2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997
Millennium Sculpture
01 Jan 2000 - 31 Dec 2001
Museum Front Lawn (outside Dome Cafe)
Commemorating the coming of the new millennium, the Singapore Art Museum will unveil a newly commissioned public sculpture to be sited on the Museum grounds. Entitled 'The Explorer', by Singaporean sculpture aspires to capture the cultural spirit of Singapore and project the dynamism of the Singaporean identity. A significant feature at the Singapore Art Museum, the sculpture is both a symbol of the artistic achievements in Singapore as well as a signal of optimism and vibrancy of Singapore's cultural institutions and their role in promoting culture and the arts. Most importantly, it is also indicative of the development of the art in Singapore, its history and potential.
Venice Biennale 2001:
The 49th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art
21 Jul 2001 - 01 Nov 2001
Schola Sant Apollonia on San Marco, Venice, Italy
The prestigious Venice Biennale is a biennial modern art exposition that features painters, sculptors and performance artists from around the world. Since the festival's inception in 1895, the Biennale is one of the oldest and most important international art festivals of contemporary visual arts in the world. The Biennale provides a platform of interaction for the art community at large, as artists, collectors, dealers and critics from all over the world come to see it. Envisaged as a vital access to international prestige, Singapore's first participation in the Venice Biennale is important, as it accords greater recognition to Singapore artists and strengthens cultural relations and partnerships with other countries through cross cultural artistic dialogue and exchanges. More importantly, the Venice Biennale which attracts over 200,000 international visitors from Europe, United Kingdom and USA, provides a read platform to effectively promote and strengthen Singapore's culture and identity to the world. And being one of the first countries in the Asia-Pacific region to participate along with Australia, Japan Korea and Taiwan, Singapore's participation in the Biennale will undoubtedly place her on the world map as a global arts city and a premier cultural arts city in the 21st- century. Held every odd-numbered year from June to November, the five-month long Venice Biennale becomes the world's centre point for contemporary arts and features top and burgeoning visual artists from all over the world. With nearly 200 artists from 59 countries participating in the 1999 Biennale, the Venice Biennale is one of the most significant and high profile international events in the art world and receives excellent media coverage. Singapore's participation in the Venice Biennale will be spearheaded by Singapore Art Museum (National Heritage Board).
Art Connects (The Art Elective Programme exhibition)
4 August 2001 to 23 August 2001
Galleries 1.5 & 2.5
This biannual exhibition will showcase works by local students from six Art Elective centres. The theme for the exhibition is titled "Art Connects" and will be curated under four sub-themes, accordingly to different aspects of life that art relates, and connects to society. These sub-themes include 'Art connects people to Ideas', 'Art connects people to Emotions', 'Art connects people to Culture' and 'Art connects people to the Community'. The exhibition will be co-presented by Singapore Art Museum, with the venue at the museum offering spatial challenges for site-specific works. The corridors, courtyards and glass porch will offer opportunities for creative discovery and artistic engagement in art making.
Huang Yao Retrospective
13 July to 2 September 2001
Galleries 2.1 - 2.4
This retrospective exhibition features works produced by the late artist, Huang Yao (1914-1987), between the 1950s and 1980s. Born in 1914, Huang Yao began his artistic career in Shanghai as a cartoonist and adopted the pseudonym "Niu Bi Zi", which he was most known for, in works he produced during the 1930s. Fleeing the Sino-Japanese war, he worked in Vietnam and Thailand before finally settling in Malaysia in 1956. During his residence in Malaysia, he was also involved in education work till his retirement in 1975. Since then, he spent most of his time on artistic practices till is death in 1987. This retrospective exhibition of paintings and cartoons between the 1950s to the 1980s includes Huang Yao's cartoons incorporating regional Southeast Asian peoples and cultures during his sojourn in the region (what is also known as the Nanyang subject matter), a strong reflection of the late artist's 'localised' influence in the Nanyang (Southeast Asian) region, and illustrates his varied interests in Chinese folk art, landscape painting and calligraphy, and his experimentation with Chinese ideogram, creating an innovative reverse writing style of Chinese calligraphy and experimentation of Chinese characters' pictography, to product seemingly abstract art forms.
China Art Now! (5417)
24 May 2001 to 15 Jul 2001
Galleries 1.5 & 2.5
This exhibition showcases over 30 contemporary Chinese artworks from the 1990s to the present recently collected by the Museum, in line with the Museum's continued commitment to collect and display Asian art. The range of works presented in this exhibition is diverse and artists have employed a variety of forms from painting, photography, video art to sculpture.
The art works portray the mindscapes, reactions and attitudes of people in China in the context of rapid economic, social and political changes in the last decade. Artists include Fang Lijun, Zhang Peili, Rong Rong and others who are well known internationally. In conjunction with the exhibition, a public forum in Mandarin with English summary, will be held in May 2001 to provide the public an opportunity to dialogue with the artists.
President's Young Artist Exhibition
12 April to 1 July 2001
Galleries 2.1 - 2.4
The arts are essential to Singapore's development as a culturally vibrant, cosmopolitan, world-class city, and the city's finest talents are creating works of high artistry integrity, a number of whom have established reputations in the international and regional arena. In all areas of the arts, significant strides are being made towards international standards. This annual exhibition serves to discover, groom, and recognise artistic talents, and provide Singaporean talents the national or intermediate platform to launch their international careers. Selected by a curatorial committee which comprises professionals knowledgeable in contemporary Singapore art, the range of works presented will include paintings, sculptures and installations.
Inscribing Life: The Art of Tran Trung Tin
15 March 2001 to 13 May 2001
This exhibition displays the works of Vietnamese artist Tran Trung Tin, who works mainly in gouache on paper. Unlike many Vietnamese artists who paint idyllic village scenes, the suffering of war provides a driving force in Tran Trung Tin's work. A self-taught artist. Tran Trung Tin's seemingly simplistic and naive body fo work illustrates the intensity of his vision. His paintings portray Vietnam, her people and the suffering they have been through, without pretense. Tran Trung Tin's expressive and childlike brushstrokes records life honestly and powerfully.
Impression To Form: Selected Works From SAM's Tyler Art Collection
3 February 2001 to 29 April 2001
The process of creating fine art prints is an art form which origins date back to the beginning of civilisation. Printmaking gained a special prominence in the United States in the1960s. Printmaking today often involves complex multimedia processes and collaboration between artist and one or several artisans. This exhibition provides a preview of a selection of mostly prints, as well as lithographs, paper sculptures and screens which comprise part of the 1,500 works recently acquired by the Singapore Art Museum. The SAM's Tyler Art Collection comes from the personal collection of Ken Tyler, a master printer himself and a collector, amassed over 35 years. Featuring artworks by internationally well-established artists including Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, James Rosenquist, the body of works featured illustrates the aesthetic diversity of Ken Tyler's archives. The exhibition hopes to promote an appreciation and education of printmaking techniques, and a preview of the collection. To provide further discourse and awareness of printmaking, a series of demonstrations, workshops and talks will be given to schools, associations, artists, collectors and the general public, in conjunction with the exhibition. They include topics such as printmaking, methods, history and appreciation.
India Triennial
21 Jan 2001 - 21 Feb 2001
Singapore's first participation in the 10th India Triennial, held in New Delhi, features contemporary artwork by artist Heman Chong. His work, Molotov Cocktails (GreyAquariumRemix), is a video installation that explores the "social psychology of the mindlessness", of what occurs in the brain of the city people whose daily thoughts and actions are mechanical and repetitive. Personifying the right brain and the left brain as 'The Artist' and 'The Muse', he deals with respectively, the question of identity and existentialism.