassatt

I was drawn to Degas’ painting because it depicts the ‘simple’ experience of a Visit to a Museum. It’s also the perfect sisterly activity to do, as Degas paints fellow Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt and her sister, Lydia, in the Louvre. Degas and Cassatt were close colleagues and friends, and it’s nice to see artists painting each other in this manner.

Hailing from America, it is a shame though that Cassatt’s works in the MFA Boston collection don’t feature in this exhibition. Mary Cassatt played a huge part not only in contributing to the Impressionists’ output, but she also advised American patrons to buy Impressionist works, especially the Havemeyer family. The original Havemeyer art collection now largely resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as in the Shelburne Museum, which you can read more about here.

In the lecture hosted in conjunction with this exhibition, the eminent art historian Griselda Pollock spoke about Mary Cassatt and how she was a key player among the Impressionists. As Pollock puts it, the Impressionists were the first egalitarian artist group where women could play equal roles as men. I also got to ask Prof. Pollock a question about Degas and Cassatt in relation to Visit to a Museum — which will remain as one of the best moments of my life! As anyone who works on women artists would know, Pollock’s work is highly influential in the field, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask her a question about Cassatt and her appearance in Degas’ painting. :)

Still Life

I really liked seeing this section of the gallery focusing on the Impressionists’ work on still life (paintings of still, inanimate objects). I feel that the individuality and uniqueness of each of the Impressionists’ painting styles come through really well in these still lifes. Also, can you spot Renoir’s signature in the lower right of Mixed Flowers in an Earthenware Pot?

Cézanne’s paintings of fruit in his still life paintings would be the most well-known among them all. Even now, he still astonishes us with an apple…

Immersed in Monet

The exhibition ends with a roomful of Monet’s paintings. How amazing is that! I also love the look of the curved walls in this room (as you can see in the cover picture), as it reminds me of the display of Monet’s Water Lilies at Musée de l’Orangerie (my dream to visit one day!)…

Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny is one of my favourites in this selection. Many of these works were created after Monet settled in Giverny in 1883 for the rest of his life.

Of course, don’t miss The Water Lily Pond! This is one in a series where Monet painted a view of the water lily pond in his Giverny gardens, featuring his Japanese-style green bridge — perhaps coloured a little differently in the sunlight in this painting.

I love the delicate pinks and blues that Monet captures in his paintings of Antibes. Antibes Seen from the Plateau Notre-Dame is displayed earlier in the exhibition, as you can see above in this post. I also especially love the detail of the tiny sailboats in Cap d’Antibes, Mistral. I need to see it again — it’s another of my favourites.

When travelling in Antibes, Monet wrote to Alice Hoschedé (who later became Monet’s second wife) in January 1888: ‘I am painting the town of Antibes, a little fortified town all golden in the sun that stands out against beautiful blue and pink mountains and the eternally snow-capped range of the Alps.’ I think Monet perfectly captured the pastel beauty of Antibes as he described.

Be sure to visit Into the Modern at National Gallery Singapore to see all of these beautiful Impressionist works and more! The exhibition is ongoing until 1 March 2026.

A special promotion is also ongoing, where you can get 25% off the exhibition ticket until 1 February 2026. Additionally, present your exhibition tickets to get 10% off Pierre Hermé macarons at the pop-up at Padang Atrium, Level 1, until 31 December 2025. My sister bought those Pierre Hermé macarons, and they’re sooo good!

Overall, I thought Into the Modern was an excellent exhibition. It’s wonderful to see so many people queuing (!) to see it. If you have seen the show, let me know what you think by rating it below!

The post Into the Modern | French Impressionists at National Gallery Singapore 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!

The post Art of 2021 appeared first on Wording Art.

Very interestingly, Georgette Chen: At Home In The World is bookended with the two self-portraits by Georgette Chen from the museum’s collection! Apart from that, the exhibition roughly follows a chronological order featuring Chen’s works from the various places she lived in: New York, Paris, Shanghai, Penang, and finally Singapore. The exhibition features a very helpful timeline of Chen’s life in the middling section between the exhibition galleries, and it’s also available to view online here.

Self-Portrait: Post-War

It does sound like Chen lived a very exciting life in these different cities, although I think it’s also important to note that she lived through four wars (two Chinese revolutions and the two World Wars), and it makes me wonder what state of mind she was in.

The opening self-portrait then seems to me to reflect Chen’s own thoughts on the matter. Based on the timeline, this was painted after the Second World War, and in the few years when Chen travelled across China (before the next Chinese revolution of 1949). The way I see it, it marks the point when Chen (finally) faces the viewer or the lens directly, since her gaze is always averted in the many other photographs of her that I saw in the exhibition. A turning point showing her matured, steely resolve — and a definitive image of the artist for sure.

Singapore

The first half of the exhibition features works from Chen’s time in Malaya and Singapore. Most of the highlights that I captured below are from Chen’s time in Singapore, when she moved here permanently in 1953.

I really love seeing Chen’s painted snapshots of an old Singapore. It feels almost familiar, like what we know of Boat Quay and the scenic landscape along the Singapore River — but just from a few decades before.

I really liked this portrait of the Malay Maiden because of the layering of the patterned veil over the sitter’s hair and shirt, which I thought was very nicely done.

I remember seeing Family Portrait in NGS’s previous exhibition ‘(Re)collect’ from 2018! I’ll admit that I’d initially thought that it was a self-portrait, but it’s actually a portrait of a close friend and her family.

