The National Gallery of Singapore has opened. Should be good. Haven't been there yet but from those who have been attending the Saturday previews before the opening have given me good feedback.
But with the opening festivities and the full house, I think I will make my way there after the 6th of December 2015. Thinking of doing a painting/work of the month feature to spice up the blog. Now with NGS and their permanent galleries, I think I could do that as I have a wider array of pieces to choose from and hopefuly will stay up much longer for you to be able to catch the piece in the flesh, as compared to those in the commercial galleries which at most hangs for 6 - 8 weeks. But it might be boring, and I am unsure what to discuss; the visual aesthetics/visual perception of the piece or the usual curatorial spew of the artist and where the piece lies in history. Never mind we'll cross the bridge when we get to it.
Anyway to support NGS without having to be a patron or give money is to sign up as a member. From now till 31st March 2016, it will be only $20 cf $30 for an individual membership or $40 cf $60 for a joint membership. Family membership is also available for 2 adults + 3 under 12s for $50 instead of $85.
However if you do have spare cash, donations start at $2k to become a friend up to $100k to get into the 'Chairman's Circle'.
Too bad the Singapore Art Museum doesn't have a membership, unless I am wrong. But they do have a way to give money, but not as structured as the NGS where you have levels of 'Friendship' with the NGS. SAM just says that donations are crucial and helpful, maybe they are not good at marketing the 'luxury trap' and the corelation of Fine art with wealth and social status and being cultured. Not to sound too bitter/ sour grapes or anything but I am a believer of art for all. And I really hate the luxury trap. But then again, they might be following the American museums where the museum really has to court patrons to stay afloat and also rent out concession places (the main money earner). Hmmm, but NGS is a state owned entity with a healthy budget, having said that I guess it subsidises my free admission to the museum. LOL.(free for Singaporeans and PRs.)
Interesting exhibitions which we attend. Mainly paintings but everything Art in Singapore with hot collector tips.
Friday 27 November 2015
Monday 23 November 2015
Bank Art Fair 2015
This was held from from 20th to 22nd November 2015. It is the 3rd Edition of the Bank Art Fair but was the 2nd time it was held in Singapore.
Last year it was held concurrently with AAF and the attendance might not have been good so it's held a week after that this year. But don't think attendance was great either as they were offering free entry from 1pm to 3pm. And even went on to offer free entry for Sunday/ the last day. And I don't think 33 Auction happening on 21st and Borobudur Auction on Sunday had any impact on the fair either.
So you can guess which day I went. LOL.
Anyway, I think Bank Art Fair is by the Koreans, hence there was a larger contingent of South Korean galleries.
There were some interesting pieces and artists. But the feel that Pizza Queen and I got was that there was too many commercial art and not really Fine Art. Even if there were some big names, the works weren't the best either. Saw Fan Shao Hua and Hong Sek Chern's works there, but these were previously shown and unsold.
Things that stood out:
Instinc's room as usual showed good works. Valerie Ng presented some nice drawings which is a depature from her usual abstract works. Eunice showed very nice small format paintings along the line of her Catharsis series.
Define Art Gallery. Danya Yu presented some paintings. She had three smaller format paintings which were more detailed and different from her more loose and expressive strokes. Very different and I would say very good.
There was also a good Korean artist Park Joo Hee, can't remember which gallery but presented good works.
Points for collectors: If you haven't any spare time, I wouldn't bother to attend. If I had to pay money I wouldn't attend either. Unless you are eyeing a specific artist who will be presenting his/her works there. As this fair is a different format with a different audience and a different price range, the works will be much different. And some of the artists will be willing to experiment as the fair isn't too important a platform, then you will be able to get fresh and interesting works by them. Not often, but you have to do your leg work to get great pieces.
Last year it was held concurrently with AAF and the attendance might not have been good so it's held a week after that this year. But don't think attendance was great either as they were offering free entry from 1pm to 3pm. And even went on to offer free entry for Sunday/ the last day. And I don't think 33 Auction happening on 21st and Borobudur Auction on Sunday had any impact on the fair either.
So you can guess which day I went. LOL.
Anyway, I think Bank Art Fair is by the Koreans, hence there was a larger contingent of South Korean galleries.
There were some interesting pieces and artists. But the feel that Pizza Queen and I got was that there was too many commercial art and not really Fine Art. Even if there were some big names, the works weren't the best either. Saw Fan Shao Hua and Hong Sek Chern's works there, but these were previously shown and unsold.
Things that stood out:
Instinc's room as usual showed good works. Valerie Ng presented some nice drawings which is a depature from her usual abstract works. Eunice showed very nice small format paintings along the line of her Catharsis series.
