Currently at the Singapore Art Museum

SAM

Is It Tomorrow Yet? – Highlights from the Daimler Art Collection
27 Nov ‘08 – 1 Mar ‘09

An extensive showcase of Daimler’s art collection. This traveling exhibition currently takes over the space used to display the museum’s permanent collection. Mostly modern contemporary art from the last 80 years or so with emphasis on minimalism, Bauhaus, and the like.

Recommended route: start from Gallery 1.3 (oldest works, basis of the collection), then go upstairs to cover Galleries 2.1 – 2.6 and finish in Gallery 1.1 (latest works). Not to be missed.

Transcendence: Modernity and Beyond in Korean Art
8 Nov ‘08 – 15 Mar ‘09

The exhibition examines Korean contemporary art development over the last five decades and features over 40 works by 12 artists. I like this one, especially the earlier works.

Recommended route: start from Gallery 1.10 (across the courtyard, near the glass hall), climb the stairs up to level 2, and don’t miss the gallery on the 3rd floor (just follow the arrow).

APAD: Tradition, Innovation and Continuity
13 Dec ‘08 – 5 Apr ‘09

This exhibition showcases works by current and former members of APAD (Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya), a society of artists with Malay heritage founded 46 years ago.

The galleries are quite hard to find, make sure you cover Galleries 2.8 – 2.10 and take the lift next to 2.8 up to level 3.

8Qsam

This is Not a Print!
10 Jan ‘09 – 26 Jul ‘09

A play on Magritte’s “Ceci nes’t pas une pipe” – this exhibition features a selection of over 70 multiples and prints from the SAM Tyler Art Collection; presented to the museum from master printer Kenneth Tyler’s collection in conjunction with the inception of the Singapore Tyler Print Institute. Don’t miss works by Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, and Roy Lichstenstein.

More People Should Know About This Place

The NUS Museum.

Yes, NUS has a Museum. For those working or studying in NUS and still now realise that the campus has a museum, go there now!

It’s located inside the University Cultural Centre Building, which also happen to house a theatre with a Conservatory located right next to it. The building is located at the first entrance to NUS from AYE, you can’t miss it.

The museum has three levels of exhibition galleries (again, not many people realise this). The street level main gallery currently houses great example of Southeast Asian art, including paintings, prints, and sculptures. There are also 2 other galleries adjoined to it, each housing running exhibitions.

In the bottom level you can see a collection of historic chinese artifacts and also gifts & donations, most of them chinese calligraphy. The top level of the museum houses Ng Eng Teng’s sculptures, displayed chronologically from his early years up to his latest works.

A nice find is La Libreria, a small cute bookshop behind the frosted glass doors on the top level. The bookshop features limited edition artist books and book arts. They also run a bookbinding workshop every Saturday.

It’s a pity that not many people realise the museum’s existence, as it is located quite far from major art schools or gallery clusters. For those who’ve not been there, go there. For those who’ve been there, go more often!

Exhibitions currently displayed at the NUS museum:

Lee Kong Chian Collection: ways of seeing Chinese art
Ng Eng Teng Collection: sculpting life
South & Southeast Asian Collection
Archives & Desires: selections from the Mohammad din Mohammad collection
Mapping the Corporeal: Ronald Ventura
Bound for Glory: Wong Hoy Cheong

My Maiden Tour

It was my maiden guiding experience at the museum today at 3.30pm. I was nervous the whole morning and kept rereading my tour paper. How could I forget what I myself wrote? I’m proud to say that almost no part of my tour paper was copy-pasted from my references! That’s even better than my papers and reports in university. Hahahah. I guess they’re right to say that love and passion makes you do things you don’t usually do (like read 5 books to write out 3 sentences in 2 hours).

I tried to go out a bit earlier so I could go round the museum on my own first, as I haven’t visited the artworks in quite some time, so I kinda lost the connection there. The galleries are actually bigger than I’ve been visualising in my head the past few weeks! That provided some relief in the claustrophobic area.

One of my biggest worry was that my tour would fall short of the 1-hour slot, as I do have a tendency to be bad at elaborating. But I was so glad that when I looked at my watch at the end of the tour – it was exactly 1 hour long! To be honest, I didn’t do a practice run through to make sure it was exactly an hour long, so I’m lucky that way. Hooray for me!

My mentor Kee Huat was very patient and helpful, too. The way he speaks remind me of an experienced paediatrician. I’m so glad it’s over, I’m happy about it, and I can’t wait to bring more people around the museum! Any takers?

Free Entry to Singapore’s Museums

In celebration of the National Heritage Board’s 15th Anniversary
Date: 1-15 August 2008
Time: everyday after 3.00pm
Venue: all NHB museums

This one’s not widely publicised (I’m not sure why), but another thing to watch out for is the opening of the new wing of the Singapore Art Museum at Queen Street on 15 August. It’s just next to the main building, behind POSB and opposite the church of St. Peter & Paul – it’s currently still under construction, though. But seems almost done. And in November there’s going to be the Highlights from the Daimler Art Collection (1908-2008 ) exhibition. This one is a major exhibition that’ll be pretty exciting!

Trip to Singapore Tyler Print Institute workshop

Last week, the group of Museum Volunteer trainees went for a very educational tour to the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI). It’s officially our field trip, and they’re showing prints made by Matisse (never seen before outside France!). I heard that we were supposed to go to the Heritage Conservation Centre in Jurong, where they store and conserve stuff collection from NHB museums, but cancelled since they’re doing renovation works and are closed for visits for the time being. Other than the tour of the Matisse exhbition, there was also a talk on his biography, and also a tour of STPI’s workshop. I find that the workshop tour was funner than the talk! But don’t tell! Anyway, here’s a few snaps of the workshop (we were not allowed to take photos in the Gallery)

The biggest press you can find in Asia (or Southeast Asia?)

This is where you grind your slabs of stone for lithographs

They make their own paper to ensure quality, and also the artists can then play around with the texture, form, and colour of the paper they intend to use themselves

Pretty pretty rollers. They remind me of kebabs.

For Batik prints. Was kinda surprised to see these here, but hey – it’s for PRINTING

Color swatches on the wall

Artists’ work counter, with bottles of dyes

Work boots, found them cutely arranged like this

More of the pretty rollers, hand rollers

Cans of lithography ink

Art for Today – Jacques Lipchitz

This write-up was done for my first presentation for the Singapore Art Museum training. I’ve never heard of his name before I had to do this write-up on him. We all learn something new everyday

Jacques Lipchitz (1891 – 1973)

The influential 20^th century sculptor Jacques Lipchitz was born in Lithuania in 1891 into a Jewish family. At first he studied engineering, but at age 18, with the support of his mother and the dismay of his father, he moved to Paris to study art. In 1914 he joined a group of artists which included Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso. This environment played a great role in influencing Lipchitz into adopting cubism in his work and rejecting his earlier, more classical style.

The authority in Cubism is generally considered to be in painting, but unlike other artists such as Picasso and Braque, Lipchitz did not dabble in painting but worked exclusively in sculptures (of course discounting his preparatory sketches and gouaches). Lipchitz was the first sculptor to embrace cubism completely and pioneered nonrepresentational sculptures. Other cubist artists also experimented with three-dimensional cubist constructions, but Lipchitz consistently worked with traditional methods and materials in delivering Cubist ideas.

Man with Guitar, 1920, Bronze

One of the preoccupations of sculptors after the First World War was monumental pieces. Having created works for indoor environments, Lipchitz was working out how the same principles could be applied to outdoor, monumental sculptures. Man with Guitar (1920) is one result of his preoccupation with the monumental.

The sculpture combines two different views of a guitarist out of which a third, otherworldly bird-like profile emerge. Unlike any of his previous works, it is angular, blocky, masculine, and generates a sense of bulk. Its abbreviated forms are reduced into tightly integrated blocks. The sculptor said of his work:

“… is now completely frontalized, composed of massive, integrated blocks. I even eliminated the shaft of the guitar, squaring off the body and integrating it completely with the torso of the figure. The asymmetrical staring eyes give to the figure a peculiar sense of almost hypnotic power which emphasizes its specific human personality.”

Standing at only 53cm tall, it was initially visioned to be elevated on a pedestal. Lipchitz dubbed this and other small-scale works “easel sculptures”.

In the late 1920’s, Lipchitz’ style started to shift away from cubism as he got more interested in the curves of the human form. Under the German occupation of France in World War II and their persecution toward Jews, Lipchitz moved to U.S. This was where he renewed his style and introduced underlying lyrical and spiritual ideas in his work.

Sources and Readings:

Putz, Catherine. 2002. Jacques Lipchitz: the First Cubist Sculptor. London: Paul Holbertson Publishing.