I feel like Chen seems to be most well-known for her still life paintings featuring fruits. Funnily enough, I learned that Chen was known as a “rambutan specialist” and was even referred to as “basket Chen” thanks to her attention to detail of rambutans and fruit baskets!

These two paintings of lotuses appear to hark back to the traditional motif of lotuses in Chinese paintings. But Chen brings a different take to it by painting them en plein air (meaning outdoors), thanks to her artistic training in Paris. It’s nice to see the image of Lotus Symphony next to the photograph of Chen painting it in her friend’s garden!

The second half of the exhibition goes further back in time, starting with Chen’s years in Paris when she moved there for her artistic training. (Chen’s family had earlier moved to Paris and New York where she attended primary school and high school there.)

Paris

I’m not sure if it’s the Parisian connection, but the two landscape paintings above give me French Impressionism vibes! While Still Life with Cut Apple and Orange has a strong Cézanne feel to it… I also love the bamboo frame of this still life, which is so unique and adds another layer of looking!

Shanghai

We then go forward a bit to Chen’s years in Shanghai. The archival materials pictured here show Chen featured on the cover of the Shanghai magazine 良友 The Young Companion (left) and in the newspaper 上海畫報 Shanghai Pictorial (right), both from 1931. I was particularly drawn to the 良友 image because I learned about this magazine in a China Studies class before, and I found it interesting that Chen was on the cover of this magazine popular among young Chinese women in the 1920-1930s, especially in that heyday of Shanghai’s modern era.

While in Shanghai, Chen and her first husband Eugene Chen were kept under surveillance by the Japanese during the Second World War. The exhibition features a few of Chen’s portraits of her husband while they were confined during this period.

Travels Across China

We move forward in time again to the post-war years when Chen travelled around China, first with some water-scapes painted in Suzhou.

An interlude here with scenes from old Hong Kong and snapshots of New Territories before its redevelopment! These Hong Kong paintings were completed in the years before the fall of Hong Kong to the Japanese in 1941, and the Chens’ forced move to Shanghai after.

I really liked this section showing Chen’s cityscapes, landscapes and waterscapes of old Chinese cities. Cityscape of Beijing stood out to me with her depiction of the grand palace buildings of the Forbidden City, although they are not well-preserved at the moment of Chen’s painting.

Self-Portrait: When In Paris

The final work of the exhibition is Chen’s self-portrait from her Paris period — making one last jump back in time to the 1930s. I have to say, this self-portrait looks quite stern, or perhaps she was not fully comfortable capturing her own likeness as I find her sideways glance very subtly slides past the viewer.

It’s interesting to compare this self-portrait with the full-length photograph from the 1930s below, where Chen looks much more at ease posing with a bunch of paintbrushes next to her.

After writing this post, I definitely feel like taking another turn at the exhibition to re-look at the works again! It’s one of the better exhibitions at NGS that I’ve seen in a while, and it offers a good introduction to the artist and her various homes around the world. Naturally, more emphasis is placed on her years in Penang and Singapore, although I preferred the second part of the exhibition that looked at Chen’s earlier years in Paris and Shanghai.

I’m liking the focus given to Georgette Chen, a clear example of a significant woman artist who spent the latter half of her life in Singapore (and later became a Singaporean too!). And while I appreciate the exhibition’s approach of centring her work around time and place, I find it interesting that the exhibition didn’t focus as much on the woman question — as in, Chen’s perspectives working as an artist and as a woman.

I mention this because there is a tendency in museum exhibitions of works by female artists to emphasise their achievements despite gender restrictions, or images of female solidarity or feminism, etc. In Chen’s case, it would be quite a different context when considering her status as a woman artist in Singapore, though it would nevertheless be very interesting.

I shall end off here by rating this exhibition 4.5 stars! Definitely worth a visit, and Georgette Chen: At Home In The World runs until 26 September 2021. Have your turn at rating this exhibition below too!

The post Georgette Chen | Singapore’s Pioneer Woman Artist appeared first on Wording Art.

| Cover picture: Cao Fei, 浮槎 Fú Chá, 2020 |

Singapore Flyer – Whimsical Reality

2020 started with a trip to the Singapore Flyer to see the exhibition ‘Whimsical Reality’ featuring watercolour works by Ah Guo Illustration 阿果绘本. I’ve been following Ah Guo’s work for quite a long time, and I love his childlike, light-hearted illustrations of various Singapore scenes!

National Gallery Singapore – Chua Soo Bin: Truths & Legends

Spent a day out visiting National Gallery Singapore and went to see the understated exhibition of Chua Soo Bin’s portrait photography. I especially liked these photos of Wu Guanzhong sketching in the streets of London, Bangkok’s floating markets and at Singapore’s Bird Park (this should be Jurong Bird Park surely!) Click here to also see my review of the exhibition ‘Wu Guanzhong: Beauty Beyond Form’ at National Gallery Singapore from 2016.

National Gallery Singapore – Light to Night Festival: Invisible Cities

The Light to Night festival was also happening in January, and as always, it delivered a fun lineup of light installations and art skin projections. I also found it hilarious that one of Twardzik-Ching Chor Leng’s Five Stones was propped up above the bus stop outside Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall!

I’m not sure why this was here, but this setup of LINE’s Brown in a Merlion costume at Funan mall was so cute!!

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre – Huat Huat Land

A display of giant pineapples, mahjong tiles and murals on the rooftop of Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre for Chinese New Year! Huat Ah!

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre – SINGAPO人

SINGAPO人 is a permanent exhibition at SCCC that looks to discover Chinese Singapore culture. I really enjoyed visiting this and playing with all the interactive sections. There’s this game of ‘Would You Rather’, for example have Coffee or Tea, Eat Out or Eat at Home (as seen above) and after making your choice, it shows the poll percentage for each option!