Define Art Gallery. Danya Yu presented some paintings. She had three smaller format paintings which were more detailed and different from her more loose and expressive strokes. Very different and I would say very good.
There was also a good Korean artist Park Joo Hee, can't remember which gallery but presented good works.
Park Joo Hee's Name Card
Park Joo Hee
Danya Yu (not including the top row left most piece)
Danya Yu (not including the bottom right work)
Danya Yu - interesting small triptych
Valerie Ng's drawings
Instinc's room
Valerie Ng
Points for collectors: If you haven't any spare time, I wouldn't bother to attend. If I had to pay money I wouldn't attend either. Unless you are eyeing a specific artist who will be presenting his/her works there. As this fair is a different format with a different audience and a different price range, the works will be much different. And some of the artists will be willing to experiment as the fair isn't too important a platform, then you will be able to get fresh and interesting works by them. Not often, but you have to do your leg work to get great pieces.
Saturday 21 November 2015
Lost City 3 - Tang Ling Nah, CK Kum, Hong Sek Chern and Geraldine Kang
This exhibition is held from 19th November to 6th December 2015 at Chan Hampe Gallery at Raffles Hotel.
Four artists are presented:
1. Tang Ling Nah - everybody knows her for her charcoal works. However, this time she presented a small installation/sculpture of her residual bits of charcoal. Looks like a little charcoal garden. And the silhouette of the charcoal onto the walls make it look like city towers.
2. Hong Sek Chern - presented 3 paintings which were all sold on opening night. She presented her signature architectural ink works. The difference from her earlier works is that the buildings or parts of the buildings are not fixed to a foreground but are now floating. She has reverted back to her familiar ink after presenting a series of oil on canvas in 2014 with Art 2 gallery.
3. Geraldine Kang - presented 7 photos in an installation, which I think have been presented before. It was from the series "of Two Bedrooms". Basically it's about her house/rooms and her grandmother and the relationship between them, herself and her grandmother. Really interesting. You can check out her blog to see her other works. One of the better young photographers. Love her works. (Footnote: think my 3 favourite photographers at this moment would be Robert Zhao, Geraldine Kang and Ho Rui An)
4. CK Kum - Presented reclaimed artifacts which were saved from a Joo Chiat PlayHouse, mainly a door and stairs
Points for collectors: Tang Ling Nah - buy rating for her charcoal works. Geraldine Kang -buy rating, really want to buy one if Pizza Queen agrees. Hong Sek Chern - Buy rating but a bit worried that she's doing too much of the same thing, a lot of her works floating about. CK Kum - unsure, haven't seen enough of his works to make a fair comment.
Four artists are presented:
1. Tang Ling Nah - everybody knows her for her charcoal works. However, this time she presented a small installation/sculpture of her residual bits of charcoal. Looks like a little charcoal garden. And the silhouette of the charcoal onto the walls make it look like city towers.
2. Hong Sek Chern - presented 3 paintings which were all sold on opening night. She presented her signature architectural ink works. The difference from her earlier works is that the buildings or parts of the buildings are not fixed to a foreground but are now floating. She has reverted back to her familiar ink after presenting a series of oil on canvas in 2014 with Art 2 gallery.
3. Geraldine Kang - presented 7 photos in an installation, which I think have been presented before. It was from the series "of Two Bedrooms". Basically it's about her house/rooms and her grandmother and the relationship between them, herself and her grandmother. Really interesting. You can check out her blog to see her other works. One of the better young photographers. Love her works. (Footnote: think my 3 favourite photographers at this moment would be Robert Zhao, Geraldine Kang and Ho Rui An)
4. CK Kum - Presented reclaimed artifacts which were saved from a Joo Chiat PlayHouse, mainly a door and stairs
Hong Sek Chern
Hong Sek Chern
Tang Ling Nah
Hong Sek Chern
Geraldine Kang's installation
Do I see gliiter?
Geraldine Kang
Geraldine Kang
Points for collectors: Tang Ling Nah - buy rating for her charcoal works. Geraldine Kang -buy rating, really want to buy one if Pizza Queen agrees. Hong Sek Chern - Buy rating but a bit worried that she's doing too much of the same thing, a lot of her works floating about. CK Kum - unsure, haven't seen enough of his works to make a fair comment.
This weekend at Gillman Barracks
Went over to have a look at what Gillman Barracks had to offer, but more to catch Pameran Poskad SG50.
It was an interesting mish mash of art of different artists and art of different standards. But it was a bit overwhelming because of the number of works there and I didn't have the time to look through every item slowly as I was rushing off to another opening.
Might not be high on my list next time and will go if nothing else to do or specifically going there to catch a specific artist's work.
