Seriously Speaking: ARTSingapore 2010

What started out as a small scale – 19 galleries – art fair has since grown to welcome 60 established galleries across Asia. The 10^th edition of ARTSingapore will be back on 8 to 11 October at Suntec Convention Hall Singapore. Following the market’s growing sophistication, ARTSingapore 2010 will continue to focus on introducing quality work in Asia.

The Series of Intelligent Youth by Xiao Hong

Compared to its region counterparts, the growth approach ARTSingapore took is different. Consider Art Fair Tokyo. Started just 5 years ago, it now attracts 40,000 visitors, nearly thrice as much ARTSingapore. There is also Korea International Art Fair, which was established in 2001. With nearly e new4000 art works on showcase, it has twice as many exhibits as ARTSingapore.

Big is not a sure bet of being better.  Artreach, the organizer, does best by keeping the fair ‘boutique size’ and accepting only quality art. After all the art market in Singapore (considering all other foreign input) still remains ‘boutique sized’.  Why bother holding a mega fair which the turnout cannot match?

Each year, organizers hope for a surge in ticket and art sales. While pumping money into marketing and putting a brilliant show together helps, the driving force would be a concerted effort by the government and private companies in arts to hold more acclaimed shows locally. Easier said than done. But the point here is – resultant viewership and sales is not a good yardstick to measure a singular show’s success.

Downsized from 110 galleries in 2008, this year's ARTSingapore will showcase 2000 artworks from 60 galleries

While looking forward to the upcoming fair, especially multi-media work by video artist Tan Kai Syng, it will also be interesting to note the proportion of different art mediums, subjects and of course, the prices!

Finally, if ARTSingapore is serious about focusing on art outreach here, then where is their Facebook account? What other mediums have a wider reach than the internet?

Find out more about ARTSingapore

Art Buffet Singapore, take your pick!

Ultimate by Wee Aik Chuan is my favourite. I voted for it enthusiastically, partially because I wanted to express my appreciation and a ‘smaller’ part fuelled by hopes to win $500 Dome Café vouchers. (Keeping my fingers crossed!)

Now into its 3^rd edition, the biennial Singapore Art Show showcases the diversity of visual arts in Singapore, featuring outstanding art created by local and Singapore-based artists. The theme of this year’s exhibition is ART BUFFET SINGAPORE! Before you get the wrong idea, stop thinking about food, because it isn’t entirely on it! Rather, it is a collective term to express the variety of themes featured; Food, Material, Ritual, Spectrum, Signs, Gesture, Craft, Body, Time, Space, Order and Humour.

Today, my visit to Singapore Art Museum exposed me to four of the 12 themes. As the museum doesn’t allow cameras, this post will not be as visually attractive as I would liked, sorry guys!

Blink by George Wong Yung Choon, an Archival Piezographic print, ought to resonate with most Singaporeans, yet my first impression was; two blinding white lights amidst pitch-black surroundings. Well I was certainly mistaken! Anna (a friendly trilingual gallery sitter – as SAM calls them) explained that the white spots were in fact floodlights of National Stadium. Perhaps it was meant to express how after nearly two years of announcing plans to replace this national icon, it still stands tall, magnificent and untouched, with floodlights in good condition of course!

Courtesy of http://blogs.todayonline.com/forartssake/

Jason Wee’s No More Tears depicts a portrait of MM Lee Kuan Yew through thousands of white bottle-caps.  Great, creative use of the Johnson & Johnson bottle caps! (otherwise, how do you explain No more tears?? Kudos also to J&J’s marketing team for hammering their tagline into me since I was a kid) Ok, there can be other ways to interpret the title and I’m sure other readers out there will have a comment or two to add.

Courtesy of http://blogs.todayonline.com/forartssake/

Imagine 5000 white bottle caps like this forming a potrait of MM Lee

The next installation reminds me of how I should avoid the corporate trap as far as possible. Imagine an office, white and black Ikea furnishings, screensaver that reads ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ and a picture of a Ferris wheel going in circles in a repetitive, never-ending routine. He’s Satisfied from Monday to Friday and on Sunday He Loves to Cry by Chun Kaifeng shows exactly this depressing situation. Kaifeng seems to understand the office life pretty well, that’s why he is in the creative industry I guess. Taking cue from the recent teacher-stabbing incident and to express the tension that people face daily, Kaifeng cunningly placed not one, but THREE weapons in the office, namely an axe, a 10-inch chopper and a fruit knife.

