Exterior view of the National Gallery Singapore on the public opening night (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)
SINGAPORE — The National Gallery Singapore (NGS) opened on November 25, 2015 — a high point in Singapore’s year-round celebrations of 50 years as an independent nation. Two significant 19th-century heritage buildings, the former City Hall and Supreme Court, have been transformed into a museum for Modern Southeast Asian Art by French architect Jean François Milou. NGS is one of the largest visual arts institutions in South and Southeast Asia — with a collection of 8,000 artworks — and the square footage of gallery space is comparable to the Musée d’Orsay and Tate Modern.
These century-old monuments that have been restored and returned to the public bear complex colonial histories, and the museum’s dialogue with colonial and post-colonial art should make for riveting curatorial directions. This, after all, is the site where the Japanese handed Singapore back to the British, marking the end of a chapter at the close of World War II.
On opening day, I attended the special press briefing with presentations by Director Eugene Tan and his team, and a gallery tour, with every reason to believe the hype. NGS aims to exhibit the largest public collection of 200 years of Singaporean and Southeast Asian art. Two permanent galleries, the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery and DBS Singapore Gallery, showcase around 400 artworks each. This is an ambitious undertaking that indicates a strong belief in culture holding its own rather than it serving as a sub-branch of tourism — even though the museum’s eight restaurants and cafés that started business a month earlier would suggest otherwise.
Press briefing in November 2015, on far left: Eugene Tan; on far right: Low Sze Wee
However, during the briefing and exhibition tour, something felt off. It might have been the overall non-mention of architect Jean François Milou. Or the mislaid enthusiasm for the opening night’s Disneyesque light show, carnival, and restaurants, as opposed to the collection. Or maybe it was the oft-repeated phrase by our PR handlers that “the public should not feel that art is intimidating” — mentioned when updating us on the carnival and light show. The curatorial team did not make any connections between the art, the architecture, and history, nor did it provide a cogent social-political-cultural framework for how the galleries service the expansive narratives of Southeast Asia.
I spoke to Curatorial and Collection Director Low Sze Wee on how the museum had decided to tell the tumultuous story of Southeast Asia. “We can’t!” he admitted calmly. “Within each country there are many narratives and counter-narratives so that is the first thing we acknowledge. Our exhibitions will not be able to capture the complexities of these countries.”
One of the slides from the press briefing presentation (click to enlarge)
Yet, Tan and Low Sze Wee’s curatorial vision, outlined in just three short bullet points in a banal PowerPoint presentation, emphasized “presenting” and “reflexively (re)writing the art histories of Singapore and SEA.” But through what methodologies and guiding principles? I asked Sze Wee and Tan what existing definitions of Singaporean and Southeast Asian art history they were being critical of and therefore rewriting. Both suggested they had begun by looking at extant definitions of Southeast Asia, and its changing geographical specificity through the decades, but did not elaborate on which written art historical texts they found inadequate. As would become evident from the collection hang, little, if anything, was being challenged at all.
Both permanent galleries showcasing two large exhibitions, Between Declarations and Dreams and Siapa Nama Kamu? (What is your Name?), span 15 rooms, over three levels. Through the institution’s own collection, as well as key pieces from private lenders and regional museums, the former charts the story of Southeast Asia and the latter, Singapore, from the 19th century onwards.
As visitors enter the former Supreme Court to view 19th-century South East Asian art, it is a pleasure to see how the high seat of the judge, the dock, and other teakwood elements of the former courtroom have been retained for tense ambiance and drama. Displayed among lithographs, illustrations, and oil paintings is an intriguing set of photographs showing how the colonizers viewed their subjects, contrasted against how the natives viewed themselves. Here are also early images of two Siam rulers that depict how consciously they dressed in order to signal their power to Western monarchs. Due to the rulers’ careful maneuvering, Thailand narrowly sidestepped subjugation, remaining independent during the region’s colonial period.