Peeking into a small hole in a display to see a camera staring back at me!

Had to capture this drip tile from the old Nanyang University’s Administrative Building — especially as I’m studying at Nanyang Technological University now!

CB Summer

And then we hit pause — circuit breaker began in early April, classes went online, and it took a lot of effort to continue to study / work from home.

Over these few months, I also started to tune into art online (here are some of my recommendations!). Although there were also sadly a slew of exhibition cancellations, like the i Light festival, the Picasso and Matisse exhibition at National Gallery Singapore and the ‘Angelica Kauffman’ exhibition in London’s Royal Academy of Arts…

I’m currently researching Kauffman’s self-portraits and so I’d made travel plans to visit London and to see this exhibition — all cancelled! Ah well, so I made do with buying the exhibition catalogue. Here’s an image of Kauffman’s Self-Portrait with Stylus from the catalogue (excuse the colouring!), which is my favourite of all of her self-portraits! It belongs in a private collection so I really hope to have a chance to see it in an exhibition in future…

Asian Civilisations Museum – Fashion and Textiles Gallery

Ventured back out to see exhibitions again in August, and it felt like a grand affair! Dressed up again to view the new Fashion and Textiles, as well as Jewellery, galleries at Asian Civilisations Museum. The galleries will have a rotating display, and the Fashion and Textiles gallery currently features Chinese dress from the Qing (imperial wear) and modern periods (cheongsams). I thought the Fashion and Textiles gallery was surprisingly small!

National Museum of Singapore – Music For Everyone: Variations on a Theme

This solo exhibition of Song-Ming Ang’s work was first presented in the Singapore Pavilion of 2019’s Venice Biennale and had a re-showing at National Museum of Singapore. The title Music for Everyone ‘references a series of concerts organised by the then Singapore’s Ministry of Culture from 1971 to 1985’, and the exhibition overall also looks at music education in Singapore, like all those recorder music classes (so not for me)…

I especially liked Ang’s Manifesto for Bad Music, as I got quite into twentieth-century art manifestoes in class last semester!

Singapore Art Museum – Time Passes

Since Singapore Art Museum is currently under renovation, their exhibition ‘Time Passes’ is currently held at National Gallery Singapore. I thought the highlight work was Ashley Yeo’s intricate work of paper, which she makes using 3D printing.

In the gallery next door, ‘An Exercise of Meaning in a Glitch Season’ is also showing at National Gallery Singapore. Both exhibitions are part of ‘Proposals for Novel Ways of Being’, a series of exhibitions and programmes made in response to COVID-19. Both exhibitions run until 21 February 2021.

Esplanade Tunnel – Combing for Ice and Jade

This is a solo exhibition of Kurt Tong’s work as part of the 7th Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF). ‘Combing for Ice and Jade’ tells the life story of Tong’s nanny (or majie) who became a ‘Comb Sister’ — ‘a community of women in Southern China who took a vow of chastity’ and left their hometowns to work and be financially independent. I liked the quiet, understated way of showing her life through various photographs, but I especially liked the video at the beginning of exhibition in which Tong discusses this seven-year project.

‘Combing for Ice and Jade’ is ongoing till 10 Jan 2021.

National Gallery Singapore – Georgette Chen: At Home in the World

The long awaited Georgette Chen retrospective is here! I enjoyed visiting this exhibition, and I will post about it in more detail in a separate post. In the meantime, I wanted to highlight this photograph of Chen painting Lotus Symphony en plein air (outdoors) in her friend’s garden full of lotuses. It’s nice to see a glimpse of the process and the final result situated next to the other.

‘Georgette Chen: At Home in the World’ is running for a long time until 26 September 2021.

ArtScience Museum – Margins: drawing pictures of home 

‘Margins: drawing pictures of home’ is also included in SIPF this year, and it’s a small exhibition featuring works by 15 contemporary photographers centred around Singapore as home.

My sister reminded me that we first saw this work in Hong Kong’s PMQ as part of detour 2015! While there were 1600 photographs there, the 12 photographs included here depicting the daily food choices for those living at the poverty line in different Asian countries still remains as poignant.

I liked the light humour of Hu’s People Mountain People Sea, a literal translation of 人山人海, which means a huge crowd in Chinese. Hu juxtaposes scenes of Singapore with ‘cutouts’ of the Old Master Q comic character, and I thought it was pretty fun!

My favourite from ‘Margins’ is Soh’s photographs of the last SS24 train to depart from Tanjong Pagar Railway Station (see my photos of the station at this link) before the railway line was officially removed.

‘Margins: drawing pictures of home’ is showing until 28 February 2021.

Gardens by the Bay: Christmas Wonderland’s Walk of Lights

Ending off 2020 with some festive cheer! I wanted to do another re-visit of Christmas Wonderland since this year’s Walk of Lights featured some new light attractions that have not been shown before! Loved all the lights and as always, the luminarie light installations (made all the way from Italy) are so gorgeous and impressive! Here’s to a brilliant 2021!

The post Art of 2020 appeared first on Wording Art.

| Cover picture: Lucy Liu, Velocity (one side), 2001, mixed media on canvas |

National Museum of Singapore – Unhomed Belongings

2019 began with Unhomed Belongings at NMS, which did an interesting pairing of Lucy Liu’s and Shubigi Rao’s artworks. I especially liked Liu’s Lost and Found books, which contains objects that she picks up from the streets in whichever place she travels to. Rao’s highlight work for me was The Wood for the Trees that is part of her wider project on documenting destroyed books and libraries.

