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1965 (p
SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
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Closing on 22 Aug | City Hall Wing, Level 3, Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery
Something New Must Turn Up: Six Singaporean Artists After 1965 is a joint exhibition of six solo presentations that explore and compare the artistic practices of Singaporean artists Chng Seok Tin (莊心珍), Goh Beng Kwan (吴珉权), Jaafar Latiff, Lin Hsin Hsin (林欣欣), Mohammad Din Mohammad ( ) and Eng Tow (杜瑛). Each of them actively expanded the boundaries of art in post-independence Singapore by striving to be continuously new. They all undertook explorations in diverse media, ranging from collage, printmaking and installation to batik, textiles and digital art.
Installation view of Chng Seok Tin: Drawn Through a Press. Installation view of Goh Beng Kwan: Nervous City. Installation view of Jaafar Latiff: In the Time of Textile.
CHNG SEOK TIN: Drawn Through a Press
Chng Seok Tin (1946–2019) was extremely prolific over the last six decades, and has become synonymous with printmaking in Singapore, in spite of the loss of clear vision due to an accident in 1988. She lived in various cities across Europe and North America, before returning back to Singapore and was involved in numerous group exhibitions both abroad and at home. GOH BENG KWAN: Nervous City
Goh Beng Kwan (1937–) was one of the earliest post-war artists in Singapore to travel to the United States to pursue an art education at the Art Students League of New York. Today, Goh is recognised for his contributions in collage, particularly for using cultural materials and motifs to explore issues around cultural representation, urbanism, and identity. JAAFAR LATIFF: In the Time of Textile
Jaafar Latiff (1937–2007) was an abstract artist known for his trailblazing approach in renewing the batik medium. A selftaught artist, he was also a lifelong art educator teaching in institutions such as Baharuddin Vocational Institute, LASALLE College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. He integrated the conventional techniques of batik with his abstract style, invigorating the medium for a contemporary audience.
CLOSING ON 22 AUG
Installation view of Lin Hsin Hsin @ speedofthought. Copyright © 2021. Lin Hsin Hsin. All Rights Reserved. Mobile~tainment®, Frog®. Installation view of Mohammad Din Mohammad: The Mistaken Ancestor. Installation view of Eng Tow–the sixth sense.
LIN HSIN HSIN @speed of thought
Lin Hsin Hsin (林欣欣) is an IT visionary and inventor as well as an artist, poet and composer. She has explored diverse media in her five-decade-long career, and is most noted for her ground-breaking forays into media tools and techniques. Ahead of her own time, she launched the first virtual museum in the world in 1994 and made the decisive move to discard traditional ways of painting by creating new technological paradigms since 1994. MOHAMMAD DIN MOHAMMAD: The Mistaken Ancestor
Mohammad Din Mohammad (1955–2007) studied at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. He was an artist, traditional healer, guru silat (Malay martial arts master), writer and collector of Southeast Asian objects. Above all he was a Sufi mystic. This mystical form of Islam deeply informed all aspects of his life and art. His artworks harnessed the different facets of Sufi mysticism for the rejuvenation of the human body and spirit in contemporary Singapore. ENG TOW–the sixth sense
Eng Tow (1947–) is an interdisciplinary artist whose works span diverse media from cloth, paper to bronze. Her knowledge and dexterity with these materials stems from the experiences she has accumulated through a life of extensive travel–from her studies in the United Kingdom where she gained a firm grounding in the Bauhaus praxis, to her overseas residencies. Drawn to the ever-changing character of nature, many of her works manifest and channel the metaphysical beauty and inexplicable forces around us.
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SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
WU GUANZHONG: LEARNING FROM THE MASTER
Ongoing | City Hall Wing, Level 4, Wu Guanzhong Gallery
Wu Guanzhong with students from the Central Academy of Art and Design’s Department of Graphic Design 1977 class, on one of their outdoor drawing trips to Shanhai Pass, October 1978. Image courtesy of Zhang Peng.
Wu Guanzhong (1919–2010) is one of the most significant Chinese painters of the 20th century, renowned for his innovative fusion of Chinese aesthetic elements with Western modernism. He is also acclaimed as an educator, sharing his artistic practices and philosophies with students at leading art educational institutions in China over a teaching career that spanned more than 40 years.
Wu Guanzhong: Learning from the Master invites you into the intimate dialogues between Wu and his students at the Central Academy of Art and Design on their creative journeys, as they explored techniques, aesthetic sensibilities and more. The exhibition investigates for the first time Wu’s philosophies of art and pedagogy through manuscripts, art journals, sketchbooks, photographs and drawings by the master and his students.