Wilkinson, Alan G. 1996. The Sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz: a Catalogue Raissone Vol.1, the Paris Years 1910-1914. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.

Jacques Lipchitz: Biography. http://www.answers.com/topic/jacques-lipchitz?cat=entertainment

Marlborough Gallery, NY. http:// www.marlboroughgallery.com/artists/lipchitz/Lipchitz%20pr-2007.pdf

Jacques Lipchitz: His Life in Sculpture. 1972. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol.30, No.6. pp.284-288.

Singapore Night Festival 2008 – Week 1

It’s Monday and my fingers are having the blues so I won’t be typing out much but I’ll just paste some photos we took at the first weekend of Night Fest. Enjoy!

ps: for those of you wondering, my camera is a compact Fujifilm F100fd. And I love it!

The National Museum of Singapore, note the dancing couple in the middle

Sailing ship and dancer suspended in the air from wires

Extreme piano playing

Part of the crowd and a line of local girls in gigantic skirts on wheels

Giant luminescent ball – can’t really see it here but there’s a dancer suspended in the centre of the sphere

The moon (I assume) and two ladies

Dancers suspended from some really pretty balloons

Another view of the balloons – personally the red one is my favorite

Classical-style faces projected onto a screen of fine mist from a sprinkler

Water dance, a bit like gymnastics with goldfish in a bowl

Fire dance, ladies in nighties with pyromaniac tendencies

Fire umbrella, patent pending – waiting for scientific proof that spinning fiery spokes will keep you dry

Singapore Night Festival

Date: 18 – 26 July 2008

Venue: National Museum, SMU lawn, and its vicinity

Time: at night

There’s gonna be some fun happening the next two weekends. Singapore is holding a Night Festival which includes performances spectacular (imported, of course) some outdoor Zouk-ing and a slew of other performances and installations.

The Italian aerial Performance, The Dancing Sky by Studi Festi, will be on 18 and 19 July at 9.00pm at the National Museum with a second performance at 11.30pm. It’s gonna involve suspended stuff and people flying around. There are also other performances around the venue.

The highlight on 25 and 26 July is the Zouk Beatnik Picnic outdoor party (do I hear PARTY? Yeah!!!!) A number of heritage-related events will be held in museums and and vicinity, and watch out for the light installation that will paint the facades of the National Museum and the Art Museum. They’re also going to screen (the John Travolta) Hairspray and Willy Wonka (the 1971 version) outdoors, under the huge banyan tree outside the National Museum.

And.. and.. they’re all FREE!!!! And the 5 museums in the civic district (Asian Civilisation, National, Peranakan, Art, Philatelic) will be open to the public until 2.00am on both weekends the 25th, and.. and.. it’s FREE admission from 6.00pm onwards! Now how cool is that?

I picked up a pamphlet with all the performance schedule but apparently they don’t have an online version of it. The National Museum website lists the programmes but the website isn’t really that friendly – but anyway it’s better than nothing, so if you wanna know more you can visit their website then click on the Night Festival link at the bottom of the page and then click on the respective dates to view the programme line-up.

An Eventful Weekend and More

FRIDAY

Went to the Singapore Art Museum to catch Ket Noi, a performance art event by Vietnamese and Singaporean artists. Four artists performed on Friday, started with something that involved the artist being whipped by a red scarf (missed the start, was watching this video about Giacometti in SAM), then a ‘Silent Conductor’ (or something to that effect), where the artist conducted silence, poured water into her left ear, turned her back to the audience and started howling, and then a woman’s temple where water was transported with nothing but bare hands as an offering. The last one was where art books and magazines were put into a washing machine. Also met some of Billy’s friends there, Angie, Sherman, and a few others. Also Ken, who seem to be the only ADM staff I know who attend openings. He was taking photos of people taking photos of the event.

Have you ever been in somewhere really nice and captivating and pleasant but then something/one ugly enters your field of vision and you just can’t help staring? Well, during one of the performances there was this lady who apparently wore G-string with really tight jeans. She squatted down and I happen to be standing right behind here. What happened was a bad case of plumber’s crack. When she squatted, the waist of her jeans slipped right to almost the end of her ass and we could see not only her panties’ waistband but also the (what do you call it?) vertical part of the G-string right to the end of her ass. Another millimeter and I bet her jeans would just fall off. Eyes traumatized, I went home and tried to forget all about it.

