Dedicated to Singapore’s Heritage and Modern Culture

In Singapore’s drive to be a vibrant global city of the 21st century, greater emphasis is being placed on the development of arts and artistic talent. Programs are being mapped out, funds allocated to support promising talents, and spaces provided to enable artists to explore and expose their potential.

As a major sponsor of the arts in Singapore, Ngee Ann Cultural Centre organizes exhibitions and allows artists to use its premises to showcase their works. Since it opened in 1998, it has held numerous exhibitions ranging from paintings to pottery and now photography, as well as opera performances.

The centre was originally aimed at promoting awareness of Chinese culture, in particular Teochew heritage – through the medium of visual and performing arts – among Singaporeans. Chinese calligraphy and brush painting, Teochew opera, dance, music and drama are some of the avenues for this continuing involvement with the Teochew community.

A highlight of the cultural centre’s calendar is the Annual National Teochew artists Art and Chinese Calligraphy Exhibition. Organized by the centre on November 19 every year, the event brings together amateur and professional artists of Teochew ancestry to exhibit their works in the centre’s Ngee Ann Exhibition Hall.

The exhibition spans hundreds of contemporary and traditional artworks in diverse media such as Chinese brush paintings, calligraphy, watercolors, oils, acrylic and even the odd mixed media artwork.

In the promotion of spiritual well being, the Cultural Centre has been involved in hosting many Dharma/Buddhist spiritual talks and initiations by Tibetan and Chinese religious teachers from all over the world. Inter-religious organizations have also held talks at the centre.

6th Ngee Ann Photographic Exhibition 2011

Evolving itself more and more to become a significant contributor toward the enrichment of Singapore society through its cultural initiatives, the Ngee Ann Cultural Centre is opening again its 6th annual exhibition: Ngee Ann Photographic Exhibition, which is one of Singapore’s biggest exhibitions. It will be held from April 8 to 19 and will take place at Ngee Ann Exhibition Hall.

The exhibition, which is open to any participant who is a resident of Singapore – Singapore citizens, permanent residents, work permit, professional and student pass holders – will showcase more than 200 works by selected professional and amateur photographers, with a special feature on Bey Hua Heng, Photographer of the Year 2011. Bey Hua Heng, also recipient of the 1993 Young Artist Award (for photography), will exhibit his recent photographs of Nepal.

Comprised of photographs from diverse genres – from landscapes to portraits – the exhibition will provide a good chance to discover and learn from other photographers. Or if you are already well-established in photography yourself, at least to learn what photography is for Singapore, its significance for Singaporeans, for which this event will be a good representation.

In the words of Ngee Ann Cultural Centre Committee chairman Phua Bah Lee, “Ngee Ann Cultural Centre is committed to the development of the visual arts; Ngee Ann Photographic Exhibition brings together Singapore’s photographic arts and puts photography to the forefront. We are fortunate to be living in the age of photography’s renaissance as we see our participants’ works being articulated through a range of medium such as traditional negative, color slide and digital photography. With this exhibition, we hope to give photography the exposure and visibility it rightly deserves.”

Sources: www.ngeeann.com.sg

Singaporean Affair

As Singapore’s dignitaries on stage “shot” confetti into the air, the Old Kallang Airport that was closed down in 1955 came to life again on March 12, kicking off the third edition of the Singapore Biennale.

Because it was organized by the Singapore Art Museum, led by a Singaporean arts director, and themed after the city state’s open house tradition, where locals open up homes to friends during festivities, the biennale initially comes across as a Singaporean affair.

But upon closer inspection, one will notice an impressive Australian connection. Matthew Ngui, the Biennale’s artistic director, is a practicing artist who has spent most of his life in Australia.

Russell Storer, one of the curators of the Biennale, is from the Queensland Art Gallery, and Trevor Smith, the other curator who now works for the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, the US, was formerly from Perth. Meanwhile Broadsheet, the biennale’s official art magazine, is published in Australia.

The show features 161 works by 63 artists from 30 countries and is spread across several venues: The Singapore Art Museum (SAM), SAM at 8Q, the National Museum, the old Kallang Airport and Marina Bay.

Because the Biennale encouraged artists to demonstrate how they created their art, rather than focus on their finished work, the outcome was not overly exciting.

Many of the important processes the artists used may have been crucial to the curators, but is unlikely to be understood by simple audiences, let alone appeal to them.

Yet some of the artist talks helped shed light on what their artworks were about, rendering them more appealing to the public.

Thai artist Arin Runjang for instance explained that his living room installation titled Unequal Exchange, which is filled with IKEA furniture, was inspired by Thai workers in
Singapore who are allowed to come and swap their piece of furniture with one of IKEA’s for the duration of the show.

On the other hand. Ming Wong’s acting in a five channel video installation Devo partire. Domani appealed to many without the artist having to elaborate on the process
of creation.

Similarly, Australian artist Gosia Wlodarczak’s drawings that appeared like scribbles on glass windows and partitions are fascinating without words, but became even more interesting when she explained she had been “documenting” her every single act, thought or movement for 12 days.

Meanwhile, painter, cartoonist, sculptor and musician Louie Cordero’s installation MY WE consists of peculiar sculptures of monstrous or wounded bodies stabbed with knives and arrows, akin to a cross between cartoons, local stories and mythology.

At SAM 8Q, South African Candice Breitz brilliantly explores the theme of identification in identical twins and identical triplets in a multi-channeled video installation titled Factum.

Roslisham Ismail aka ISE offers an interesting insight into the links between financial affordability and the food content of the fridge of six families in Singapore in his installation titled Secret Affair.

Standing out at the National Museum, is Vietnamese Tiffany Chung’s work which seeks to find ways humans will survive in the
face of environmental depletion such as global warming and rising sea levels. Rethinking urban planning, she proposes a floating city with floating houses.

She designs houseboats inspired by architecture typically seen in communities from Srinagar (Kashmir, India), Tonle Sap Lake (Cambodia), Halong Bay (Vietnam), Sangklaburi (Thailand); and in Gifu as well as Yamaguchi (Japan).



From The Jakarta Post