I love books and art, so I always like artworks that incorporate books in some way or another…

I next visited the i Light and Light to Night festivals centred around the 2019 Bicentennial and the new S.E.A. Focus art fair, which I had shared about in the two linked posts, click over to read more!

Science Centre Singapore – The Inventions of Ancient Greece

The last time I went to the Science Centre, I was there for a class trip, and I think it has been 11 years?? (Where does the time go?) I have a long-standing thing for ancient Greek stories and things, so I was intrigued when I saw banners advertising this exhibition around the city.

The exhibition featured replicas of Greek inventions that were made for both practical and aesthetic / for fun purposes, and it’s amazing to see how these inventions rely solely on physics, rather than the technology we see today. I really liked the hydraulic automaton of the “chirping birds” and of the “returning owl”. Depending on the water level in the container, the birds will chirp, only stopping when the owl turns towards them; when the water level lowers again, the owl turns away and the birds chirp again (as shown in the picture). The second exhibit above is a “robot” that automatically refills wine cups – how cool is that?

The exhibits came alongside videos showing how the inventions work. A shoutout as well to the friendly staff who kindly gave me and my sister a tour, helpfully explaining all of the exhibits in detail!

National Museum of Singapore – Packaging Matters

A quick visit again to NMS to see this exhibition on food packaging in 20th century Singapore! Some local coffee shops and chains still serve kopi in that flowery cup (second from left), which is nice to see!

ArtScience Museum – Wonderland

The travelling exhibition Wonderland from ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) was so fun! It shows the influence of the famous story of Alice and her image across film, photography, animation and many aspects of popular culture. I loved the sets designed for the exhibition (like the many doors!) and all the interactive elements, which made it feel like you were going down a quirky adventure too.

Wonderland made its first stop at ArtScience Museum on its global tour, so look out for it in your city! Also, I’m so glad that Singapore brings in many international exhibitions and artists’ works these days!

National Gallery Singapore – Lim Cheng Hoe: Painting Singapore

I visited National Gallery Singapore for their Awakenings and Lim Cheng Hoe: Painting Singapore exhibitions. I liked seeing the serene watercolour paintings by Lim of an older Singapore. The long-running Lim Cheng Hoe exhibition closes tomorrow on 5th Jan.

Asian Civilisations Museum – Guo Pei: Chinese Art and Couture

Seeing Guo Pei’s gowns and dresses at ACM was such a dream – every one of her creations is absolutely stunning! My most favourite were 冰雪皇后 (Snow Queen) and 大金 (Magnificent Gold Gown). I was so very excited to see 大金, because it was splashed all over Instagram when it was shown at The Met Museum’s China: Through the Looking Glass exhibition in 2015 (I did a review of the exhibition catalogue, linked here, though the catalogue doesn’t feature this dress). I couldn’t believe I could see the gown for myself!

STPI – Takashi Murakami: From Superflat to Bubblewrap

So, I can somewhat see the appeal of Takashi Murakami’s work and why he’s so popular, but I’m still not personally convinced. I’ve always found his work too “commercial”, if you will, and it’s interesting to note that the artist was commenting on the economic side of things (I can’t remember how it was phrased exactly) through these works. His works are meta – while commenting on commercialisation, his works have also become coveted commodities in the art market.

National Museum of Singapore – An Old New World

I visited NMS the most in 2019! An Old New World talks about the voyages of Dutch and British East India Companies back in their heyday and the trade that they engaged in in Singapore and in the region. I especially liked this exhibit (on loan from the Rijksmuseum, which I really want to visit!!) for its fusion sources of production – the wooden chest from Bavaria (present-day Jakarta), the porcelain from Japan, spices contained within the porcelain bottles traded across Asia, and the whole item commissioned by the Dutch East India Company.

An Old New World is on show till 29 March 2020.

ArtScience Museum – Disney: Magic of Animation

ArtScience Museum is on a great roll with their exhibitions – I absolutely loved Disney: Magic of Animation because it was like revisiting my childhood, and it was also wonderful seeing the art of my more recent Disney favourites like Tangled and Frozen II!

Disney: Magic of Animation is on show till 29 March 2020.

My final exhibition of 2019 was actually #futuretogether by teamLab at Gardens by the Bay, which I went to see on New Years’ Eve. Looking forward to all the art in 2020!

The post Art of 2019 appeared first on Wording Art.

As mentioned in my Art of 2018 post, I have so many opinions to share, so do read on as I go on at length, lol! My review of Minimalism at ArtScience Museum will be coming up soon in a separate post.

| Cover picture: Peter Kennedy, Neon Light Installations, 1970-2002, neon, composition board and synthetic polymer paint |

When the news of this new ‘blockbuster’ exhibition was released, I was quite curious and excited to see what National Gallery Singapore would come up with. Minimalism / Minimalist Art honestly isn’t the kind of art that I like that much, so I was expecting to learn more about Minimalism in the context of 1960s New York where it originated.

To start off with the exhibition opener, a little context is needed: At National Gallery Singapore, you go through a set of doors where there’s a small space, before going through another set of doors to enter the exhibition proper; same goes when you’re exiting each exhibition gallery.

So, I was a little rattled when I went through the first set of doors to be unexpectedly greeted by… Minimalist music? That was before I discovered that this was a sound exhibit and these musical exhibits are also played in other spaces between the exhibition galleries. In all fairness, I’m not that open-minded about music as I am towards art, so I find it difficult to get attuned to these kinds of ‘experimental’ music, if you will.