Installation view of Manit Sriwanichpoom’s “Shocking Pink Collection” (1998), Duratrans prints in light-boxes (collection of the National Gallery Singapore)
Between Declarations and Dreams serves an excellent opportunity for NGS curators to voice such alternate stories from Southeast Asia’s past, along with influences from beyond the region. But further along the exhibit, the selection of 19th-century oil paintings by regional masters seems random. What is the connection, say, between Indonesian master Raden Saleh’s “Forest Fire” (1849), Juan Luna’s “Spain and the Philippines” (1884), and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s “Christian Virgins exposed to the Populace” (1884)? Though of the same period, were these artists aware of one other at all, or of each other’s aesthetic and social contexts? The museum does not provide information in this regard, nor are shared or contrasting traits evident in its specific selections.
As a whole, this exhibition fails to offer up enough examples to illustrate what the curatorial sub-themes suggest: the merging of foreign subject matter, artistic styles, or religious iconography with indigenous forms; the birthing of new expressive and syncretic languages; or the ways in which artists broke away from colonial art academies. And the silence over the history of communism in Singapore and Southeast Asia is deafening. In fact, having gone through the individual guides published for the two exhibitions, as well as the blurbs outside each gallery room, as far as I could tell, the word “communism” is absent. There is no explicit mention of the symbiotic relationship between the anti-colonial movements and communism, or of the anti-communist purge and brutal political repression that followed right after some of these countries gained independence. Apparently, this is a matter still difficult to discuss in the city-state, as the recent de facto ban on Singaporean Tan Pin Pin’s film on political exiles demonstrates.
Installation view of Redza Piyadasa’s “May 13, 1969” (1970, remade in 2006), Acrylic on plywood and mirror (collection of the National Gallery Singapore)
I stood in front of “Epic Poem of Malaya” (1955) by Chua Mia Tee, a key painting in Declarations and Dreams, with Singaporean poet and author Alvin Pang, who informed me of the work’s local political context during the 1950s. The painting depicts a group of young Chinese students, looking up to a central figure holding a red book — a charged symbol during a time when high school and university students were sympathetic toward communist orientation. “Certainly, such ideologies were part of broader social energies agitating for independence from colonial rule after World War II,” Alvin Pang explained.
The curators have admirably brought a variety of works from 10 countries under one roof but it is the viewer who must work in the connections. The short blurbs outside each gallery room make bland attempts at encapsulating the region’s tumultuous history and current democratic and militaristic perturbations. Take, for instance, a sentence in the guide for Declarations and Dreams that mentions “popular revolts” against “authoritarian rule” (between 1950 to 1970), remaining unclear on which despotic regimes, were being challenged. Was this in Burma? Indonesia? Philippines? Surely not in Singapore!
Declarations and Dreams also displays the Southeast Asian social realist art of the 1940s and ’50s, which is disconnected from the politically charged early conceptual art of the ‘80s and ‘90s and interrupted by a limbo period of abstract paintings from the ‘60s and ’70s. And here, I was surprised to find Malaysian modern artist Redza Piyadasa’s “May 13, 1969” dismally lit in a corner. The museum label and publication lists the wrong date Piyadasa’s piece was originally made — 1969 instead of 1970. An honest mistake, but this is an art-historically significant work that some scholars argue may well be the first piece of installation art ever made in the region — by which I mean not painting or strictly sculpture, but a collection of objects. This piece, a coffin draped in the Malaysian flag standing upright atop a mirror, was also notably interactive, reflecting the body of the viewer and subversively taking it into account. However, the work is so poorly presented without any socio-political context, that I am left feeling embarrassed for the institution that has assumed the authority to establish the regional canon.
Installation view of Jim Supangkat’s “Ken Dedes” (1975, remade in 1996), plaster, wood, marker pen and paint (click to enlarge)
It is a pity that “May 13, 1969,” which references racial tensions in Malaysia and Singapore of that same year, is not displayed in connection with seminal works shown on other floors by early South East Asian contemporary artists such as Jim Supangkat’s highly provocative “Ken Dedes” (1975), a replica bust of an ancient Javanese Goddess combined with a drawing of woman’s exposed, lower body, and FX Harsono’s “Paling Top” (1975), featuring a plastic rifle — two Indonesian artists who similarly break from formal divisions between painting and sculpture to critique pervasive corruption. Instead, this disconnect between artworks is amplified through a number of other pieces shown in isolation, like David Medalla’s “Cloud Canyons No. 24” (1964), a foam-producing installation, placed in a narrow, cramped stairwell between two levels, and a photographic installation by Thai artist Manit Sriwanichpoom outside the exhibition space. Because of the way many of the region’s momentous artworks are interspersed, one can hardly appreciate the revolutionary aspects of their formal and conceptual tones.
