Sunday, November 30, 2008.
I walked into the Singapore Art Museum today. I saw two exhibitions that really made an impact.
Exhibition One:
HEARTLANDS: Home and Nation in the Art of Ong Kim Seng
"Always the structures," she thinks. "Always the buildings and how good, how tall, how new, how old they are. Men and their buildings. Man and build-ings."
She approached the painting of an apartment level with 2 women and 2 children by the corridor. "Never the person. Always the people. Empty faces, the clothes and family members more identifiers than modifiers."
She stared at the blank peach-coloured oil-on-canvas voids.
"Where am I in all this?"
Exhibition Two:
Transcendence: Modernity and Beyond in Korean Art
Brush by Lee Jung-Woong
Is it typical of my people, that we see grandeur and success in the works of the Others but never in those of our own kind?
Watching the faces of 4 carvings turn to follow me across the room, and reaching out for the handle that isn't there reminded me that these artists are doing more with art, with the artifice that is arguably the nature of art, than any of the local artists I've seen.
The perfunctory disclaimer: I am not a Singaporean art connoisseur. But I am Singaporean. If I cannot relate to Singaporean art as a whole (oh the solipsism implicit in this statement), then how can I acknowledge it as that art of my people?
The pieces that are in this room are not immediately recognised as Korean Art. Nor should they be, in my opinion. They are examples of style, of technique, of above all, creativity. They made me gasp by the sheer novelty of it all.
Looking back, SIngaporean art is dependent on the past. What about the Present? Where are we in local art?
He thought for a while, and brought me back to the first room.
"Look at that. See the shadow on that HDB apartment? The impressions of the past haunt the now modern neighbourhood. It's a cool idea."
She studied the transparent grey buffalo ploughing on the side of the building. Impressions.
"Yes but it's all the same thing recycled isn't it? Everything is from the past. Why do we put so much of our identity in the past? This is not my past, neither is it yours."
"Yes but to the people of a certain age, it is theirs. Maybe the artists of our time are not interested in the past no more are they interested in us. Maybe they're happier with their grafitti and their pseudo-modernist sculptures next to shiny buildings."
Hence, the challenge begins.
http://sgblogs.com/blog/singapore-heritage-museums-nostalgia-blog-yesterday/620>
Exhibition One:
HEARTLANDS: Home and Nation in the Art of Ong Kim Seng
"Always the structures," she thinks. "Always the buildings and how good, how tall, how new, how old they are. Men and their buildings. Man and build-ings."
She approached the painting of an apartment level with 2 women and 2 children by the corridor. "Never the person. Always the people. Empty faces, the clothes and family members more identifiers than modifiers."
She stared at the blank peach-coloured oil-on-canvas voids.
"Where am I in all this?"
Exhibition Two:
Transcendence: Modernity and Beyond in Korean Art
Brush by Lee Jung-Woong
Is it typical of my people, that we see grandeur and success in the works of the Others but never in those of our own kind?
Watching the faces of 4 carvings turn to follow me across the room, and reaching out for the handle that isn't there reminded me that these artists are doing more with art, with the artifice that is arguably the nature of art, than any of the local artists I've seen.
The perfunctory disclaimer: I am not a Singaporean art connoisseur. But I am Singaporean. If I cannot relate to Singaporean art as a whole (oh the solipsism implicit in this statement), then how can I acknowledge it as that art of my people?
The pieces that are in this room are not immediately recognised as Korean Art. Nor should they be, in my opinion. They are examples of style, of technique, of above all, creativity. They made me gasp by the sheer novelty of it all.
Looking back, SIngaporean art is dependent on the past. What about the Present? Where are we in local art?
He thought for a while, and brought me back to the first room.
"Look at that. See the shadow on that HDB apartment? The impressions of the past haunt the now modern neighbourhood. It's a cool idea."
She studied the transparent grey buffalo ploughing on the side of the building. Impressions.
"Yes but it's all the same thing recycled isn't it? Everything is from the past. Why do we put so much of our identity in the past? This is not my past, neither is it yours."
"Yes but to the people of a certain age, it is theirs. Maybe the artists of our time are not interested in the past no more are they interested in us. Maybe they're happier with their grafitti and their pseudo-modernist sculptures next to shiny buildings."
Hence, the challenge begins.
http://sgblogs.com/blog/singapore-heritage-museums-nostalgia-blog-yesterday/620>
one banana, two banana, three banana four at 11:26 PM