And then, the first exhibits you see is a section of black paintings by different artists, including Frank Stella, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. I know that the argument goes that you should slow down and ponder on these paintings… but I just don’t see how opening an exhibition with a selection of purely black paintings is a good idea.

The beginning of the Minimalism exhibition follows a textbook example with artworks by notable Minimalist artists like Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, and Carl Andre. Take a look at the Tate’s explanation of Minimalism here to find out more, I also find Tate’s series of Art Terms very helpful!

I find this Sol LeWitt drawing very interesting because it’s drawn by an artist from Sol LeWitt’s studio along with the help of four former LaSalle students – a nice touch! – based on the artist’s instructions. I’m still not too sure how I feel about this concept of works created from an artist’s instructions that is commonly seen in Minimalist and conceptual art from the 1960s and 70s.

On this matter, I also want to share this recent article from The Art Newspaper about the Guggenheim decommissioning works made from instructions that were deemed not authentic enough.

The main issue I had with this exhibition comes up really quickly in the first gallery alone – the space was overly crowded with artworks. Minimalist art demands the viewer to be conscious of the space that the artwork is engaging with (ref: Tate). At this exhibition, I really did feel that I needed more space to consider the works, but there were so many artworks placed quite close to each other. From just a picture of/with Ian Burn’s work, you can see three other works reflected in it!

Ian Burn’s No object implies the existence of any other is “based on a quote from the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume on the nature of perception, knowledge and understanding.” I don’t fully grasp the meaning, but it’s funny how this object sure does reflect the existence of a few other objects in this setting.

I visited the exhibition on two occasions in December and later in February this year, but Dan Flavin, monument for V. Tatlin #43 was still not working…

I have a new fascination with Mona Hatoum’s works after seeing Impenetrable and + and – (at ArtScience Museum) in person. As I’ve always said, it really makes such a difference seeing art for yourself compared to seeing it on a screen!

At this point, the exhibition starts to break away into examples of how Minimalist tendencies have continued in contemporary art, such as Minimalism in London (e.g. Hatoum) and Minimalist work in Asia, although ArtScience Museum’s minimalism exhibition counterpart solely focuses on Minimalism in Asia.

I was quite interested in Lee’s work – godret stones “are traditionally used in Korea as weights to hold rope in place while tying knots or weaving mats”. I really like this idea of re-exploring traditional domestic objects in art.

Robert Irwin’s Untitled looks quite different / better in real life, because it’s made of one central disc that forms overlapping lights / shadows when lit. It has a very nice three-dimensional effect compared to how it appears as a flat surface when captured in a photograph.

This particular room with three very distinctive artworks is yet another example of the overcrowded feeling I got in this exhibition. You don’t get enough space to view these large works from different distances and angles – same goes for Peter Kennedy’s Neon Light Installations (cover picture above) which you could only capture in its entirety from the side of the room.

I so enjoyed being in Olafur Eliasson’s Room for one colour! It’s kind of weird at first, because you see the room in yellow – and then suddenly see the people around you in only grey tones! Photos don’t do it justice, it’s really something to experience for yourself. My eyes felt a little uncomfortable after being inside for a short while, but it’s definitely a very novel experience!

I have to say, Liu Jianhua’s Blank Paper really did look like paper with its slightly crinkled look to it, so it’s amazing to find out it’s actually made of porcelain!

Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s works always feel so deliberately intentional or full of meaning despite his use of seemingly unassuming objects, but I also find it very interesting how his works are able to capture so much attention from the viewer too.

I love how in-your-face Ai Weiwei’s Ton of tea is about, well, Pu’er tea or about Chinese tea in general. It’s a big block of dried tea leaves, and you can smell a faint waft of the tea leaves when you step closer to it.

Haegue Yang’s Sol LeWitt Upside Down series, two out of three sets captured here, hangs at the background of this picture. It’s essentially venetian blinds placed against an ultramarine blue wall, with reference to Yves Klein’s blue trademark. I’m not into it though… It looks too close to a room setting more than an installation. But I looked up other versions of Haegue Yang’s Sol LeWitt Upside Down and her large-scale installations look very cool in comparison, so perhaps it’s just these renditions that don’t work for me.

I’ve seen Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds so many times in pictures, and it felt kind of familiar when viewing it in person. It’s my favourite artwork in this exhibition (which might sound so typical, but whatever!). Each of the seeds are made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, China, which is renowned for its production of porcelain and ceramics.

To see more porcelain works in Singapore, Asian Civilisations Museum has a Ceramics Gallery featuring largely Chinese ceramics, that I also really like!

Tatsuo Miyajima’s work always make use of ticking numbers, as an allusion to the cycle of life and rebirth. The numbers on Mega Death (captured as bright dots in this photo) continuously count down from nine to one. When it gets to zero, the blue lights go off and the installation becomes completely dark, before it turns back on and begins its cycle again.

I actually found it all – the blue colour and the countdown – quite eerie, which I suppose makes its point as it’s a statement about the mass destruction and violence of the 20th century.

Playing around with Anish Kapoor’s Non-Object (Door)! Its concave surface causes that warped effect as seen here.

I felt that the good side to this Minimalism exhibition was being able to view many works by great contemporary artists, but problems came up in its overcrowded space and in the theme itself. Most of the exhibition was dedicated to showing how Minimalism is still seen in art today, or in the closer contemporary era, but I don’t think this idea came across convincingly.

