Singapore Art Museum | Week 1

09:02 Erika Arabella 0 Comments













   






 


On the first week of school, we went to Singapore Art Museum for inspiration. It's amusing how I visit the place every year and yet it's different all the time. I took pictures of what I felt was interesting and I also tried being photographic (and fancy).
The first exhibition is by a local artist, Dawn Ng. It's a series called *EVERYTHING. 
I personally like it because of the witty words on the images and also because I've never seen anything like that before (which actually applies to almost all the works in SAM).
Picture of the artworks by Dawn Ng.
"EVERYTHING is a series of handcrafted photographic and typography-based collages of home. This work is a tongue-in-cheek visual documentary of present day Singapore, over a 4 month period of photo-journalism and interviews with locals. By slicing huge panels of words through large-scale photographs, these collages expose the cultural sentiments bubbling beneath one the world’s most highly case-studied cities, as it tells the ongoing story of a country in-the-making. The juxtaposition of image and text sets up a visual peek-a-boo, revealing hidden socio-commentaries on the tensions, idiosyncrasies, and hopes unique to Singapore."

 The second exhibition is Sitting by Kamin Lertchaiprasert. 
I only took the ones that I found really interesting as there were many of them in the room as seen on the previous image but I like the last one the most though. Where the fire is "coming" out of he's eyes. I feel like it's rage/anger but he doesn't show it to the public. Which is how I really am. Sometimes I feel bad for myself and wish I would speak up for me but I can't seem to get there yet. I'll get there eventually.
Picture of the full exhibition by Coconuts Singapore.
"Sitting comprises 366 carved figurines, each seated in a meditative posture, their number referencing the total number of days in a (leap) year. They poetically mark the passage of time, and serve as embodiments of mindful perseverance and the importance of keeping at this practice, day after day. This meditative repetition encourages a certain stillness and looking within oneself, thereby giving rise to self-awareness and peace as one is reconciled with the world. Instead of orienting one’s thought and actions to the external world as we are wont to do, here, sitting and stillness are the paths to an inner utopia, as our mind’s eye turns inward."

 The last exhibition I photographed is Annexation by Jitish Kallat.
The sculpture was breathtakingly beautiful. It was creepy in a way but I was drawn by the details.
"An imposing and somewhat menacing sculpture, Annexation’s surfaces arefestooned with motifs of flora and fauna, adapted from the friezes adorningthe Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus – the busiest train station in Mumbai, India,constructed during the British Raj and feted as the British Empire’s crowningarchitectural achievement. A conflation of the grotesque and the baroque,the animals teeming on the surface of Annexation are depicted devouring theirweaker cousins whilst clinging on to various items such as pots of food andplants – scenes that the artist describes as “not unlike the daily grind of survivalthat this (terminal) porch witnesses everyday”. The shape of the sculpturereferences the humble kerosene stove, a source of energy and light for manyresiding in India’s rural areas. Here however, it is charred, its blackened formalluding to industrial waste and a spent resource, while its surfaces depict anallegory of a constant and daily struggle for existence, with birds and beastsfrom a prelapsarian Eden, annexed into a deadly coil of predator and prey."

Ending the post with other pictures I took and again trying to act like a professional photographer and failing at it. I did not take much pictures but that always happens when I get too distracted and busy looking around. Will definitely make a trip to SAM again and try to take as many pictures as possible but this is it for now. Overall, the trip as always was good and I cannot wait for the next one.



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