Thoughts of Gulag is a solo exhibition by Singapore-based, British artist James Holdsworth. The show is supported by the United Nations Association (UNAS), and features 13 large oil paintings, together with charcoal & pastel drawings based on images taken from labour camps. Gulag is a term used to refer to the Soviet government agency that operated the forced labour and concentration camps during the communist era.
To Add a Meter to an Unknown Mountain: An Iconic Collection of Contemporary Chinese Photography features the works of four Chinese artists whose bold, conceptual art challenges the conservative society that they grew up in. As internationally renowned artists, CangXin, Ma Liuming, Liu Wei, and Zhan Wang are all important figures in the rising contemporary Chinese art scene that is taking the world by storm. In their respective styles, each of these contemporary Chinese artists expresses social critiques of the world as they see it. From the impermanent state of human actions to the harmony between nature and mankind, the photography in this exhibition highlights the relationships between man and nature, new and old, and modernity and tradition. In a rapidly urbanizing world, their work serves to capture significant moments of interaction between two starkly different worlds.
The Private Museum presents an exhibition which showcases the Catholic High School’s special collection of paintings by the late local artist, Chua Ek Kay, who is an old boy of the school. He is known for his combination of both Eastern and Western art techniques and theories in his works. A special selection from the Catholic High School will be featured in this exhibition with subject matters ranging from traditional Chinese paintings of birds and flowers, to old buildings and abstractions which reflects the evolution of Ek Kay’s artistic practice. The highlight of this exhibition will be the display of four Chinese ink paintings of the former Catholic High School campus at 222 Queens Street, now 51 Waterloo Street. Coincidentally, this is where The Private Museum is currently located. Ek Kay painted these works in 2005 with the sole purpose of donating them to the school and its new campus in Bishan. Ek Kay donated more works to the school subsequently, totaling to an impressive number of twenty-five Chinese ink paintings.
The Private Museum presents an inaugural collaboration between two Singaporean artists, Chow Chee Yong and Tang Ling Nah, who cross paths for the first time. Chow juxtaposes different locations with a single shot, creating an ambiguous “Void” that exists only within the photograph. On the other hand, Tang suggests the extension of space through her charcoal drawings of the city’s transitory spaces such as “Void Decks”, corridors and underground passageways. This exhibition attempts to document two artists’ individual journeys as well as their collaborative interactions. We question what is real and what is imaginary; as the photograph becomes a drawing, and the drawing becomes a photograph…
A primary essential element in calligraphy is time. What is time? I do not know. I only know eternity means that time no longer exists. Buddha is dead, Jesus is dead. Eventually all life form vanishes. Beings exist in the present, live and die between to be and not to be.
Fung Ming Chip, 2012
The Private Museum presents a special exhibition developed from the long-term relationship that began 15 years ago between Singapore-based collector, Christopher Franck, and Hong Kong-based artist, Fung Ming Chip. Franck’s collection of Fung’s works introduces the artist’s early experimentation with the medium of traditional Chinese calligraphy. The large-scale site-specific conceptual installation of his Chan & Heart Sutra Series is a development of Fung’s recurring theme of Heart Sutra in his earlier works. Fung’s latest work is a result of transforming an established art form into an entirely new style that challenges the values which shape human behavior and perception. In his continuous search of what calligraphy is, Fung pushes the boundaries of the medium and explores the element of time.
The Private Museum is proud to present Lim Tze Peng: A Private Collection, a special exhibition that developed from the long-term friendship between collector Daniel Teo and artist Lim Tze Peng. This solo exhibition of Singapore’s renowned artist, featuring artworks from Teo’s private collection, encompasses Lim’s early as well as recent works. A selection of sixteen paintings from Teo’s collection of twenty-seven artworks will feature Lim’s Bali Series, Singapore Street Scene Series, Calligraphy Series, and Still Life Series. The significant Nanyang Style, which was used distinctively by artists in Singapore’s early art scene, is apparent in Lim’s early Chinese ink paintings. The highlight is a recent large-scale painting of the Singapore River, spanning more than 3 metres wide. Lim Tze Peng: A Private Collection also showcases an oil painting which was a gift from Lim to the Teo family, underlining the special relationship shared between the Collector and the Artist.
The Private Museum is proud to present The Loss Index: Perishables and other Miscellanea by Singaporean artist, Ye Shufang, following the success of her previous exhibition, The Happiness Index, here in 2011. Shufang has created a series of new watercolour drawings and will also re-present her internationally-renowned agar-agar installations for the last time.
With an ongoing research focus on the ephemeral and the ‘ready-made’ from her 17 years of art practice, Shufang’s current series of drawings are an attempt to measure, categorise and understand a miscellany of vast infinite items, from baking moulds to emotions, classified in a system using grids, circles and colour spectrums. In her past artworks, the study of and the attempt to measure and record the impermanent are manifested in installations that adopt basic processes, ephemeral materials and ready-mades. Aside from the 2 new presentations of her past agar-agar installations, Shufang will also be showing an agar-agar and rubber strips installation for the first time.