I find the works by living artists in the latter part of the exhibition too distinctive to be compiled under this broad idea of Minimalism. While the wall texts link each artwork to a certain concept found in original Minimalist works, I felt that the overall curation lost an established idea of what Minimalism is, or in showing why these works could be considered Minimalist in some way(s). I enjoyed viewing these works individually, but their relation to a curated theme of Minimalism just didn’t come across well to me.

I was finding it so difficult to express my thoughts on this exhibition clearly in this post, and then I got the idea to include a rating system! I think it’ll be so fun to include it in all my other exhibition reviews too!

For this exhibition, I’m going to give it 3 out of 5 stars – good artworks overall, but a lack of a curatorial direction makes the exhibition experience not very enjoyable. Share your opinions on this exhibition – leave your rating below!

3 / 5 stars for Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. at National Gallery Singapore

The post Minimalism at NGS | Maxed Out Galleries appeared first on Wording Art.

Before I get into these events, I have to first say that the pre-opening act of Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2019 was the sudden cancellation of Art Stage Singapore. I’d always missed going to Art Stage – especially during my uni years when I would be in Hong Kong in January – but I’d intended to visit for the first time this year. Well, that didn’t happen, and the news of their cancellation caused such a big hoo-ha!

S.E.A. Focus

At least, there was the new boutique art fair S.E.A. Focus, which I was pretty interested in checking out. As the name suggests, the fair focuses on showing art from Southeast Asian artists – and it’s also nice to see stronger representation of Singaporean artists. I’ve heard so many Singaporeans complain that Singaporean artists aren’t more visible in Singapore itself, so it’s good to see more focus placed on them, too.

Of course, this gold coated Singapore-style dustbin was the first thing that caught my eye! For context, they’re usually green in colour and placed along the streets. I wish I knew the artist who made this, but there were no wall labels in this gallery’s booth. In fact, many booths didn’t have wall labels, some just hand-wrote the artists’ names on the wall – why, I wonder?

My favourites from STPI’s showing of Cheong Soo Pieng’s artworks. Not sure if these are part of STPI’s current exhibition on Cheong, but I must make the time to visit soon!

Light to Night Festival

Moving on to Light to Night Festival – there were two editions this year, firstly for Singapore Art Week with the theme ‘Traces and Echoes’ and the second for the Bicentennial (which ends tonight!).

I’m actually glad there were two versions of the festival, extending it from just a week to a whole month! I’d been so busy for the whole of January with work and life and yada yada, so I decided to check out the Bicentennial edition in February, which I thought would be more interesting.

Sticks is a light installation that keeps changing colours, and it’s inspired by the childhood game “pick-up sticks” and bakau piling, an old technique for constructing scaffolding. My sister tells me that she had played the sticks game during her primary school years, but I don’t seem to remember playing it too? Ah, a few years can already mean generation differences.

My favourite art skin was the one projected on the facade of The Arts House, about stories of the people who worked along the Singapore River. I like how the illustrations of the people projected on the columns remind me of Classical Greco-Roman sculptures!

There’s also this cute Alice in Wonderland-inspired installation, Open Books, situated outside The Arts House!

I really liked this quote! There were a few of these neon signs as part of the food bazaar outside National Gallery Singapore.

Yet another emphasis on Singapore Art… Though there’s still a ways to go.

I always love to capture National Gallery Singapore – the Supreme Court wing from this angle, and this is the most colourful I’ve seen it!

National Gallery Singapore’s art skin recounted the story of Singapore’s former Supreme Court and Civic District. I especially liked the bright colours projected on the Supreme Court wing, talking about how the building has been repurposed into an art museum, and the photographs of modern-day Singapore projected across the long stretch of the City Hall wing.

On the Bicentennial…

I had opted to only see the Bicentennial edition of Light to Night, due to lack of time and to see some light projections and installations that featured different narratives from the usual fare. As you can tell, the themes celebrate Singapore’s history and how far we have come.

While I did enjoy seeing these narratives, I’m not sure how the Bicentennial holds much significance in these festivals. The Bicentennial marks the 200th anniversary of Sir Stamford Raffles’ founding of modern Singapore in 1819. While this fact has never, in my opinion, held much negative connotation in the public eye, the focus on the Bicentennial this year seems to have tapped into issues of colonialism and post-colonialism vs. nationalism and nation-building that I feel has not been much discussed in Singapore before.

I think the problem here is: Should we celebrate a colonial past, for all its good and bad, or should we be celebrating Singapore’s own history since 1819? Or even pre-1819? Note that 7 Stories from 700 Years talks about a longer history of Singapore beyond the supposed Bicentennial mark.

Some say this uncovering of a longer history is a move to ‘decolonise’ Singapore, but I’m don’t think that’s effective when the Bicentennial term is used everywhere. It appears that the creation of a special Bicentennial that doesn’t even seem to be too sure of what it’s celebrating / commemorating has led to confusion and some ruffled feathers.

I feel that the public stir has also been triggered by the Raffles in Southeast Asia: Revisiting the Scholar and Statesman exhibition currently ongoing at Asian Civilisations Museum, in collaboration with the British Museum. I wasn’t initially all that interested to visit – I was put off by the steep price! But after reading news about visitors’ disgruntled comments about it, I want to see it for myself now… Probably on ACM’s programme days when tickets to the exhibition are at a $5 discounted rate.

In any case, I find ACM’s exhibitions hit and miss, and Raffles in Southeast Asia is probably going to be a miss. If you’ll like to see an exhibition on colonialism that is more sensitively done, check out my review of Artist and Empire at National Gallery Singapore in collaboration with Tate Britain here.

