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Installation view, Figuring a Scene, National Gallery Singapore, 2024.
Discover a new perspective on exhibitions with Figuring a Scene, where we break free from traditional art history norms. Here, we believe exhibitions hold intrinsic significance beyond historical or societal contexts. Emotions, imagination, and sensory experiences take center stage in our understanding of art, defining how we make sense of the world around us.
Explore the process of creating art and the meaning of materials within specific settings, akin to the unfolding of a narrative or drama. As you navigate the exhibition, connect with your own experiences with the artworks on display.
Join us on a journey that encourages a deeper appreciation for the intricate process of art creation. Engage in thought-provoking questions about the production and reception of art, the collective staging of the exhibition scene, and the interconnectedness between artistic forms and the broader realms of history and everyday life.
Figuring a Scene presents different instances where elements from nature become signs that help us perceive and grasp social forms. These instances come via six episodes - shadow, fruit, fire, air, wax, and city.
E-Catalogue
Richly illustrated, it includes an introduction to Dalam Southeast Asia and a curatorial essay that explores the transformative process of “figuring” through art, illustrating how events and objects are masterfully woven into narratives that resonate through history.
Room Sheets
The exhibition will be presented in English, with room sheets available in 3 other languages. Please click on the links below to access to them.
How does wax embed faith and terror? Renato Habulan’s artwork, Tira, encompasses various meanings in Filipino. Comprising driftwood, found statuary, and paraffin wax, it features a transfigured Christ sculpture resting on wax, referencing colonial Catholicism in the Philippines.
The work evokes the religious embeddedness, fragmentation and the horrors of war in southern Philippines.
Two prominent signs of Singapore’s aspiration to a national and modern form are public housing and the art museum, traced to discourses emerging from post-colonial Malaya.
Architectural texts from the sixties independence underscore the role of art and culture in shaping national identity. Meanwhile, public housing, catalysed by the 1961 fire crisis, transformed “squatters into citizens.”
Amid this desire for belonging, a teak sculpture by Shui Tit Sing alludes to the excitement of change, but also to the trauma of death, complicating the narrative of development in a country where nearly 80% live in public housing.
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