The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is delighted to present Rhythmic Resonance: A Collaboration Beyond Boundaries By Andy Yang & Ian de Souza showcasing works from Australian artist Ian de Souza and Singaporean artist Andy Yang.
This exhibition explores themes of collaboration, cultural exchange, and artistic cross-pollination, drawing from de Souza and Yang’s respective practices. Notably, their collaboration began during the pandemic when they exchanged and worked on a series of shared canvases between Singapore and Australia, forging an artistic connection without ever meeting in person. Upon the reopening of borders after the pandemic, Andy Yang’s visits to Fremantle in Perth, where Ian de Souza resides, marked significant turning points in their collaboration.
Their backgrounds in the world of music allowed them to appreciate the intricate interplay of rhythm and harmony. This musical connection echoed in their collaborative artistic process, where they approached their canvases like a dynamic composition, blending colours and brushstrokes like notes in a harmonious symphony.
Beyond their shared artistic interests, the two artists discovered an even deeper connection rooted in their common origins. Both Ian and Andy were born in Malaysia, which provided a profound sense of shared cultural heritage and identity.
Alongside the showcase of their respective artworks, the exhibition also features a series of unique collaborative artworks jointly created by both artists. Experience how meaningful exchanges can transform artistic practice, and be inspired by de Souza and Yang’s journey of collaboration, partnership, and creative growth.
The exhibition will be run from 2 November to 10 December 2023.
Download our exhibition leaflet for more information here.
Download our exhibition press release here.
The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present Dancing with the Cosmos: Three Decades of Work from Kumari Nahappan, a solo exhibition surveying prominent Singaporean artist Kumari Nahappan’s three-decade-long artistic practice, curated by John Z.W. Tung. This showcase will be the first of the museum’s upcoming line-up of programmes at its new premise, featuring over 50 works which include Nahappan’s monumental site-specific installations, paintings and sculptures, some of which are re-creations of past iterations that have not been seen by the public since the mid-1990s.
Inspired by the Hindu cosmological notion of cyclical time, Dancing with the Cosmos organises the artworks not chronologically but by colour, allowing visitors to witness the diverse yet interconnected nature of Nahappan’s practice. Nature, rituals, time and space are themes that have long been part of Nahappan’s works and are also encapsulated throughout the exhibition. Each intimate space reflects specific colours that take prominence at various periods of Nahappan’s practice, representative of a diversity of themes and a recurrence of Nahappan’s interests over an expanse of time.
Characterised by constant evolution, Nahappan’s varied employment of materiality from organic matter to man-made structures and found objects breathes new life into her pieces, allowing them to transcend two-dimensional visuality and engage with the senses on multiple levels. Immersing in Nahappan’s fields of colour, Dancing with the Cosmos: Three Decades of Work from Kumari Nahappan allows visitors to contend with the existence of these countless universes and their cycles.
The exhibition will be run from 31 August to 22 October 2023.
Download our exhibition leaflet for more information here.
Download our exhibition press release here.
The Private Museum Singapore is pleased to present Make Yourself at Home: A Glimpse into All Welcoming Scenarios, an exhibition at a special interim location, a private residence, since it moved out of its previous home. Having been preparing for its relocation to 11 Upper Wilkie Road, it was also a time for introspection, ruminating on what it means to be ‘The Private Museum’.
The conceptualisation of the exhibition began in part as an existential query into the meaning behind why The Private Museum was founded, and continues to pose similar questions to the public through a multi-focal approach. The exhibition is carved into two parts that correspond to the disciplines of art and design, offering a glimpse of the museum’s upcoming programmes at its new home, which is projected for its inaugural launch in the second half of 2023, on top of its ongoing developments in design and branding.
Revisiting the museum’s key platforms, the exhibition features selected works and practices by artists from Singapore and the Asia Pacific such as Kumari Nahappan, Natee Utarit, Ian de Souza, Andy Yang, and independent curator John Tung. Within the design and branding presentation are an interactive and research-driven showcase presented in collaboration with local design studio Currency as well as a dollhouse model of the museum’s new home, designed by the award-winning WOHA Architects, and produced by Integrus Model.
Drawing from the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s ethics of hospitality, Make Yourself at Home is a double entendre that not only reflects the roots of the museum as a hosting ground for open collaboration with art practitioners and home for private collections, but also the ‘hospitality’ that is shown when a host welcomes guests into their living abode or art space. The locale of the exhibition being in a home is itself an enactment of one such welcoming scenario, serving as an apt reminder of the importance of patronage.
“In order to constitute the space of a habitable house and a home, you also need an opening, a door and windows… a passage to the outside world / to the stranger” says Derrida of hospitality. The exhibition invites viewers to embark on their journey of reflection—whether as a first-time visitor or a devoted museum-goer—to really consider what the words ‘The’ ‘Private’ ‘Museum’ put together as an entity in the arts eco-system could be for them.
This exhibition will run from 7 January to 26 March 2023.
Download our exhibition leaflet for more information here.