SingartSnapped: Here & The World
If you have been enthralled by Sebastiao Salgado’s technical and artistic excellence in shooting his black and white photographs on nature and tribal communities in the undeveloped world for his current “Genesis” exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore, you may be delighted to know that the ICON de Martell Cordon Bleu is not the only other showcase of premier photography to hit the Singapore visual arts scene this year.
The 4th Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF) is set to take center stage come 22 August, when it kicks off with “Flux Realities: A Showcase of Chinese contemporary Photography” at the ArtScience Museum: a specially curated showcase of well-established as well as emerging photographers in China, it brings under 1 roof, for the 1st time ever, 7 Chinese contemporary artists – Wang Qing Song, Yang Yongliang, Wei Bi, Zhang Dali, Liu Xiaofang, MALEONN (Ma Liang) and Wang Ningde.
Their diverse collection of photographic works spark a dialogue about the nature of remembering and its role in the creation and perception of reality by excavating memories buried beneath skyscrapers and factories and examining the torn fabric of tradition.
As such this exhibition of more than 60 photographs highlights each artist’s individual creative approach and personal experience of the ongoing process of modernization the country they call home; touching on issues like globalization, environmental crisis, population displacement and state propaganda, making the resultant mainland Chinese landscape rife with amnesia and disorientation.
So the works of Liu and MALEONN reflect their fantasies, childhood memories, unfulfilled dreams as well as desires, while Wei’s highlight the simple charms of communal village life and Yang’s are futuristic panoramas that bridge tradition and modernity.
At the same time, Wang Qing Song and Zhang’s adopt history as a reference point in their commentary on salient humanistic issues, as Wang Ningde’s carve out an emotive space for contemplating the past and clarifying the present.
As the stardust from this 1st show of Chinese camera shots begins to settle, SIPF launches, on 3 October, a 2nd exhibition that results from its “Open Call Showcase”. Conveying ‘The Infinity’ as its theme, it celebrates the endless possibilities that ideas and collaborations can bring as the festival continues in its mission to break new ground for photography in Singapore.
Hence, it will feature the specially selected 48 portfolios from 23 countries from the 707 submissions SIPF had earlier received from 70 nations: 22 photographers hail from Asia-Pacific, of which 6 reside in our little red dot under the tropical sun (including Lavender Chang and Wilfred Lim: both nominees in this year’s ICON de Martell Cordon Bleu awards). Another 22 are from Europe, with the last 4 from North and South America.
The selected artists adhere to SIPF’s aim of pushing boundaries beyond the ordinary with refreshing and meaningful content to create a memorable photo experience for you at the National Museum of Singapore, Festival Village @ DECK, Sculpture Square and 2902 Gallery.
Concurrently launched with SIPF’s “Open Call Showcase” is its “Afterimage: Contemporary Photography in Southeast Asia” at 8Q at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM).
It forms part of SAM’s mega exhibition, “Still Moving: A Triple Bill on the Image” and focuses on non-traditional photographic practices by veteran and emerging artists within ASEAN, being Dinh Q Le, Yee I-Lann, John Clang, Eiffel Chong, Gary Ross Pastrana, Genevieve Chua, Wawi Navarroza, Abednego Trianto, Liana Yang, Nge Lay, Michael Shaowanasai, Agan Harahap and Yaya Sung.
The 2nd of SAM’s 3-in-1 exhibition focuses on photographic images as well. Called “Time Present: Photography from the Deutsche Bank Collection”, its more than 70 works illustrate the transformation photography has undergone in contemporary art since the 1970s; ranging from classics, such as those by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Jeff Wall, to current art photography from the Middle East, Africa and China.
As such this exhibition examines various formal, conceptual and performative approaches photographers have taken to expand their artistic medium, while investigating the relationship photography has with time in a great variety of ways.
Now if the small selection of Bernd and Hilla Bercher’s snapshots capture your fancy at 8Q, you will delighted to know that the SIPF will have a range of their works on display at Festival Village @ DECK: opening a day later than SAM’s, “Types: A Journey of Bernd and Hilla Becher through Asia” results from the festival organizers’ partnership with the Goethe Institut, Singapore.
And it traces the Bechers’ obsessive documentation of disappearing industrial architecture and structures in late 1950s Germany while pioneering the discovery of the photographic typology; which is a minimalist, taxonomic classification of images by their inherent forms and patterns: this new vision – objective, deadpan and minimalist – took the world by storm.
As such showcasing “Types” here becomes a tribute Asia is giving the German couple for the diversity of refreshing artistic possibilities that have emerged in this region from a re-interpretation of their vision. And so it foils the duo’s works against those taken by Singapore’s Ang Song Nian and and Chua Chye Teck, Indonesia’s Akiq AW, Japan’s Shigeru Takato, Korea’s Koo Bohnchnag and China’s Ao Guoxing.