In celebration of Singapore’s 48th National Day, The Private Museum presents Hong Zhu An: The Limitless Void, a solo exhibition by internationally-renowned Singapore-based artist, Hong Zhu An. This selection of paintings presents Hong at his prime: an accumulation of his training in China and his experience of living in Australia, and eventually settling in Singapore, where he has lived in for almost 20 years. Hong’s primordial source of inspiration stems from the concept of Wuji (无极), the limitless void, from the I-Ching (易经), Book of Changes. The suggestion of both stillness and movement, Yin and Yang, is a balance of contrasts, which Hong gives prominence to in his work. The highlight of this most recent body of work is the predominantly Black & White paintings, as well as the use of calligraphy, a return to Hong’s original source of inspiration. The calm and peaceful paintings bring the viewer a step closer towards a meditative state of mind.
The Private Museum is proud to present the 2nd Kitakyushu Biennial: i (information) in Singapore, a parallel event of the Singapore Biennial 2013. i (information), the theme for this year, will display an array of re-mixes of fragments of information. It aims to present the manipulations of media- information in a rapid changing world within a private museum context.
i (information) will be a touring project, beginning as a screening event at ZKU Berlin in August. Opening exhibitions at Busan South Korea TOTATOGA archive center in September, main venues at the Soap Gallery Kitakyushu Japan from September to December and finally making its way to the Private Museum, Singapore from October to December.
The video and sound projects feature collaborative works from Charles Lim Yi Yong (Singapore), John Miller (USA), Mike Bode (Sweden), Takuji Kogo 古郷卓司 *Candy Factory Projects (Japan), and Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries (South Korea). These artists have responded to online trends with their unique perspectives.
For more information, please visit http://artonline.jp/
The Private Museum presents ZUL: SONICALLY EXPOSED, a new body of works created over the past 3 years since ZUL’s last solo exhibition in 2010. The established Singaporean sound artist will be presenting nine sound-reliefs, four sound sculptures, a sound installation and sketches, which are part of his working process, for the first time.
ZUL was formally trained as a sculptor and ventured into sound in 2006, creating multi-disciplinary works that combine visual and sound. He has conceptualized sound installations that define the denuded sense that few dare to explore. The artworks are bare; fixated on the amorphous medium produced. Each artwork also produces a different experience with the integration of the audience.
The Private Museum is proud to present HER IMAGE, a group exhibition that explores the representation of women in photography and video, to commemorate the International Women’s Day in March. Held in conjunction with the symposium Ways of Knowing: Asian and Middle Eastern Women in Photographs, the exhibition will explore themes on “Women, memory and history”, “Women in daily life”, and “Women artists and photo-journalists”. HER IMAGE adopts a cross-disciplinary approach in attempt to create a dialogue about woman condition in the contemporary world, with a rare focus on Asia and Middle East. The artworks portray experiences of women influenced by their particular historical, socioeconomical, and religious environments, in private and public spaces of non-Western countries.
Artists Amanda Heng (Singapore), Zann Huizhen Huang (Singapore), Noor Iskandar (Singapore), Oh Soon-Hwa (Korea & Singapore), Min Kim Park (USA), Shelly Silver (USA), and Jesvin Yeo (Singapore) will present color photographs and video works, styled from traditional photo-journalism, postmodern documentary photographs and narrative film. These artists possess backgrounds in different disciplines and use photographs or videos of women as a research method, presenting various perspectives in the social and human sciences as well as in the humanities.
For more information on the symposium, please visit www.womeninphotographsymposium.com
As part of the 49th National Day Celebrations, The Private Museum presents 舞: A Goh Soo Khim Collection, an exhibition showcasing the works collected by celebrated Singaporean ballet doyenne Goh Soo Khim. She has played a significant role in the development of dance in Singapore and has always been an avid art collector.
Evocative of the beauty and raw emotion of dance, this exhibition features eleven black and white artworks and a sound piece by Singaporean artists Chen Ke Zhan (b. 1959), Chua Ek Kay (1947 – 2008), Goh Beng Kwan (b.1937), Hong Zhu An (b. 1955), Zul Mahmod (b. 1975) and China artist Wang Lin Hai (b.1963). The collection is an expression of Soo Khim’s passion for the dualism of rhythm and movement, the very essence of dance. This dichromatic exhibition encapsulates the beauty and raw emotion of dance, extending beyond the dance stage and to the world of art.
The Private Museum presents Khoo Sui Hoe: An Overview Part I – The Artist Collection from 1980s to Present, the first of a two-part major exhibition of the Malaysian painter, Khoo Sui Hoe. Known for his inimitable surrealistic stylisation of masks, figures and landscapes, this selection comprises of 25 paintings from the Artist’s private collection.
A former graduate from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 1961, Khoo was under the tutelage of Cheong Soo Pieng and Georgette Chen. Following his move from Malaysia to the West in 1982, this collection portrays Khoo’s evolving artistic practice and development which spans Singapore, Malaysia and United States.
This exhibition will continue to Khoo Sui Hoe: An Overview Part II – The Patron, Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat’s Collection which consists of Khoo’s earlier works from the 1960s to 1980s. Highlights include significant works presented from the Patron’s perspective, including Children of the Sun as collected by distinguished collector and lifelong friend.