Art Stage Singapore seems to have established itself as that annual January event to kickstart the region’s art engine. If Art Stage itself met with mixed reviews, this year Singapore had a lot to offer outside the fair as well. Right now, there’s the APB Foundation Signature Art Prize Finalists, ‘Still Moving’, and ‘Medium At Large’ exhibitions at Singapore Art Museum, a solo exhibition of Suzann Victor’s work from her residency at STPI, La Salle College of the Arts’ 30th Anniversary exhibition ‘Modern Love’, and a good collection of exhibitions at Artspace@Helutrans (Arndt, Galerie Steph, Ikkan, RK Fine Art). Goodman Arts Centre opened its studio doors for an open house; and of course, there was the very successful crowd-pulling ‘Art After Dark’ event at Gillman Barracks, which must have seen a record number of visitors this year – collectors were not pleased having to jostle with the masses, but the not-your-usual-art crowd queueing up to see Gilbert and George, Ding Yi and Rina Banerjee among other excitements, was pretty impressed! Bravo to the organisers – hopefully some of the traffic will keep trickling through to support the galleries at Gillman Barracks.

Two strong photography-based exhibitions we managed to catch were Nguan‘s ‘How Loneliness Goes’ at ION Art Gallery, and ‘A Tree With Too Many Branches’ by Ang Song Nian at DECK managed by 2902.

For Singapore, this is only the beginning, and doubtless we’ll find ourselves down there again this year. We’re looking forward to the opening of The National Gallery of Singapore slated for September/November this year as well as the next edition of Singapore Biennale.

 

ART STAGE SINGAPORE 2015

 

‘STILL MOVING’ AT 8Q, SINGAPORE ART MUSEUM

 

APB FINALISTS EXHIBITION AT SINGAPORE ART MUSEUM

 

EXHIBITIONS OPENINGS AT ARTSPACE@HELUTRANS

 

 

‘IMPRINT’ BY SUZANN VICTOR AT STPI

 

LA SALLE COLLEGE OF THE ARTS’ 30TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION ‘MODERN LOVE’

 

‘A TREE WITH TOO MANY BRANCHES’ BY ANG SONG NIAN AT DECK

 

NGUAN’S ‘HOW LONELINESS GOES’ AT ION ART GALLERY

 

‘ART AFTER DARK’ AT GILLMAN BARRACKS

 

 

OPEN HOUSE AT GOODMAN ARTS CENTRE

 

 

It’s a great time to visit our National Visual Arts Gallery, with two blockbuster retrospectives (Long Thien Shih and Anuar Rashid) and a tight regional exhibition in the Reka Gallery (Immaterial Frontiers), including works by contemporary artists from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

And, also catch the Art-in-a-Book Fair running from 27-30 September, from 10am to 6pm. Our sister bookshop Rogueish will be there!

Popped down to Singapore to catch Yee I-Lann’s Tabled exhibition – her first solo on the island, featuring new works that have been travelling around Europe. The show runs to 7 September – for better pictures, visit the gallery site.

 

Caught two big shows at Singapore Art Museum, Medium at Large and Sensorium 360 [degrees]. Medium at Large is a good opportunity to view some strong new works in the collection. You can download the exhibition guide from the website.

No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, and curated by June Yap, has just opened at the Centre for Contemporary Art at Gillman Barracks, Singapore, following its debut at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and tour to the Asia Society in Hong Kong. The exhibition runs to 20 July 2014.

The artists in the Singapore presentation are:
Amar Kanwar (India), Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo (Indonesia), Bani Abidi (Pakistan), Navin Rawanchaikul (Thailand), Norberto Roldan (The Philippines), Poklong Anading (The Philippines), Reza Afisina (Indonesia), Sheela Gowda (India), Shilpa Gupta (India), Sopheap Pich (Cambodia), Tang Da Wu (Singapore), Tayeba Begum Lipi (Bangladesh), The Otolith Group (United Kingdom), Tran Luong (Vietnam), Tuan Andrew Nguyen (Vietnam) and Vincent Leong (Malaysia).