SATURDAY

It’s Ririn & Henry’s wedding in the morning, at the Bukit Batok Presbyterian Church. They’ve been going out for ever and whenever we ask her when they’re getting married, she always replied “Still very loonggggggg”. And then one day we received an invitation to their wedding, just a month before! Sneaky! And they’ve bought a flat! Which means they’ve been planning for this for long! Sneaky! So here’s us and the happy couple..

We went back to town on the train, and when we stepped into the train at Jurong East, this lady stood up from her seat and offered it to me! OMG, SHE MUST’VE THOUGHT I WAS PREGNANT!!!! I’M NOT THAT FAT! We laughed until tears rolled and I didn’t dare to turn my back and look at the lady – I assume she’s embarrassed – and we laughed some more. I dried up my tears and tried hard to stop laughing. But then Aldo was still laughing after so long. So we started laughing again. And more tears rolled.

Since there’s no training at the museum today, I met up with Billy after the wedding and went for a walk around the city. We dropped by the Arts House – which is Singapore’s former Parliament House – to check out what’s on and went into the chamber and tried to experience how it’s like to stand at the podium and talk to the whole parliament.

Then we went to the Asian Civilisation Museum. Last time I went there was maybe almost 2 years back. I remember liking it a lot, but now the place just seem so big and empty and dark and scary. But I had fun nonetheless. They have lots of interactive exhibits and we tried on costumes and learned how to play middle-eastern drum. I wanted to take pictures of the deities, but I was afraid that it works like how it works in Java’s Keratons (palaces) – your film won’t develop when you take pictures of sacred objects – I personally have never tried it but just to be on the safe side of my brand new $500 toy, I refrained from it. I found out that Jamiroquai got his inspiration from Torajan warriors:

SUNDAY

Checked out the newly opened 9km track from Mount Faber, through Henderson Wave and Hort Park. The climb up to Mount Faber from Harbourfront was grueling. It was an almost never ending staircase and that hurt my ass. Or maybe I just need more exercise for my ass. We were lucky that it didn’t rain although the sky was overcast. We could’ve resumed the walk to Kent Ridge Park, but we thought we’d had enough walking for the day and headed to Vivocity for lunch and some shopping instead. Elisa bought a Winnie the Pooh drumset for her niece in Jakarta. So then I went home and watched the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on DVD. It was rather cheesy and it reminds me of Kill Bill. Or rather if I’d watched the Clint Eastwood flick before Kill Bill, I’d say Quentin Tarantino drew his inspiration from TGTBATU.

View from Mount Faber

Henderson Wave

@ Hort Park: this was supposed to be Dorothy from Wizard of Oz with her dog, Toto. There were other characters form the movie, too. Made out of scraps. And there’s the witch (blond!) who popped out of a field of flowers, it was successfully creepy.

MONDAY

I took Monday off to enjoy some of Singapore’s nature. We went to Pulau Ubin in the morning. By mistake we took a bus from Lavender MRT to Changi Village. Was a veerryy longgg rideeee… We didn’t have to wait for other passangers at the jetty, as it’s school holidays and quite a number of people went to Ubin. We were tired from the walk at Mt Faber the day before, so we didn’t stay too long at Ubin. It’s pretty interesting to see this side of Singapore which looks more like spectacles from road trip out from Jakarta. We cycled to Check Jawa, get some tan lines on my feet from the scorching sun, watch the crabs with huge right claws fight for women and teritorry (When they fight with their claws they make this obscene gesture.. if you watch the South Park episode where they parodied 300 you’ll get what I mean) and had lunch and cycled a bit more and fed the turtles at the temple, and we went back to Changi Village. We felt old. We had to push our bikes up steep slopes, while other people happily pedal up.. But then I like to blame it on the $8/day bike – stupid gears don’t work. Bwahahah. Or maybe cheap bikes are just not made to go up inclinations. Anyway the cycling sored up my groin. On the way back, we dropped by the WWII memorial Changi Chapel & Museum. I guess it’s the Singaporean version of Lobang Buaya. While waiting at the bus stop, we saw 3 girls brats, maybe about 13 or 14 years old, smoking and cursing, and one of them very unglamorously spitted out a string of phlegm. I felt like giving them a good kick in the face.

View from Check Jawa

Another view from Check Jawa

This is where we fed the turtles

At Changi Chapel & Museum

Attack of the AT-ATs

Impending Doom! They’re coming! I hope Harisson Ford and whatever-that-guy-who-played-Luke-Skywalker-name-is come to my rescue on the amazing Millennium Falcon!