The post Singapore Art Week | On the Bicentennial appeared first on Wording Art.

2018 has been my full year back in Singapore since moving back, and at first, I thought there was less happenings in art here. After a while, things have picked up, but there have been many exhibitions and events that I didn’t choose to post in detail on this blog – lack of time is always a major reason for my lack of updates! So, I thought it would be nice to look back at all of the art exhibitions and events I went to this year!

Asian Civilisations Museum – Permanent Galleries

I started off 2018 with a visit to ACM to see their permanent galleries. I really loved seeing Tang Shipwreck with all of those painted bowls and those acorn-shaped game pieces (for gambling)!

ACM has just opened their new Christian and Islamic art galleries this month, so that’s something I’m definitely going to check out in 2019.

ArtScience Museum – Treasures of the Natural World

I went to see both ‘Treasures of the Natural World’ and ‘Art from the Streets’ at ArtScience Museum on the same day (double exhibition tickets are so worth it!). ArtScience Museum continues to be my favourite museum in Singapore as they have the best exhibitions.

I was surprised to find out that I really enjoyed seeing exhibits of preserved stuffed animals that look so life-like! All of the exhibits were on loan from Natural History Museum in London, which of course, I’m now planning to visit when I get myself to London!

National Museum of Singapore – The More We Get Together: Singapore’s Playgrounds 1930 – 2030

Peranakan Museum – Amek Gambar: Peranakans and Photography

There was then ‘The More We Get Together: Singapore’s Playgrounds 1930 – 2030’ at National Museum of Singapore, a simple exhibition talking about styles and models of playgrounds in Singapore. Basically, Singapore wins at urban planning, I have to say!

I also revisited Peranakan Museum for the first time in probably 10 years to see ‘Amek Gambar: Peranakans and Photography’. Sticking to the museum’s specialised theme of Peranakan culture, the Amek Gambar – meaning to take pictures – exhibition shows a range of black and white photographs of Peranakans and old cameras. The exhibition is on till February 3rd, 2019.

National Gallery Singapore – Rirkrit Tiravanija

I always visit National Gallery Singapore for exhibitions or events or just to bum at their Gallery & Co cafe. My first visit of the year was to see the new site-specific commissioned work of Rirkrit Tiravanija at NGS’ rooftop. It’s a large-scale bamboo structure with a pathway that you can walk through from one end to the other, and there’s also a Japanese teahouse in the centre, though it was too hot that day for me to join in in the tea ceremony events they were holding at the time.

Singapore Philatelic Museum – The Little Prince: Behind the Story

I like to visit Singapore Philatelic Museum (or the “Stamp Museum”) every once in a while to see their exhibitions that somehow always manage to incorporate stamps! It was nice to re-see Arnaud Nazare-Aga’s Little Prince sculptures at the ‘The Little Prince: Behind the Story’ exhibition. I had first seen them in Hong Kong in 2015 during the Christmas and New Year season – see the post here!

National Gallery Singapore – Children’s Festival

It’s always so fun at Children’s Festival at National Gallery Singapore seeing everyone, kids and adults, having fun playing with the artworks! The first one pictured is all kitchen sponges and for the second artwork, you could throw those triangle-shaped pieces and they would stick on the patterned wall.

I’m also very proud to say that I managed to speed-walk across Justiniani’s bridge in one piece this time round, HAHAHA! For last year’s edition, I was so scared of the never-ending depths of the illusionistic effect of the bridge that I actually paused while walking across it. I’m still kinda terrified of this kind of things, but clearly it’s only me, since all of the other kids were happily examining the details in the bridge.

National Library Singapore (Central) – Selling Dreams: Early Advertising in Singapore

‘Selling Dreams: Early Advertising in Singapore’ is a very well-researched and very big exhibition on advertisements in Singapore from the 1830s to the 1960s. I really recommend reading all of the details in the didactics for the exhibits, as they are all so interesting! This was probably the longest time I spent at an exhibition though, about 2 hours? The exhibition is on till 24th February 2019.

National Gallery Singapore – (Re)collect

I shared a mini review of ‘(Re)collect’ at National Gallery Singapore on my Instastories, now saved in my highlights, to try out a new format of sharing about exhibitions! That was really fun, but I also wanted to share Lee Lim’s composite photographs on a bigger screen, so that it would be clearer to see. His photographs appear like Chinese ink paintings, especially with their Chinese inscriptions and his seal on the sides of the paintings. It’s fascinating to see how photographs can also look like paintings in a way.

The Cathay – Whatshisname x Mighty Jaxx

The first time I saw these dogs, I was walking towards The Cathay from YMCA. From afar, I thought could this possibly be Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog I’m about to see?? Well, turns out these weren’t Koons’ sculptures, but Whatshisname’s pooping dogs are humorous in their own way, yes? A total of 4 dogs were commissioned for The Cathay, and they are still on show!

Singapore Night Festival 2018

For this year’s Singapore Night Festival, I was excited to see FierS à Cheval by Compagnie des Quidams after seeing photos of their performance at the opening of Tai Kwun in Hong Kong (which I must visit!). Horses are my favourite animals, and the performers really captured the elegant movements of horses. Funnily enough, this performance was made for the Year of the Horse in 2014, but it’s been so popular that the company has continued to perform this show until now!

I also went to see the dress exhibits from World of WearableArt (WOW), which holds an annual award competition for fashion designers from all over the world to present their avant-garde designs. These two dresses were my favourite!