By the time I saw the second exhibition Siapa Nama Kamu? I had forgotten I was in an architecturally breathtaking site with ample natural daylight. The galleries, configured by three exhibition design companies — who don’t come cheap — lack visual depth, have low ceilings and uneven walls, and a claustrophobic hang hampers perception of individual artworks. Additionally, there was no labeling to indicate which of the galleries’ multiple entrances anchored the beginning, middle, or end of the exhibitions.
Glimpse of architecture by Jean François Milou within National Gallery Singapore
Though NGS is owned by the Singapore authorities, it is privately run, which means the curatorial mandate is independent of possible government interference. A number of risk-taking exhibitions of regional art have indeed been held in state-run Institutions such as Singapore Art Museum and Esplanade, which shows that an autonomous approach can be taken.
But by offering a watered-down version of Southeast Asia’s extraordinary history, this world-class institution short-changes the viewer. Here was a possibility to show how the region grappled with its colonial past, post-colonial legacies, regional consequences of global Cold War politics, and a slew of oppressive regimes in fast growing economies; to show how artists critiqued power, divisive ethnic politics, religious extremism and its ties to new-forming nationalistic identities in original, expressive languages — not merely reacting to urban, economic, and political shifts, but actively contesting them. On the whole, the museum’s curatorial prerogative does not appear to interrogate the past in any analytical manner. How could the history and memory of communist influences on Southeast Asia and its artists be so brazenly negated?
The two exhibitions are on display for the next five years. Former NGS Director and, until recently the senior adviser to the institution, Kwok Kian Chow (who has been involved with the institution from the moment of its conception a decade ago), is not “overly concerned about unevenness in the number of works at this point, as any collection will have to work within various constraints.”
Installation view of Tang Da Wu’s “Relic from the performance Don’t Give Money to the Arts” (1995), mixed media, dimensions variable
I agree that this is a start for the institution and there are only possibilities that can be realized over time, but with all the resources already at the curators’ disposal, such a non-committal approach is a problem. The writing, let alone rewriting of national and regional art history, has to be handled with utmost sensitivity through the mastery of scholarship and the inclusion of multiple, sometimes opposing voices, particularly when history-writing itself is in its infancy in Southeast Asia.
With confidence money can buy, NGS has already announced partnerships with Pompidou and Tate, buying pre-curated blockbusters, supplanting these exhibitions with the region’s side of the story, surely with Singapore on top. With well over half a billion dollars spent on NGS, Singapore has effectively bought cultural hegemony over the region. The best of Southeast Asian art is largely in private hands, and while the region’s marginally funded institutions are suffering neglect, Singapore certainly has the money to hoover up most of regional art in the near future. Given its unique position, the museum must consider if it might altogether mature into a political tool that instrumentalizes art.
As the National Gallery Singapore is poised to become a space that facilitates research, I believe it is entirely possible for it to function as a leading beacon for the region. If run in a transparent, ethical, and collegiate manner, it will be a gleaming example in the future for regional institutions to follow. For now, I would recommend a visit to the NGS just for the architecture and its restaurant National Kitchen by Violet Oon.
The light show on the opening night was phenomenal.
Light and sound show projected on the former City Hall facade
“Here was a possibility to show how the region grappled with its colonial past, post-colonial legacies, regional consequences of global Cold War politics, and a slew of oppressive regimes in fast growing economies; to show how artists critiqued power, divisive ethnic politics, religious extremism and its ties to new-forming nationalistic identities in original, expressive languages — not merely reacting to urban, economic, and political shifts, but actively contesting them.”
I appreciate that Lalwani’s expectations were clearly articulated here, but also wonder whether these are standards that necessarily must be applied to all art institutions. The crux of these expectations is, rightfully or wrongfully, couched in a kind of post-structuralism that’s taken western art display and description by storm. But that doesn’t make it right; AND it doesn’t make it the only way that art should be discussed or displayed by a museum.
