Singapore- The Singapore Art Museum, a converted school, opens a new wing dedicated to contemporary art this week in a building across the street, also a former school. The opening exhibition will be about school.
The new section, called 8Q sam -- the name derived from the address, 8 Queen`s Street -- promises all the things associated with avant-garde contemporary art: multidisciplinary, interactive, community-orientated performance, new media. Many of these have been the hallmark of a Singaporean group called the Artists Village, which set up in an old chicken farm 20 years ago and then spent much of its life being evicted from one building after another and living on the fringe of Singapore`s art community.
Now, the Artists Village has a retrospective in the main galleries of the Singapore Art Museum and the nation`s young stars have the inaugural show at 8Q. Even in Singapore, home-grown contemporary artists have hit the mainstream.
“I`ve always been particularly concerned about the growth of contemporary art in Singapore,” said Jane Ittogi, the museum`s newly appointed chairwoman, at a preview yesterday. She said that contemporary art is a “reflection of what we are. We want to see what the fruit of our political and commercial labor is.”
It`s not hard to see why members of the Artists Village didn`t fit Singapore`s clean image of the past. Vincent Leow`s 1993 work ``Artist`s Urine (Bottle)`` followed a performance in which he urinated into a cup and drank the contents. The 25 samples subsequently bottled for sale (one of which is on display), bear the phrase ``Product of Singapore`` on the label.
Fabric and Sound
8Q opens tomorrow with an exhibition by eight local artists and eight curators titled ``8Q-Rate: School.`` Exhibits are based on the school theme and vary from a video installation of artist Tan Kai Syng rolling around on the floor to Grace Tan`s fabric- and-material installation.
Listen for the strange background sound composed by Chong Li- Chuan which uses devices that vibrate the revamped building`s glass panels to produce noise. The droning, pulsing sound recalls the song sung each morning by primary-school children years ago.
``It`s my old school song,`` Chong, 33, said at the preview. ``It`s always been a schoolboy fantasy to rework that.``
``The Artists Village: 20 Years On`` runs through Oct. 5 at SAM on Bras Basah Road. ``8Q-Rate`` is on until Jan. 9, 2009. Information: +65-6332-3222.
For a glimpse of contemporary Indian art, Art mosaic gallery opens the third of its ``Fusion`` series of exhibitions today at the MICA building on Hill Street. Among the works are paintings by Prokash Karmakar, Babu Xavier, Sachida Nagdev, Joydip Sengupta, M. Suriyamoorthy and the ceramics of Madhvi Subrahmanian. Prices for the paintings range from S$900 ($641) to S$11,000. Information: +65-6336-6406.
The endless search for new, young Chinese artists continues at Art Seasons, with an exhibition, starting Aug. 16, of nine youngsters born in the 1970s and `80s in Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou. Prices start at S$8,000 and rise to S$40,000. The gallery is in the Eunos Technolink building at Kaki Bukit Road 1. Information: +65-6741-6366.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com (14 Agustus 2008)