Art Day Out at Gillman Barracks, 14 May 2016

Every so often, I feeling like expanding the hub's artistic horizons, so I will pull him off to some art exhibition or other where he will see things that leave him in total incomprehension.

Art Day Out at Gillman was no exception. This is a day where the galleries at Gillman open their doors and all are free to come. Other than the galleries, there were also artists in residence from NTU and an area for children to play with art materials. To top off the Day, when you reached the last of the galleries, there was also a vintage flea mart and eating places as well. 

I don't know if the hub's artistic horizons were expanded, but I can be sure on the total incomprehension, from the look of confused bewilderment on his face from gallery to gallery. Would you 'get' the following artwork?

1. All that glitters is not gold, it's guns too. 

2. The art is in the hidden message. See if you can spot it.

3. I wish I had such art assignments when I was in school. This is Art Outreach, they are an educational non-profit that promotes art through programmes such as art and cultural heritage tours, school programmes and they have a visual thinking lab at Gillman. Check them out on Facebook because they have programmes for adults and children alike.

I do want to spend a bit more time writing on the following exhibition because it turned out to be my favourite out of the Day and they are from the exhibition Reflections on Still Water by Zheng Lu. Zheng Lu is a Beijing-based artist and he created works out of stainless steel to look like splashes of moving water. Most remarkably, when you look up close, the sculptures are made out of thousands of Chinese characters. 

The ones I've captured here are only the small ones. There was also a large splash inside which went over the room! They really caught my attention because although they were made from hard steel, the sculptures still looked very fluid and it felt like they were in motion even though they were steel.

Or they looked like a Harry Potter spell frozen in mid-air.

Reflections on Still Water is held at the Sundaram Tagore gallery from now till May 19. This will bring you to their website.

The other I found interesting was one held at the Pearl Lam Gallery entitled The Third Script, a two-person exhibition by Boo Junfeng and Linda CH Lai. Their exhibition was a reflection on how our identity and recollection of the past are formed and how incomplete and non-linear perspectives can skew our memories.

The most touching part of this, (other than the incomprehensible parts) was a short film by Boo called Parting. The film is about a Malaysian man suffering from dementia who comes to Singapore to look for his long-lost lover whom he left behind....... in the 1960s. I found the scenes with the man very touching as he went through Woodlands and plodded his way through Singapore. He walked around with a bewildered expression through most of the film (kinda like the hub that day) and his tenacity finally led him to the school where she worked. Did he find her? I'll let you go to the gallery to discover for yourself. :p 

The Third Script is held at Pearl Lam Gallery till 19 June. This is their website.

So in the end, after seeing all these, are these Art?

Well, maybe it really depends on the beholder. 

I did wish more of the galleries would make an effort to promote their art. Most of the information I wrote above came from media release notes and curatorial notes that the galleries were giving out that day. The reason why some are better written than others is that these galleries actually had the notes to give out. Also, the staff in the galleries mostly left us to wander around and there weren't much information put up. Um, if you do hold a public event inviting the public to come, you could be a bit more inviting.......? Guess they weren't impressed by my Pusheen keychain.

Well, you do have to consider they are a gallery, not a museum, which means they are also interested in selling the artworks to worthy buyers and unfortunately the only way I could bring home any of their art was to pilfer the free postcards. 

Maybe one day, who knows? Meanwhile, for more free art, I offer you the following photographic artwork. 

I think I'll call it: "Total Artistic Incomprehension". 

Women: New Portraits by Annie Leibovitz

Today (Sunday, May 8) I went to the Annie Leibovitz photo exhibition at the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. Since one of my personal goals is to improve my photography, I thought it would be worthwhile to learn from a master, oops, mistress of the craft.

I was only armed with a humble iPhone and my lacklustre skill, so no comparisons hor...

 The exhibition was sponsored by UBS and it's a world tour which began in London in January. Other countries on the world tour include New York, Zurich, Tokyo and Hongkong.

The Exhibition Hall

While walking, I notice some light and movement inside the old ticket counter. What the...?

When I walked in, I realized they had created a reading nook inside. There were chairs and sofas and photography books from a wide variety of photographers for you to browse through.

While the area looked tempting, I couldn't stay for more than 5 minutes because it was just too hot! There were 2 reading nooks and both only had the standing air con unit for ventilation so the room became very stuffy and humid very quickly. 

This is the book which you can find her works from the exhibition as well as many more. I think I would rather browse it at Kino......

The print photographs displayed were of various well-known female figures from politics and the arts and others. I don't know if I can accurate pinpoint or describe the Leibovitz style but there were 2 points that struck me in the photos I saw:

She took photos of her subjects in their own comfort zones.
Adele was taken while seated at a piano, a prominent historian was taken while in her study, and a US ambassador in her office. The subjects weren't always the major focus of the photo and they were placed in a setting that expanded our understanding of them. So for example, in the photo of Adele, we do not see her just as Adele, we would see her as Adele, the Musician.

This is interesting because when we think of portrait photography, we always think that we should focus on the person and the face. Most commonly, we think of the studio shot, shot against a plain background. Leibovitz shows that a portrait can be taken out of the studio in order to show more of the character behind the face.

Her subjects show strength and vulnerability at the same time
I'm not sure if this was because of the rapport between the photographer and the subject or because of the subject chosen. Most of the women in the photos seem to show this contrasting dichotomy. Could it be because as working women, we are expected to be strong but yet we still have an inherent softness? Ah, I'll let my feminist friends argue that point out... 

Most striking were the 2 photos of Yoko Ono. One was a Rolling Stones cover which showed her and John Lennon in the same bed. The other was a close up of Yoko Ono's face. There seemed to be years of difference between the two but the captions will tell you that the photos were taken only 1 year apart. A few hours after the Rolling Stones cover photo was taken, Lennon was shot. And the grief and misery was clearly apparent on Yoko's 2nd photo.

All in all, I liked the exhibition though I wish that more photos were displayed and that they had better ventilation! If you want to visit, the exhibition is on till 22 May. Read more about the exhibition by clicking on these little highlighted words.