Ever wondered what goes on behind a museum’s collection and acquisition practice? Yeah, us too. Admittedly, we sometimes fail to grasp all the nuances of an artwork — the world of art isn’t the easiest to understand.
So two and a half years after its debut, National Gallery Singapore is revealing its journey of constant evolution, unveiling untold stories of its collection, which is touted as the world’s largest of 19th and 20th century Southeast Asian art, in a new exhibition called (Re)collect: The Making of our Art Collection.
If you can’t wrap your mind around the facts, here are some numbers to help you out. Housing a total of 8,630 artworks — mostly from Singapore, as well as countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, and Myanmar — the gallery receives more donations than it makes purchases, in popular mediums like drawings and prints on paper, oil and acrylic paintings, Chinese ink paintings, sculptures, installations, and photography.
Divided into seven sections, the exhibition starts from post-war Singapore, tracing our visual arts collection and how it developed through the decades as custodianship changed hands from the National Museum Art Gallery in 1976 to Singapore Art Museum in 1996 to National Gallery Singapore in 2015.
What started it all was when philanthropist (and co-founder of Cathay Organisation) Dato Loke Wan Tho donated over 110 pieces from his personal collection to the country in 1960 to be displayed in a new gallery. Singapore’s first registered artwork was one titled Self-Portrait by Chuah Thean Teng from the 1950s.
Works by those who paved the way in the realm of art in Singapore are featured here as well, including the likes of Lim Hak Tai, Georgette Chen, and Cheong Soo Pieng, alongside recent important acquisitions by the gallery by names like Singaporean artist Kim Lim and Malaysian artist Latiff Mohidin.
Also look out for an intriguing installation by Thai artist Navin Rawanchaikul, consisting of 11 towering shelf structures stacked with 11,000 medical bottles, half of them displaying black and white photos of the elderly.
Other highlights include Cheo Chai Hiang’s And Miles to Go Before I Sleep, a 1975 work assembled from found objects, stencilled with text from Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening; and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled 2014-2016 (curry for the soul of the forgotten), an installation of three video projections showcasing a “documentation” of various instance of curry cooked in a pot.
(Re)collect: The Making of our Art Collection is on from May 11-Aug 19 at National Gallery Singapore, Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery B & C. Free for Singaporeans and PRs; $20 for non-Singaporeans.