Other exhibitions:
Sundaram Tagore - Miya Ando. Nice and interesting visual field works. You should pop in and have a look.
FOST Gallery - Echoes of anticipation - a re-hash of some works from throughout 2015.
Partners & Mucciaccia - Frank Holliday - abstract works
Yeo Workshop - Yu-Chen Wang - Drawings and colours- interesting and nice works.
OTA Fine Arts - Tang DiXin - Nice paintings.
CCA - Tomas Saraceno - Arachnid Orchestra. Basically got spiders to spin multiple cobwebs and the vibration of the cobwebs are attached to pick -ups / mikes and translated into sound. The bigger cobwebs are by spiders from Germany which are given a few months to achieve it . The smaller ones are by Singapore spiders given a few weeks to do their stuff. Went when there wasn't any performance, so didn't catch the jumping spiders in the containers which would pick up their movement to convert it to sound. Some of the webs were really strong and can be touched to make sounds. A bit icky for me to touch so I didn't have a tactile experience.. LOL.
It was an interesting mish mash of art of different artists and art of different standards. But it was a bit overwhelming because of the number of works there and I didn't have the time to look through every item slowly as I was rushing off to another opening.
Might not be high on my list next time and will go if nothing else to do or specifically going there to catch a specific artist's work.
Interesting Wood Cuts
Random View - very chaotic/overwhelming
Simon Ng's Work
Wilson Shieh's work
Other exhibitions:
Sundaram Tagore - Miya Ando. Nice and interesting visual field works. You should pop in and have a look.
FOST Gallery - Echoes of anticipation - a re-hash of some works from throughout 2015.
Partners & Mucciaccia - Frank Holliday - abstract works
Yeo Workshop - Yu-Chen Wang - Drawings and colours- interesting and nice works.
OTA Fine Arts - Tang DiXin - Nice paintings.
CCA - Tomas Saraceno - Arachnid Orchestra. Basically got spiders to spin multiple cobwebs and the vibration of the cobwebs are attached to pick -ups / mikes and translated into sound. The bigger cobwebs are by spiders from Germany which are given a few months to achieve it . The smaller ones are by Singapore spiders given a few weeks to do their stuff. Went when there wasn't any performance, so didn't catch the jumping spiders in the containers which would pick up their movement to convert it to sound. Some of the webs were really strong and can be touched to make sounds. A bit icky for me to touch so I didn't have a tactile experience.. LOL.
Sunday 15 November 2015
The week ahead - very busy
Many Many things going on. Think everyone is squeezing everything before December when most people take off for the holidays and the bigger galleries will be busy getting ready for Art Week and Art Stage in January. Heard Art Stage should be quite interesting next year too.
1.Sweet Spot - LaSalle MFA WIP - currently on
2.Lim Choon Jin at Cape of Good Hope Gallery from this Friday 20th November
3.Tuesday in the Tropics, Wednesday in Singapore - A reading by Art Historian Tony Godfrey at CCA
4.A Jazz of Colours and Shapes- Ng Woon Lam at LiFine Arts from Friday too
5.Pameran Poskad SG50 - From Thursday at Gillman Barracks
6.Bank Art Fair - At Pan Pacific. Instinc will be doing a collaboration again - The Great Small Show
7.Young Singapore Artists at Keeper's (Orchard Green - the place featuring Singapore designers) - by Theo Art. This month will be May Lim.
8. Lost City 3 - Tang Ling Nah, Hong Sek Chern, CK Kum and Geraldine Kang - Chan Hampe Galleries. Also from Thursday.
Yikes... gotta clone me self.
1.Sweet Spot - LaSalle MFA WIP - currently on
2.Lim Choon Jin at Cape of Good Hope Gallery from this Friday 20th November
3.Tuesday in the Tropics, Wednesday in Singapore - A reading by Art Historian Tony Godfrey at CCA
4.A Jazz of Colours and Shapes- Ng Woon Lam at LiFine Arts from Friday too
5.Pameran Poskad SG50 - From Thursday at Gillman Barracks
6.Bank Art Fair - At Pan Pacific. Instinc will be doing a collaboration again - The Great Small Show
7.Young Singapore Artists at Keeper's (Orchard Green - the place featuring Singapore designers) - by Theo Art. This month will be May Lim.
8. Lost City 3 - Tang Ling Nah, Hong Sek Chern, CK Kum and Geraldine Kang - Chan Hampe Galleries. Also from Thursday.
Yikes... gotta clone me self.
Friday 13 November 2015
Affordable Art Fair November 2015
AAF is currently on now from 12th November to 15th November 2015 over at the F1 pit building.