STPI – Handmade Readymades

These two prints by Lichtenstein were shown at STPI’s exhibition ‘Handmade Readymades’. The exhibition featured the prints of four 20th century American artists, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein, but I only took a liking to Lichtenstein’s prints. The first time I visited STPI in 2015, I think, I also remember seeing and liking Lichtenstein’s prints. That aside, STPI always has top-notch exhibitions so I always like to visit. I’m looking forward to their Cheong Soo Pieng exhibition opening in January 2019!

Gardens by the Bay – Mid-autumn Celebrations

Gardens by the Bay had such a lovely display for the Mid-Autumn celebrations! The giant lanterns also gave me Story of Yanxi Palace vibes, which was everyone’s favourite drama of the year, right?? YASSS.

National Museum of Singapore – In an Instant: Polaroid at the Intersection of Art and Technology

‘In an Instant: Polaroid at the Intersection of Art and Technology’, a travelling exhibition that has made its stop at the National Museum of Singapore, was not what I was expecting at all!

The beginning of the exhibition charts out the history of the Polaroid, starting from its invention by Edwin Land, who was inspired by his daughter when she questioned on a holiday trip, why can’t we have our photographs printed out instantaneously, instead of going through the long process of developing film.

Most of the exhibition features artistic Polaroids following a few themes, but my favourites are these more contemporary shots captured on Polaroids. I didn’t realise that so many prominent artists and photographers had worked with Polaroid! The exhibition is on till 31st March 2019.

Affordable Art Fair Singapore 2018

I went for a quick walk through Affordable Art Fair in November, and all of my photos can be seen in my Instastories highlights! It was my first time attending it in Singapore and I found it much livelier that my experience at AAF in Hong Kong in 2015.

I found the paintings of those curly haired little, hmm, midgets by a Japanese artist (in the first two photos) really cute! There were also many South Korean galleries at the fair, and I really liked the style of these works by Korean artists (latter two photos).

ArtScience Museum – Future World (Revamped!)

This year was really the year of teamLab for me, seeing their works across ArtScience Museum, National Gallery Singapore and Marina Bay Sands. See my posts on teamLab – Part I and Part II!

I’d shared about ‘Future World’ at ArtScience Museum before it closed for revamp, and I was debating if I should visit the revamped exhibition… Guess what, I did! I bought a bundle ticket to see the new Future World and the Minimalism exhibition across ArtScience Museum and National Gallery Singapore, and I’m glad I did because I like the revamped exhibition even more! Also, I’m definitely going to do up posts on the ‘Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.’ exhibition(s) because I have so much opinions on it, so I would leave my comments for those upcoming posts.

Christmas!

We have reached Christmastime, the best time of the year!! This year’s theme of Disney Magical Moments for the Orchard Road Christmas decorations were so fun! I grew up on Disney, so this is definitely a special year!

Ion Art Gallery – Virtually Versailles

My last exhibition of the year was ‘Virtually Versailles’ at the Ion Art Gallery and Ion Sky, all the way up on the 55th floor of Ion Orchard. I already know that Versailles is on my travel wishlist, and this exhibition gave a taste of the Palace of Versailles’s architecture, decor and extensive art collection.

It’s mostly made up of a lot of videos, so I didn’t really capture many good photos of it. There are many interactive elements though, like biking around different parts of the palace (actual biking, virtual tour of palace), and having your face superimposed on royal portraits, which was really fun!! This free exhibition is on till 6th January 2019.

The last photo was a candid shot of me taken by my sister looking at the collection in the Palace, and it just seems like such a nice reminder to keep looking at all the art around us! Here’s to 2019!

The post Art of 2018 appeared first on Wording Art.

This post features their works that I saw at National Gallery Singapore this year and the last, but there are also more of their digital art on display around town, which I’ll be sharing in another post.

teamLab, Flowers and People – Dark, 2015

First up is Flowers and People – Dark, a pretty and colourful assortment of flowers that spans across a few screen panels. The people / interactive component is in the way the flowers bloom and wilt depending on how close you are standing to the screens, so it’s a constant blooming and wilting of flowers as you move across the screens.

While I was trying to determine how to “control” the flower life cycle, I also liked just watching the flowers fluidly moving around.

teamLab, Walk, Walk, Walk: Search, Deviate, Reunite, 2018

Walk, Walk, Walk: Search, Deviate, Reunite is a large-scale digital installation contained in a dark room that begins with a cast of characters – a mix of what I will describe as village people and half-animal half-human creatures like a frogman – walking through flowers to a tune that to me, sounds like it’s inspired by traditional music. I also found it fun that when you tap on their faces hard enough, they would turn their faces towards you!

The group of characters eventually disappear into a bamboo forest, and the music also stops. Walking through the images of the bamboo forest myself, it felt a little scary (scaredy-cat me!) and really atmospheric at the same time. Walk, Walk, Walk: Search, Deviate, Reunite as a whole felt mysterious, a little strange, yet peaceful in another way.

Flowers and People – Dark and Walk, Walk, Walk: Search, Deviate, Reunite are currently part of the Gallery’s Children’s Festival: Small Big Dreamers and will be on show till 9th September 2018.

teamLab, Homogenizing and Transforming World, 2013 (and hello, that’s me capturing the moment!)

Throwback to last year when Homogenizing and Transforming World was exhibited at National Gallery Singapore! Ah, this was so fun as all of the balls start to change colour whenever anyone tapped them (there are sensors located at the top of each ball which when sensing one’s touch, would cause the change of colour). And with so many people in the room, the balls were lighting up in a myriad of colours!

The post teamLab | National Gallery Singapore edition appeared first on Wording Art.