Director’s Message

DIRECTOR’S

MESSAGE

Dear friends,

Art has always been a way in which artists both respond to and shape the contexts in which they live and work, revealing facets of society and culture most poignantly expressed through aesthetic means.

Our new exhibition, Something New Must Turn Up: Six Singaporean Artists After 1965, opens on 7 May, and features six different artists—Chng Seok Tin, Goh Beng Kwan, Jaafar Latiff, Lin Hsin Hsin, Mohammad Din Mohammad and Eng Tow—whose practices are united by a desire to construct a uniquely Singaporean cultural identity in a time of immense social, political, and artistic changes. The works of these six artists not only pushed the boundaries of modern art then, but expand our understanding of this period in Singapore’s history now.

Our ongoing Art + Live: Resonates With series similarly foregrounds responses, albeit to the contemporary, by young and professional musicians to the world in which we find ourselves today through personal interpretations of artworks and exhibitions in the Gallery. Over the course of the next two months, Art + Live performances will draw on the Gallery’s longterm exhibitions, Siapa Nama Kamu?: Art in Singapore since the 19th Century and Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th Century, as well as the Gallery Children’s Biennale 2021. These performances will be streamed online, allowing you to enjoy them wherever you are.

The theme of the Gallery Children’s Biennale 2021, “Why Art Matters,” reminds us that this engagement with the wider world can begin at any age. Designed to take families on a shared and wondrous journey of discovery, the Biennale presents nine artists from Singapore and Southeast Asia whose works center on themes of home, environment, time, and diversity. The Biennale’s new hybrid format will first kick off online, then onsite with the launch of physical artworks in the Gallery later in the year. Both thematic focus and hybrid format of the Biennale truly underscore the concerns of the day.

Whether you are experiencing our exhibitions and festivals in person or online, we hope you and your loved ones continue to enjoy and discover art with the Gallery.

Wishing you and your family good health,

Eugene Tan

Director, National Gallery Singapore