I would be curious to read another critical perspective which does not take Western contemporary “context-driven” art display for granted, and perhaps is more curious about what “leaving things out” can mean about relationships to art.
They may have failed to properly manifest their powerpoint goals, but perhaps allowing artworks to exist in a less descriptive and managerial space does something else that is equally worthwhile. I come from the perspective of knowing how limiting and barrier-building some museums’ language and ‘information’ can be. The way the National Gallery in London explains the impressionists, for example, is dry, banal and limiting… and yet it would probably rank very highly on the Good-Historical-Context-o-meter.
So… the author has told us what’s been mislaid, forgotten or simply lost. But what else might be in its place?
Your comment ends on a thoughtful question- What is mislaid, forgotten, lost- or yet to be discovered in the writing of our histories. The object of this piece is to draw out such discussions -ongoing in private threads- into public domain. There should be numerous (healthy) disagreements in charting the course of a new “National” Gallery that has the agency to champion “Regional” discourse – How could the field be better served? How could differing points of views be put forth in a coherent manner? And which institutions could we look to that faced similar challenges in setting up and establishing scholarship? More importantly, I’m interested in hearing about what NGS could shape up to be in 20 years time.
Totally fair and I agree: a specific or particular stance on the part of the NGS would add a stronger – if not potentially volatile – thread to the histories of National galleries and exhibition making.
I suppose the question is Also whether that stance needs to be explicit and explained, or whether other forms of ‘non-signage’ might signal meaning or a position just as effectively. Or importantly?
As a parallel discussion continues on my FB thread, I will paste here the comment by Natalia Kraevskaia (Salon Natasha, Hanoi, Vietnam):
I thought that everything exists and should be seen, interpreted and studied in context (historical context which you discuss here) would we take an art work or literary production or any other products of cultural activity. I remember that studying history of literature, history of philosophy, criticism, I was taught that historical context is not only chronology, period with its political and economic peculiarities, but also is a cultural milieu with specific spiritual views, Weltanschauung and philosophical convictions, psychological concepts and modes of reception and so on…. Is this approach not relevant anymore? As I understood you are discussing here museums’ collections or curated museums’ exhibitions – difficult to imagine that they can be build up without historical context (the only
explanation is an organization/curator to be an adept of philosophical formalism).
So, whether subtle or explicit, there has to be a way for the art in the museum collection to tell the story. But the way the exhibitions were laid out at NGS, chronologically with insubstantial themes imposed on them, it would seem as though socialist realist art suddenly leads to abstraction which abruptly leads to installation art- across the region. It is not as though a regional approach has not be attempted before. This is why I very specifically hyperlink (“risk-taking exhibitions”) to a six-country, two decade Southeast Asian survey exhibition that a similar state institution like Singapore Art Museum undertook. This exhibition also came with a hefty catalogue which included around 7 essays. I’m not saying there is only one definitive way of showing regional art, but there has to be a sensitive, holistic approach with a deep understanding of the many forces that shaped the region’s art practices.
Take just one example of artist Chua Mia Tee, mentioned in this article. He was part of the Equator Art Society that in the clamp down on suspected communists was pressured to de-register by the Singapore government by 1974. (The same party has been in charge for fifty years, admirably getting behind ‘culture’). There is much discourse to be had around these artworks, so how can the National Gallery NOT be the place for such conversations? I have been told I’m unfair to judge the museum on their first two exhibitions and that this institute should be ‘given time’, ‘curators are young’ etc. I think that is an extremely patronizing view of an Asian museum that has spent a substantial amount of tax-payer’s money already.