Wu Guanzhong with students from the Central Academy of Art and Design’s Department of Ceramics 1977 class, on one of their outdoor drawing trips to Juyong Pass and Badaling, September 1978. Digital Collection of National Gallery Singapore, with kind permission from Wu Keyu. RC-CH1-WGZ1-121.
This is the fifth exhibition in the Wu Guanzhong series, launched in 2015. It continues the explorations into Wu’s life and practice undertaken in the previous exhibitions Beauty Beyond Form (2015), A Walk through Nature (2017), Expressions of Pen & Palette (2018), and Art Nurtures Life (2019).
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SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
GEORGETTE CHEN: AT HOME IN THE WORLD
Closing 26 Sep | City Hall Wing, Level 4 Gallery and Wu Guanzhong Gallery
Georgette Chen. East Coast Vendor. 1960. Oil on canvas. 92 × 73 cm.
Uncover the fascinating story of Georgette Chen, a key figure in the development of modern art in Singapore. The first museum retrospective of the artist in more than 20 years, this exhibition features her most significant works alongside a wealth of newly discovered archival materials.
CLOSING ON 22 SEP ON 26 SEP
Get the most out of your visit Access additional content to enhance your experience.
Listen to an audio tour To mark its fifth anniversary, the Gallery is extending the positive impact of art to diverse communities. Audio tours of the exhibition are available in Singapore’s four national languages – English, 中文, Bahasa Melayu and தமிழ். Download the Gallery explorer app or visit nationalgallery.sg/georgettechen to access the audio tours.
Converse with a chatbot Gain a deeper insight into the artist and her works by engaging in a dialogue with Chatbot Arthena. Combining artificial intelligence with guided conversations, the chatbot is accessible before, during and after your visit. Search for “Chatbot Arthena” in Facebook Messenger or visit m.me/chatbotarthena to chat with Arthena.
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SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
NEW
Organised by the Singapore Art Museum
Opens 20 Aug | City Hall Wing, Level B1, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery
Gabriel Barredo One 1999 Mixed media 69.5 × 57.7 × 17.4 cm Collection of Singapore Art Museum
The Gift is one of four exhibitions to emerge from Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories, a curatorial dialogue between four museums in Europe and Southeast Asia. The presentation examines the nature of relations, affinities, and influence through the subject of gifting. The gesture of giving and return is both familiar and ambiguous. The Gift explores the tangible and intangible in the offer, which is at once an embodiment of the expansiveness of the spirit and an obligation to another.
Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories is a collaborative venture between Singapore Art Museum, Galeri Nasional Indonesia, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum and Nationalgalerie — Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, initiated by the Goethe-Institut. The exhibitions are curated by June Yap, Grace Samboh, Gridthiya Gaweewong and Anna-Catharina Gebbers.
OUTBOUND
Ongoing | Various locations nationalgallery.sg/outbound #outboundsg
Gary Carsley (b. 1957, Australia) with Jeremy Chu (b. 1973, Singapore) at their co-created installation The Regency Made Me Blind (2018), an OUTBOUND commission by National Gallery Singapore. Laser print on photocopier paper, latex print on self-adhesive vinyl, UV print on backlit film rendered as mechanised roller blinds, UV laminated C-print applied to IKEA Gilbert chair.
An OUTBOUND commission by National Gallery Singapore.
This stairway “garden” is made with digitally composited photographs of botanical gardens in Hanoi, Manila, Bogor, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, all of which have colonial origins. Bands of colours mimicking Regency era stripes were later superimposed on the images. These were then printed on roller blinds, self-adhesive vinyl and more than 5,000 sheets of coloured A4 photocopier paper that the artists reverently applied to the walls. This meditative labour is inspired by the meticulous gold leafing of the interiors of sacred places, and is also evoked by the Tibetan Buddhist mantras on the walls which symbolically cleanse passing visitors of negative karma.
OUTBOUND is a series of unique commissions that imaginatively transforms transitionary spaces at the Gallery. Each commission is an artistic and temporal landmark that anchors and guides the visitor’s experience while highlighting the Gallery’s iconic architecture. The inaugural season presents projects from artists Gary Carsley (Australia), Jeremy Chu (Singapore), Jane Lee (Singapore), Haegue Yang (South Korea) and Yee I-Lann (Malaysia).
