The Biennale

One of the perks of living in Singapore, aside from the independence, is the opportunity to take advantage of what a first world city has to offer.

Going to a mall is the top thing to do every weekend back home. Here, as in any developed city, there are more distractions. There are plays and museums and special exhibits and festivals and parks and libraries and zoos... Maybe it's because Singapore is so small with hardly any "real" natural resources (versus the beaches and various forests in the Philippines) that they have found ways to make the city-state more interesting.

Every weekend I try to at least do or go to someplace new to make the most of being here. Okay honestly, I devote one day to lazing around at home and the other day to at least spending the afternoon out.

Today, I visited the Singapore Biennale (not sure about the pronounciation, short i or long i?)visual arts exhibition. I have wanted to visit since it first opened last September and of course, procrastinator me only went today which is the last day already.

The exhibit is a contemporary arts exhibit (the second in Singapore) with the theme Wonder from artists around the world. It is spread out in different places in the City area. I was a bit hesitant to go at first because I thought it would be too "modern" for me. I do not pretend to be an arts connoseiur but I want to see art that I understand at least.

I'm glad I went because even though I have been to mueseums in Europe, this was more quirky in a way. Not too modern, can be understood (thanks to the free guided tour plus the little English placards) and very visually interesting and arresting. It was also very varied so one would not get bored - scuplture, videos, photographs, installations, carvings, etc... Art opens the mind.

Personally, I'm happy to appreciate and to be surrounded by beautiful things (a trait of a true Libran) and to live in a city which makes this possible.

Some of my favorites:

scupltured out of yarn

looks like a renaissance painting but is a modern photo

10,000 filigrees with vibrant colors on one side...

and charred on the other

wooden carvings used in stop motion for a music video

made by a Filipino, "aliens" on the city hall rooftop with the new supreme court as their "spaceship"

love this... looks like fabric but is actually paint... impressive size, covering an entire high wall

love the old world mysterious feel of the exhibit in South Beach... with lone hanging lightblubs illuminating the art cards

made by a Filipino team... various personal items collected and shaped in balikbayan box mold to represent social dislocation and our need to send things home to give belongingness

dancer's twisting body

very cute... two exactly the same "barbershops" that one thinks she is looking into a mirror but the other side is actually a real live barbershop too... showing what we think is not real can actually be real

molded bars of soap representing washing and man's routinary life with one hundred years of solitude installation in the background
again by a Filipino... representation of headline disasters with the use of food!

neon light swing (I'm sure this has a deep meaning too.. solitude? fragility? time passing?)

this just looks pretty... adhesive stickers on a wall


i don't know if this was part of the exhibit but it was one of the rooms although had no art card... a deep meaning of man's obesssiveness in cleaning? or just a janitor who left the broom?! :)