Finally, the most amazing work of all, at least in my opinion, it’s Ultimate. Rarely do I like a black piece of art (yellow is my favourite). But this blends simplicity and sophistication in one strong single stroke. Looking at it in different angles, you can notice how the tone changes subtly. This essential conveys the idea that matters/issues are as good as you like it or as bad as your perceive it to be, everything has a different perspective. Silly me, but I can almost imagine this art piece integrating seamlessly in my living room, bedroom, kitchen or whatever. Well as every art buyer will say, art that is worth buying is art that you love so much that you can enjoy it for the rest of your life. Yes, I guess I have found one.

Art Buffet

Singapore Art Museum

22Aug to 18 October 2009

Free admission

Visit: http://www.singart.com/current_exhibitions.php?page=sae09

The Lost City

As the title speaks for itself, Lost in the City is by five local rising talents – Justin Lee, Genevieve Chua, Michael Lee, Joo Choon Lin and Chun Kai Qun – reflecting upon Singapore’s rapid modernisation.

There are altogether four exhibits. The first installation, From Green to Brown to Black to Brown to Green (ok, it’s really mouthful!) by Joo Choon Lin and Chun Kai Qun features a combination of stop motion animation and diorama (a miniature scene used in the animation). The film shows the plight of two funny, fuzzy looking creatures as their habitant is heartlessly destroyed by humans. While I couldn’t quite comprehend the entire animation, I did enjoy studying the creatures and diorama. Through my camera lenses, the diorama seems amazingly real. It made me start to wonder, were recycled materials used?

Next, there are Justin Lee’s figurines that fuse traditional and modern elements beautifully together. Being strategically position between the old architecture and the new extension of the National Museum, his entire theme stands out even more. In my opinion, this idea of old-meets-new is relatively common. However what caught my attention was the smart move of placing a porcelain-white figurine amidst the numerous cement-coloured ones. National Museum of Singapore’s friendly staff, Steve explains that the artist did that intentionally to arrest attention from passer-bys. If every piece looked alike, then it wouldn’t be that attractive. He is very right indeed!

Diorama by Kai Qun

Porcelain White ‘Jing Ma Yong’ by Justin Lee

Suspended Buildings 2 by Michael Lee

Suspended Buildings by Michael Lee

National Snow Factory

The most eye-catching exhibit is definitely the large scale suspended buildings by Michael Lee. Well, I gave it this name since I could not find the exact one, but I’m sure there’s a better, more artistic name to it! Each building represents pieces of important heritage that have been long lost and forgotten. Places like the old National Library, old National Junior College were featured. What surprised me most were structures I never knew existed! Take for example National Snow Factory (1979 – 1993) at Bedok North Road and Singapore Cloud Forest Centre (never built as the architecture was deemed “too modern” for its time). Walking up the stairs, taking a closer look at each exhibit was like attending a history tutorial to me, albeit a more visually appealing one. I took a moment to wonder, why is it suspended in the mid-air? Here’s my novice and humble opinion. Singaporeans are the world’s fastest-walkers. Pace of life is so quick that we are almost certain to miss objects that are not at our eye-level. These buildings, being suspended express how easy Singaporeans have forgotten them. Nostalgia will hit you only when you take 100 steps back to enjoy the full view of the buildings and start to recall the many things that once made up part of our lives

Finally, there is Genevieve Chua’s 15 min video installation, Full Moon & Foxes which tells a dark story of foxes (portrayed by very pretty young ladies) who have lost their innocence. Their expressionless faces are quite haunting at times. To be honest, the video seemed incoherent to me, perhaps due to an error in one of the projectors (there are three projectors). All in all, it failed to stir my feelings as I was trying to decode it throughout the film.

Overall I spent about an hour viewing in the Museum. If you have an hour to spare, I would certainly recommend you to make a trip down!

National Museum of Singapore

21 Aug – 3 Jan 2010

Free Admisison

For more details, visit: http://www.nationalmuseum.sg/nms/nms_html/nms_content_6c.asp?content_template=4&content_id=11&tab_id=11&cine_id=1598&fest_id=0