A bit disappointed with this year's selection. Nothing really much to whet the appetite.
Interesting booths would be the Instinc booth, Lee Ban Lu booth and Art Red Dot booth.
Lee Ban Lu had an interesting piece where SKLO painted over an original Murakami print.
The 3D lenticular art by a Korean artist was quite interesting but a bit of a novelty (not sure which booth).
3 other interesting works.
Points for collectors: Good to go and see and buy what you like. Nothing interesting to buy even though I brought my cheque book. With the weak stock market, seems that spare cash for art is less. Hopefully sales pick up over the weekend.
A bit disappointed with this year's selection. Nothing really much to whet the appetite.
Interesting booths would be the Instinc booth, Lee Ban Lu booth and Art Red Dot booth.
Lee Ban Lu had an interesting piece where SKLO painted over an original Murakami print.
The 3D lenticular art by a Korean artist was quite interesting but a bit of a novelty (not sure which booth).
3 other interesting works.
Chess by Manoj Sakale
Emma Johnson - layers of cutout maps
Sandy McLea - Light box with dioramas of deconstructed photographs, ie paper tole but very much better with much depth
Cruise - Simon Ng, Hilary Schwartz and Khairullah Rahim
This exhibition runs from 7th to 29th November 2015 at Chan Hampe Gallery's ShopHouse 5 at Geylang.
Khairullah Rahim presented 2 paintings and a group of found objects which he painted. Interesting works by him. Think he is using this exhibition to explore other things especially after the stress of doing a solo. He has presented found objects before, the last time was at JCC as part of his post Japan Residency.
Simon Ng showed 3 of his works from the scenes series which fit into the cruise title.
Hilary showed two benches with 'towels' made of fondant. Yummy. She also showed a video of a pool.
Interesting and well themed show. Good works too.
Points for collectors: Simon Ng and Khairullah Rahim - buy ratings. Have to see more of Hilary's works before I can comment on her. Simon Ng has definitely improved from his earlier works, hence the buy rating.
Khairullah Rahim presented 2 paintings and a group of found objects which he painted. Interesting works by him. Think he is using this exhibition to explore other things especially after the stress of doing a solo. He has presented found objects before, the last time was at JCC as part of his post Japan Residency.
Simon Ng showed 3 of his works from the scenes series which fit into the cruise title.
Hilary showed two benches with 'towels' made of fondant. Yummy. She also showed a video of a pool.
Interesting and well themed show. Good works too.
Simon Ng
Simon Ng
Khairullah Rahim
Khairullah Rahim
Hilary Schwartz
Points for collectors: Simon Ng and Khairullah Rahim - buy ratings. Have to see more of Hilary's works before I can comment on her. Simon Ng has definitely improved from his earlier works, hence the buy rating.
Sunday 8 November 2015
Convergences : A special sale of Singapore Art - Christies
The preview of this auction was held at Helutrans over the weekend. Besides these, also on show were some South East Asian pieces and some watches.
Managed to view the Ruben Pang, Jane Lee, Robert Zhao and David Chan pieces, in addition to the usual 1st generation artists. Really nice works. Not sure about the David Chan piece though. A lot of good pieces at the preview.
You should try to catch auction previews to see good pieces. The next auction is 33 Auction's 2015 Autumn sale of Asia and Singapore Art.The preview will be on the 19th - 21st November 2015 at MOCA over at the Dempsey Cluster.
Managed to view the Ruben Pang, Jane Lee, Robert Zhao and David Chan pieces, in addition to the usual 1st generation artists. Really nice works. Not sure about the David Chan piece though. A lot of good pieces at the preview.
You should try to catch auction previews to see good pieces. The next auction is 33 Auction's 2015 Autumn sale of Asia and Singapore Art.The preview will be on the 19th - 21st November 2015 at MOCA over at the Dempsey Cluster.
Monday 2 November 2015
An Art Collector's Journey -part of Koh Seow Chuan's art collection
This exhibition was held in October 2015. Managed to catch it. Has some really good works. Some so-so. But he has one of everything and more. And he definitely has his favourite artists.
This show lends more to confirm the saying, "The best art works are in the hands of private collectors". Sorry this report was a bit late. But I am sure he will show more of his works in the future and you should catch it if it comes out.
Btw, my favourite pieces were the Vincent Leow pieces.
Good write up here on ArtHop.
Thanks for reading.
This show lends more to confirm the saying, "The best art works are in the hands of private collectors". Sorry this report was a bit late. But I am sure he will show more of his works in the future and you should catch it if it comes out.
Btw, my favourite pieces were the Vincent Leow pieces.
Good write up here on ArtHop.
Thanks for reading.
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