Anyway, this is the view from the window next to my desk in the office. Those cranes really remind me of those gigantic mammoth(esque) walkers from Star Wars.

Dropped by the NUS museum again after a quick lunch. It’s so nice to be able to immerse myself in culture during lunch break! It’s my 3rd visit there and I’ve just realised that they have another level above! Contains the Ng Eng Teng permanent collection (I must say I love his work! There’s this still life of durian, rambutans and mangosteens from his early years that looks like Georgette Chen’s, I was wondering if they painted the same scene together). I’ll definitely pay more visits to the museum, I haven’t really gone through the iron sculpture from Spanish artist exhibition thingy, so yeah now I have more things to occupy myself during lunch break – other than eating and staring into space. Although the museum is quite small, it’s just never enough to really stare and wonder at everything during lunch break. I’m thinking maybe I should arrange for someone to take me on a tour or something there. That would be really nice.

The museum visit made me happy. But the weather is a bummer. Couple of weeks back it’s been just super hot sunshine. Now it starts to rain almost everyday, too. So in one day, the weather goes like this: cheerful sunny sunrise, dark cloudy skies, half hour drizzle, super hot sun with some rainclouds hanging (which makes it almost unbearably humid), then followed by dissapointing pouring, and stabilises around drizzles/overcast sky until dark.

I think I have a cavity (or more). Better make a dentist appointment ASAP. I hate to imagine that the cavity will grow bigger and start eating into whole teeth, and my jaw, and eventually my whole face.

On another note, France sounds like a nice place to work in. From CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/27/60II/main704571.shtml

“… Like most Frenchmen, Marchand has no guilt about taking so much time off. In fact, it’s the law: full-time workers in France are guaranteed at least five weeks vacation — guaranteed those long lazy days in the sun, and leisurely lunches in outdoor cafes.

On top of the five weeks, there are another dozen public holidays, and a maximum 35-hour work week, with no paid overtime allowed. Managers like Marchand, who work more than 35 hours a week, get more time off.”

A Fun and Informative Saturday

Dropped by the newly opened Peranakan Museum at Armenian Street last Saturday. I can’t remember exactly how long they’ve been closed for renovation. I just remember that I liked being in the former school. It was initially another branch of the Asian Civilisation Museum but I guess they choose to make it more specialised and thus the Peranakan Museum. Honesly, I don’t know if I’m counted as a peranakan. I’m not even too sure about the family’s genealogy. But it’s definitely fun to see those things that we have at home (or keep in boxes) displayed in the museum – our TV table at home was a functioning altar until my Granpa died about 17 years back, and our house is filled with random (straits?) chinese antiquities.

Stumbled upon an interesting place – a small graveyard in the Armenian Church’s yard. Pretty interesting, since I’ve never actually seen any old Christian grave here. Small tombs arranged in 2 curves with some tombstone figures losing their extremeties, no mausoleum or whatnot. But still a nice find, afterall. And apparently the famous Vanda Miss Joaquim (namesake of the Singaporean Orchid) is buried there.

Another interesting find is the Civil Defence Gallery at the pretty (as in, beautiful) old Fire Station opposite Funan (near the Philatelic Museum). Saw some old fire engines there, including a steam-powered one. The second level was less interesting IMO, tho. Contains a replica of an ambulance’s interior, some rescue scenes (including a really boring elevator scene where all you did was look at the level-indicator lights and listen to some woman’s voice telling you that the firefighters are coming to help you at level 18), and hazmat suits.

SAM and The Zoo

The six of us went to visit the Singapore Zoo last weekend. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long enough to enjoy the other half of the zoo – had to attend the SAM Museum Volunteer interview. The training will start end of this month and it sounds like a crash course in Asian Art, and requires us to write papers and all. Sounds like it’s gonna be fun One of the most exciting part of being a guide there would be knowing what most people don’t. Heh heh. So I can *feel* smart. Talking about SAM, tomorrow we’re gonna drop by and visit the Giacometti exhibition, free entrance on Friday evenings. Yeah yeah I know. CHEAP :p

Anyway, back to the zoo – we bought 2 in 1 tickets which includes a pass to the night safari. We don’t have to do them both on the same day, so we’re planning to do “Zoo part deux: Night Safari” this weekend. Aldo mentioned that they’re open at 6 but the animals will only be out at 7.30 – Shenanigans, I say! Shenanigans!

Letting Nature Take its Course

Hmm… Anatomically Accurate, yes?