The latest blockbuster at National Gallery Singapore looks to be a treat for those into three-dimensional art. Titled Nothing is Forever: Rethinking Sculpture in Singapore, the show is significantly the first major sculpture exhibition here in 30 years. If one stops to think about it, the Singapore landscape is riddled with sculptures – from the benign types that dot shopping malls and corporate offices to iconic ones like Chong Fan Cheong’s bronze boys leaping into the Singapore River.
But if you’re thinking the show is made up of all ceramic or bronze pieces, the show seeks to present a different perspective to how we understand sculpture as an artform. For starters, the name of the show is taken from a quote by legendary Singapore artist Tang Da Wu (the co-founder of Singapore’s first independent arts colony, The Artists Village, in 1988) – Tang expanded the notion of sculpture by including ephemeral elements such as light, wind, and rain as materials as part of what constitutes sculpture – a far cry from “traditional” materials such as bronze.
Other sculptures from the show include the use of everyday objects, such as Lim Leong Seng’s New Era (1976, remade 2022), a column of air-filled plastic bags attached to a string and suspended from the ceiling of The Spine Hall, as well as funerary artefacts recovered from Bukit Brown Cemetery.
July 29 to Feb 5, 2023 at National Gallery Singapore
