LuxArtAsia



Oh Chai Hoo - Life-bearing Rock

Husband-and-wife Oh Chai Hoo and Chua Chon Hee will be showcasing their latest works of ceramics, prints and Chinese ink paintings inspired by nature at Utterly Art gallery in Singapore.

Oh Chai Hoo - Flowing Rock

Chinese artist Wang Guangle is holding his first solo show in the US at Pace Gallery in New York.
The exhibition features seven new works from Wang's Untitled series, which extends from his Coffin Paint series (begun in 2004). These large-scale paintings are made by applying layers of acrylic paint to a canvas in a pre-determined order, resulting in heavily-built surfaces that take on illusionistic depth as the tone scale varies, with the lighter gray area surrounding the dark center functioning as a frame.

Born from the Fujian tradition of elders’ preparing their coffins with a coat of lacquer for each year until their impending death, Wang adds paint to his canvas twice daily, with each layer farther removed from the painting’s edge. As the pigment accumulates, the center of the canvas builds and becomes nearly sculptural in dimension. The paintings transform cultural rituals and the passing of time into a purely formal language.

I've always liked Sandra Lee's detailed, whimsical graphic world and it's nice to see thatwith her new exhibition, the Malaysian artist is exploring new imageries while remaining faithfull to her distinctive style. Her just-opened solo exhibition at Art Seasons gallery in Singapore presents a naïve perspective of child-like wondering and wandering.

“The Art of Dress” presents intriguing works by two contemporary Hong Kong Chinese artists, Movana Chen and Man Fung Yi, who use the idea of clothing as a metaphor to convey their ideas.

Movana Chen

M+, Hong Kong’s future museum for visual culture, has scored a coup by getting a major donation of Chinese contemporary art from Uli Sigg, the famed Swiss collector.

The collection donation, conservatively valued at HKD1.3 billion (USD 163 million), includes 1,463 artworks. Art lovers will have to wait until 2017, the date when the museum will open, to see all these works.

A few new art spaces have clustered on River Vallery Road at the level of Fort Canning Park (just opposite Liang Court). It includes Veridian Art House, a gallery-cum-cafe-cum-art classes, Galeri Utama and Galeri Nila, two art exhibition spaces available for rental.

Galeri Nila is currently presenting The Nature of Print, a group exhibition ( Mathew Ivey, Marisa Keller, Lin Yushan, Alison Wilson) by four singapore-based printmakers which have looked into our relationship with the natural work and expressed it using traditional as well as digital printmaking techniques. .

Matthew Ivey

When Do Ho Suh first proposed “Fallen Star” to UC San Diego’s Stuart Collection, he “never thought it would be realized.” A cottage built from scratch and permanently joined to an existing campus building – several stories up in the air?

But there it is: seven years after the initial sketch, the artwork is ready for visitors. It opens to the public on June 7, with a meet-the-artist event from 1 to 5 p.m.

You will need this Marauder's Map

If you have kids, there will be no way to resist a visit to Harry Potter: The Exhibition this summer, now running at ArtScience Museum and for good reasons. This exhibition offers fans the opportunity to step inside Harry Potter's magical world and relive first-hand his amazing quest to defeat the Dark Lord. Hundreds of costumes and props that made JK Rowling’s magical universe palpably vivid are on exhibition and there is really a lot to take in..

From Harry’s actual invitation letter to enroll in Hogwarts to Professor Lockhart’s quizzes, from issues of The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler to Ron Weasley’s frumpy Yule Ball dress robes and Cedric Diggory’s pristine uniform (worn by Robert Pattinson), every props and costumes in the film were meticulously detailed to engage the audience into Rowling’s world

Getting sorted

While this exhibition has been touring around the world, the Singapore edition offers a few first: including all the Horcruxes displayed together for the first time, and the unveiling of Nagini.

OCBC Bank has engaged Singaporean Graffiti Artist, Trase (also known as Tr853-1) to complete a mural wall n its Sixth Avenue branch. The result brings a smile as usual and uses his usual trademark tagger character (his own image). The bank has also indicated there are plans to refresh the wall to showcase different art pieces by local artists.

This is not the first time, corporate have "engaged" graffiti artists to spread their message. Most recently, Hermes asked a well-known French graffiti artist to "decorate" the boards on one of its boutiques on Orchard Road.

But not all graffitis are welcomed in Singapore. A young graffiti artist, SKLO, has just been arrested by Police for putting up "My Grandfather Road" graffiti signs and humorous stickers in public spaces (which some could view more as artistic "interventions" than defacing of public property). But graffiti is only allowed in Singapore in especially designated public area and the 25-year-old woman could be looking at a jail term of up to 3 years.

Emily of Emerald Hill is Singapore’s best-known and most-staged play at home and internationally. Written in 1982 by Stella Kon, it is credited for reviving Peranakan culture which had fallen out of favor during the 60s-70s, thanks to its rich characterisation of Peranakan life, which expresses a distinctly Singaporean identity. A new special exhibition at the Peranakan Museum, Emily of Emerald Hill: Singaporean Identity on Stage (which runs until February 2013), explores the cultural background and history of the play.