Even then, the exhibitions the SIPF has lined up does not end here: come 31 October, “An Ocean of Possibilities” opens at the ArtScience Museum. Resulting from an international open call partnership between SIPF and the renowned Noorderlicht International Photofestival in Netherlands, it will feature approximately 250 photographs by 31 artists from 20 countries spanning the globe.
Comprising curated individual series that focus on social developments, the exhibition turns the spotlight on the people, be they individuals, small communities and businesses, who challenge themselves in search of unconventionalities to plot their own course and so change the status quo. Thus setting out to realize a better future, not only for themselves but also for others.
Adding yet another feather to the SIPF’s cap is its “100 Days of Living: A Singapore Diary”. Slated for exhibition from 17 October for a little more than 2 weeks at the Central Lending Library, it will result from your active contribution.
You are invited to send it what you have snapped with your digital camera via 100days.sg@gmail.com with “100 Days of Living (Your Full Name)” in the email’s subject field and they will be printed out and showcased in a photo journal interactive display where you can learn to use them to curate your very own living museum; making it 1 that celebrates life today, be it the defining or mundane moments.
As you are out and about capturing your salient moments on camera, you can check out the photos professionally captured in 2 currently running exhibitions as fuel for your creative imagination: the ArtScience Museum’s “Annie Leibovitz A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005” and Sundaram Tagore Gallery’s “Summer Group Show”.
That at Marina Bay Sands features close to 200 shots as a unified narrative of the private life and public image of the world’s most celebrated celebrity photographer, Annie Leibovitz. Serving as a personal memoir, her photographs documents a particular time frame within her life, including the loss of close relations, birth and childhood of her 3 daughters, family vacations, reunions and close friends.
If you still have not drunk your fill of Leibovitz’s works there, you will be heartened to know that they are on display at the latter exhibition in Gillman Barracks too, along with works by Edward Burtynsky and Robert Polidori.
Burtynsky, an acclaimed Canadian photographer, chronicles man’s impact on nature in his disarmingly beautiful images of industrial landscapes across the globe. Shot from up to 7000 feet above, his painterly, often abstract, shots beautifully bring the scale of environmental devastation into keen perspective.
In total contrast, Polidori transverses the globe to shoot atmospheric photographs that capture interiors altered by the passage of time. Thus hinting at the psychological implications of human habitat through the people who have lived in them.
May all 3 photographers offer you much to muse over and set you on your path in capturing all matters utterly sublime wherever your deeds of the day may take you.
And may you have as much fun snapping pictures as drinking in the exciting photography exhibitions lined up for the rest of the year:
* Exhibition: “Summer Group Show”
Artists : Annie Leibovitz, Robert Polidori & Edward Burtynsky
Where : Sundaram Tagore Gallery, at 5 Lock Road, #01-05 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108933
When : Till 7 September this year
* Exhibition: “Annie Leibovitz A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005”
Where : ArtScience Museum, 6 Bayfront, Singapore 018974
When : Till 9 October this year
* Event : The 4th Singapore International Photography Festival
- (a) Exhibition: “Flux Realities: A Showcase of Chinese Contemporary Photography”
When : 22 August – 2 November this year
(b) Exhibition: “An Ocean of Possibilities”
When : 31 October – 28 December this year
(a)& (b)
Where: ArtScience Museum, 6 Bayfront, Singapore 018974
- Exhibition: “4th SIPF Open Call Showcase”
Where :
(a)National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897
(b)Festival Village @ DECK, 51 Prinsep Street
(c) Sculpture Square Limited, 155 Middle Road, Singapore 188977
(d)2902 Gallery, 222 Queen Street, #02-02, Singapore 188550
When :
3 October – 30 November this year
- Exhibition: “Afterimage: Contemporary Photography in Southeast Asia”
Where : SAM at 8Q, 8 Queen Street, Singapore 189555
When : 3 October 2014 – 8 February 2015
- Exhibition: “TYPES: A Journey of Bernd and Hilla Becher through Asia”
Where : Festival Village @ DECK, 51 Prinsep Street
When : 4 October – 30 November this year
- Exhibition: “100 Days of Living: A Singapore Diary”
Where : Central Lending Library, Basement 1, 10 Victoria Street, Singapore 188064
When : 17 – 30 October this year
* Exhibition: “Time Present: Photography from the Deutsche Bank Collection”
Where : SAM at 8Q, 8 Queen Street, Singapore 189555
When : 3 October 2014 – 8 February 2015
Feature photo:
Yogendran Sandiran’s “Mannequin Pic” in the 4th SIPF’s “100 Days of Living: A Singapore Diary” exhibition
Right photo:
Jeremy Low’s “Man Yawning Pic” in the 4th SIPF’s “100 Days of Living: A Singapore Diary” exhibition