As the NGS is a world class institution, we must hold it to high standards as one would the MoMA. Speaking of which, I thought I would look at how this particular institution addresses the Cold War period and found that it is indeed possible to provide socio-political and historical context to the art produced during those decades: http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/abstract-expressionism
Here is an extract:
[//Abstract Expressionism emerged in a climate of Cold War politics and
social and cultural conservatism. World War II had positioned the United
States as a global power, and in the years following the conflict, many
Americans enjoyed the benefits of unprecedented economic growth. But by
the mid-1950s the spirit of optimism had morphed into a potent mix of
power and paranoia. Fueled by the fear of Communist infiltration,
Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin unleashed a series of “witch-hunts”
against alleged Communist sympathizers. Any hint of subversion could
make an individual suspect. One scholar later reflected: “It is ironic
but not contradictory that in a society…in which political repression
weighed as heavily as it did in the United States, abstract
expressionism was for many the expression of freedom: the freedom to
creative controversial works of art, the freedom symbolized by action
painting, by the unbridled expressionism of artists completely without
fetters.”1 //]
Additionally, for those interested in a quick read on Southeast Asia history studies (and hegemonic stance of one country over another), here’s an excellent interview in which the late academic Benedict Anderson touches on something relevant to our art and cultural field:
[Ben Anderson: It seems to me that Southeast Asian universities don’t need to think about “area studies” in any hegemonic sense (Singapore tries to do this, with laughable results), but they do need to have teachers and students who can do good work on “neighbors” in ASEAN and in China-Japan-Korea, and perhaps also in Islamic studies (though here I am not optimistic).]
https://www.academia.edu/19763123/Benedict_Anderson_Interview_Comparatively_Speaking_On_Area_Studies_Theory_and_Polemics
To emphasize my point regarding history writing being its infancy in Southeast Asia, here is an essay by Kelvin Chuah that discusses the challenges of art writing in this region: http://www.aaa.org.hk/Diaaalogue/Details/884
Extract:
//Academic institutions in Malaysia and Singapore today offer
postgraduates programmes in the visual arts. For example, University
Malaya conducts the Master of Art (Visual Arts), while Universiti Sains
Malaysia offers masters and doctoral degree in Fine Arts. A more
theoretical approach may be seen in Singapore, with La Salle College of
the Arts offering the Master of Arts in Asian Art Histories programme.
The past decade bore witness to foreign art institutions joining the
local bandwagon to provide tertiary art education (studio based
learning). An incident of note is the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in
Singapore. Since its inception in the city-state in 2007, the
institution offered Master’s in Art Business and Contemporary Art.
Unfortunately, a local newspaper article dated July 15 2010, reported
the cessation of the programmes from May 2011 [4]
The reason for highlighting tertiary education here is to re-emphasise
the subject of writing of art history and contemporary art that was
invoked at the beginning of this essay. One would be hard-pressed to
obtain art historical writings in the formative years of Malaysia and
Singapore. With the exception of individuals like T.K. Sabapathy, many
of the artists multi-tasked, producing art as well as serving as
curators and writers. This phenomenon is crucial to the understanding of
art in these two countries. It was only much later that students who
graduated with history of art studies from foreign universities
returned.//
I have received a statement from NGS and I appreciate that my criticism was taken in the spirit that it was meant:
//Thank you once again for joining us at the National Gallery Singapore’s opening week celebrations and for your review piece on Hyperallergic.
As mentioned, National Gallery Singapore has corrected the date of Piyadasa’s work on the museum label and publication since your visit. With the Gallery’s co-curated exhibition with Centre Pompidou coming up, we thought it would be timely to share some additional details about the show. The exhibition, titled ‘Reframing Modernism’ is a co-curated exhibition by National Gallery Singapore Director Eugene Tan and his team Lisa Horikawa and Phoebe Scott, together with the Deputy Director of the Centre Pompidou’s National Museum of Modern Art, Catherine David and curator Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov.
The inaugural exhibition will present selections of modern masterworks by artists from Southeast Asia such as Le Pho, Latiff Mohidin, Affandi, Georgette Chen and H.R. Ocampo.as well as important works from the Centre Pompidou collection including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Vassily Kandinsky.
‘Artist and Empire’ is co-curated by the Gallery’s team of Low Sze Wee, Director of Curatorial and Collections, Melinda Susanto and Toffa Binte, Abdul Wahed, together with the Tate Britain team comprising Alison Smith, Lead Curator, 19th Century British Art, and curators David Brown, Carol Jacobi and Caroline Corbeau-Parsons.//
The photos and the information in this post were amazing. Loved to visit this post.