 

 

Installation shots of our latest project, for Helu-Trans in Singapore: Southeast Asia/Contemporary, the first of a Helu-Trans Collectors series.

We had a wonderful time working with the four private collections involved, and with the Helu-Trans team. Thanks to everyone who came for the opening and panel discussion last weekend, especially friends from Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia.

For more info, see the Exhibition page, and for launch pics, visit us on Facebook. A post-exhibition catalogue will be out early 2014.

 

The 4th Singapore Biennale: If The World Changed. 27 curators, 82 artists and collectives from 13, predominantly from Southeast Asia, at Singapore Art Museum, 8Q, the National Museum and the Peranakan Museum. Go to the Biennale website.

We caught the Biennale in parts during opening week… apologies for the limited pics…

 

 

 

There was an awful lot going on that week.

At Gilman Barracks:

Arin Rungjang at Future Perfect

 

 

At NUS Museum:

 

 

At ICAS:

 

 

At Sculpture Square:

High season in Jogja the weekend of 6th July, with a slew of visitors from Jakarta, Singapore, KL and beyond. artJOG this year is curated by Bambang Toko, with “Marine Culture” as its theme. FX Harsono is showing a major body of new installations at Jogja National Museum. Adeline and Mella Jaarsma co-curated Dobrak! as part of Cemeti Art House’s Turning Targets 25th Anniversary programme, working with 5 pairings of artists and specialist academics and researches exploring collaborative approaches. Ark Galerie has moved to Jogja from Jakarta, just down the road from Langgeng Art Foundation. And I finally visited Sarang – a stunning residency setting and project site for “Office of Contemporary Art”. (BY)

 

 

 

 

 

 

If in Singapore, do try to catch this exhibition at ICAS. The nice attendant may tell you that it’s too philosophical for her and Da Wu may have thrown a veil over the wall text, but what it expresses, to me at least, may just be too true, simple enough and yet too complex for us to swallow. A dark fire among the shiny bright lights that the island state basks under. Situationist Bon Ga runs to 10 April, ICAS closed Mondays. (BY)

 

 

 

 

 

It was well worth the journey out to Kochi to catch this. Inspiring. The official site: http://kochimuzirisbiennale.org/. (BY)

It’s been such a manic end of year, we’ve barely had a moment to blog. So before we step into 2013, a few highlights and events from the past couple of months:

 

1-29 December Euphoria at Numthong Gallery at Aree – breathtaking landscape paintings by Niti Wattuya, some stretching to six metres.

 

8 December-14 April (2013) The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7) at GOMA and QAG Brisbane – we finally made it to APT, now 20 years old, and were glad we did. Many happy reunions with old friends at the opening, and a generally laid-back experience with interesting sights and sounds. We especially enjoyed Kids APT!

1 December VWFA closing party – we bid a sad final farewell to Valentine Willie Fine Art and the Bangsar gallery.

 

26 October-6 January Thai Transience at Singapore Art Museum – last chance to catch this wonderful exhibition of contemporary and traditional art works and objects from Thailand, curated by Apinan Poshyananda, organised as part of Thai CulturalFest.

 

2 November-5 December  Milenko Prvacki: A Survey, 1979 – 2012 at Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (ICAS) – Charles Merewether in his notes to the exhibition describes Milenko Prvacki as “one of the most important painters today” and indeed, this exhibition truly showed there to be a giant among us.

 

7-28 November at VWFA KL Painted Words and Written Paintings: For the Refined and For the Masses – a fitting last solo exhibition at VWFA’s flagship Bangsar gallery. Malaysian painter Liew Kwai Fei has gone in a surprising, interesting new direction, pulling off a show bursting with colourful exuberance, brimming with angry social criticism.

 

1-20 November at TAKSU KL No Talking Points – it was refreshing, in this time of quick fixes, to come across this quietly, carefully thought-out exhibition of challenging paintings and objects by a generation of Pinoy artists of true mettle, including Bernardo Pacquing, Cris Villanueva Jr, Elaine Navas, Hubert San Juan, Juan Alacazaren, Nilo Ilarde, Pete Jimenez, and the younger Lyle Buencamino.

(BY)