Director’s Message

DIRECTOR’S

MESSAGE

Dear friends,

We welcome 2023 at the Gallery with heady anticipation, as we bring you experiences with art to both enjoy and contemplate.

Kickstart the year with ephemeral encounters with art at the 7th edition of the Light to Night Festival 2023. Spearheaded by the Gallery, the marquee event of Singapore Art Week themed Here and Now explores what it really means to be in the present. The district-wide festival runs from 6 to 26 January 2023 and visitors can expect newly commissioned works by local and international artists that spark timely reflections on issues of today.

Liu Kuo-sung: Experimentation as Method, a large-scale retrospective survey of the modern ink master’s art from the 1950s to 2020, also opens in January. Liu was a force in the modernisation of Chinese ink painting and captivating works in this exhibition showcase the breadth and depth of the artist’s distinctive practice. His texture-based methods, including his innovation, “Liu Kuo-sung paper,” catalysed the development of modern Chinese ink painting and is necessary viewing for lovers of art and art history.

Trace parallel art historical developments through the changing roles and myriad histories of photography in Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia. A groundbreaking exhibition of photography of the region, it underscores how artists have wielded the camera to represent everything from key historical moments to everyday living and photography’s contemporary significance through a photograph’s many lives after the moment of its capture.

Catch Nothing is Forever: Rethinking Sculpture in Singapore before it closes in February. This display of three-dimensional art has enthralled visitors with over 70 surprising works spanning religious, participative, installative and even performative forms, capturing the shifting ideas and expanding possibilities for modern sculpture in Singapore and beyond.

Our beloved Gallery Children’s Biennale, which won the Outstanding Leisure Event award at the Singapore Tourism Awards 2022, also concludes at the end of February. Be sure to bring your families for a fun-filled day of art and activities that nurture critical thinking skills in children and inspire creativity in the young and young at heart.

We hope you too look forward to our array of festivals, exhibition and programmes happening in 2023, including compelling exhibitions of art from the region and our next edition of the Children’s Biennale, all to bring impactful and invaluable experiences of art to you.

We wish you a brilliant start to this brand new year.

Eugene Tan

Director, National Gallery Singapore