February Round-Up

Art Agenda, ArtScience Museum, OBJECTIFS, Sa Sa Art Projects and LIR
By Shalyn Lim

Affandi, ’At the Beach’, 1982, oil on canvas, 121 x 240cm. Image courtesy of Art Agenda, S.E.A..

Everything Light Touches: Panorama Paintings from Private Collections

Arts House Limited, in partnership with Art Agenda, will present an exclusive exhibition titled ‘Everything Light Touches: Panorama Paintings from Private Collections’. It features 14 exceptional artworks loaned from private collections in Singapore, exhibited collectively for the first time in Singapore. Spread across three historical rooms on the second floor of The Arts House, ‘Everything Light Touches: Panorama Paintings from Private Collections’ reveals how artists have utilised the expansive breadth of creative possibilities offered by the panoramic format. Expect to see artworks of, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Affandi, Chua Ek Kay, Liu Kang, Vincent Hoisington, Lee Man Fong, Pham Hau, Choo Keng Kwang, Lim Yew Kuan, Nasirun, A.D Pirous and Abas Alibasyah.

The Arts House, 20 January to 6 February 2022.

Cao Fei, ‘Isle of Instability’, 2020. Commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary. Image courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers.

Hope from Chaos: Pandemic Reflections

‘Hope from Chaos: Pandemic Reflections’ investigates how epidemics work and how this pandemic has impacted the world. It begins with an introductory display from The Smithsonian Institution, USA titled ‘Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World’. This part of the exhibition explores how pathogens can spread from wildlife to humans and why some outbreaks become epidemics. ‘Hope from Chaos' continues with a ticketed display, curated by ArtScience Museum, that features emotive artworks by artists from Singapore, Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe. The artists showing in the ticketed component of the exhibition are Cao Fei (China), Heman Chong (Singapore), Luke Jerram (UK), Ivetta Sunyoung Kang (Canada/South Korea), Eun Vivian Lee (Singapore/New York/South Korea), Pierre le Riche (South Africa) and Nonzuzo Gxekwa (South Africa). Their work is shown alongside prototypes by materials scientists from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore).

ArtScience Museum, 12 February to 3 July 2022.

Kanchana Gupta, still image from ‘Production of Desire’, 2020. Image courtesy of artist. 

While She Quivers

‘While She Quivers’ hosted by Objectifs is a duo show by Singapore-based visual artists Kanchana Gupta and Yanyun Chen. Curator Kimberly Shen presents the latest instalments in the artists' long-term explorations into cultural tropes and expectations of Asian women. The exhibition bridges the converging practices of the artists, interrogating the socially and culturally defined frameworks of femininity in a quiet provocation of desire, power, intimacy, and personal agency. The curation presents rich and embodied extensions of their long-term explorations – Kanchana’s ‘Production of Desire’ and Yanyun’s ‘Stories of a woman and her dowry’.

OBJECTIFS Centre for Photography and Film, 10 January to 13 March 2022.

Khvay Samnang, ‘Popil’, 2018, digital C-Print, 60 x 90 cm edition of 4 + 2AP, 80 x 120 cm edition of 3 + 2AP. Image courtesy of artist.

Master of Lands and Waters

‘Mchas Teuk Mchas Dei (Master of Lands and Waters)’ is a group exhibition by Cambodian arts collective Stiev Selapak: Khvay Samnang, Lim Sokchanlina, and Vuth Lyno, who present their artworks together for the first time at Sa Sa Art Projects. The exhibition introduces their recent works in the form of videos, sculptures, photographs, and light installation, focusing on beliefs in nature and practices in the supernatural, animism, and the powerful spirits that take care of our homes, lands, people, animals, and living beings.

Sa Sa Art Projects, 15 January to 31 March 2022.

Image courtesy of artist.

Untuk Seorang Lelaki yang Demikian Mencintai Hujan

Curated by LIR, a curator collective duo consisting of Mira Asriningtyas and Dito Yuwono, the art exhibition titled ‘Untuk Seorang Lelaki yang Demikan Mencintai Hujan’ is part of a mini festival with the same title to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Gunawan Maryanto. This exhibition opened on the hundredth day of Gunawan Maryanto's departure by displaying the works of artists who had worked with him and were inspired by his works. The exhibiting artists are Anang Saptoto, Chrisna Fernand, Enka Komar, Sirin Farid Stevy, FX. Harsono, Ipeh Nur, Kyai Samudana, Maryanto, Mella Jaarsma, Moelyono, Octo Cornelius, Risangdaru, Syahrizal, Pahlevi, Vendy Methodos and Wok the Rock.

Krack! Studio, 13 January to 25 February 2022.