Singapore–June 13, 2023
My destination for the day was the National Gallery of Singapore. I was looking forward to an exciting museum of modern art. Instead, it came across as boring, stodgy, and fusty. Part of this might be that it was located in the former Supreme Court building, which gives it an air of a library where you get hushed every time you speak above a whisper.1
First, this collection from Liu Kuo-Sung
Do you see a theme here?
Another exhibit, Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia was also a real snoozer...
Until I got to this amazing work, Crossing the Farther Shore (2014) by Dinh Q. Le, consisting of found photographs and hand-written cards:
This display, Tabled (2013) by Yee I-Lann, which consists of ceramic rimmed flat plates with digital decal prints, was also noteworthy:
Other artwork:
Lee Boon Wang - Before the Moment of Painting (1959)
Lim Mu Hue - Self-Portrait (1963)
Pig Farm
Closeup of pigs
Joseph McNally - Agonising Form (1973)
Vincent Leow - The Artist’s Urine (1993-1994)
The next two pictures are a study for, and the actual work: Study of Three Theros Flasks (1961) by M. Faizal Fadil. From the description of the work:
Faizal Fadil, a young member of the Artists Village, bought these flasks from Sungei Road flea market and asserted them as a sculpture.By this simple gesture of the artist, these mass-produced everyday objects ere transinformed into art in a museum setting—an allusion to avant-garde atist Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the “readymade”. This action was at the centre of a heated public debate: Is this art?
The following pictures (and this video) are reactions to a ban on performance art in 1994. The jacket is by Tang Da Wu; the work is titled Don’t Give Money to the Arts (1995). The description reads: This is a relic from a performance by Tang Da Wu at the inaguruation fo a major art fetival in 1995, involving then President Ong Tang Cheong. Tang asked for the president’s permission to don this jacket, then presented him with a letter which read: “I am an artist. I am important.“ This is one of Tang’s most iconic works and engages with issue confronting the practice of art in Singapore.
Museum Area
There are some painted benches near the museum that have the text of the National Pledge on them:
Other Pictures
I have no idea what NDP is.
Outside Funan Mall (near City Hall metro stop)
Taken on roof of National Gallery
This is one of the few store signs I saw in Tamil (one of Singapore’s four official languages).
The site for GIFFest is really cool.
I don’t think “OG” stands for “Original Gangsta“ here...
Mini-cans of Red Bull
Not everything in Singapore is squeaky clean.
1If my late brother Steve had been with me, we would have livened up the place with the loudest, most obnoxious conversation we could have had in an affected Southern accent: