Arts Picks: Grand Italian Vision, Impart Art Prize, Days Of Yore

Look out for iconic pieces such the 1.94m L’estrusco by Michelangelo Pistoletto. PHOTO: EMBASSY OF ITALY SINGAPORE

The Grand Italian Vision: The Farnesina Collection

On show at The Arts House are more than 70 Italian artworks tracing Italian art’s evolution after the 20th century, which are typically housed in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome.

Beginning with Futurism, the works in The Grand Italian Vision: The Farnesina Collection are arranged broadly chronologically, encompassing waves of successive art movements that have transformed people’s ways of seeing in the last 150 years.

Visitors can look out for iconic pieces such as Umberto Boccioni’s Futurist bronze sculpture Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space, as well as the 1.94m L’estrusco by Michelangelo Pistoletto.

Pieces by seminal artists such as Arte Povera artist Mario Merz, conceptual artist Piero Manzoni and pop artist Mario Schifano have also been brought to Singapore in the exhibition put up by The Arts House and the Embassy of Italy. Arte Povera or “poor art” – an art movement from the 1960s to 1970s – saw artists exploring unconventional processes and everyday materials.

Curator Achille Bonito Oliva, an Italian art critic and historian of contemporary art, says of the exhibition: “Art is always the fruit of imagination that knows no barriers. Italian art is the clearest proof of this. From the Renaissance to the present day, it has always operated under the sign of renewal and memory.”

Where: The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane
MRT: City Hall
When: Till Feb 25, 11am to 8pm
Admission: Free

Impart Art Prize Public Exhibition

A Lasalle College of the Arts graduate, Jon Chan is a painter whose works often feature empty rooms and vacant stares.  PHOTO: ART OUTREACH

Non-profit Art Outreach is organising an exhibition for the winners of its Impart Art Prize for the first time since the award started in 2017.

This is held at its new art space in Gillman Barracks. Works by winners of this year’s prize – Kent Chan and Jon Chan – will be curated by John Tung, who received the inaugural Tan Boon Hui Curatorial Prize, the Impart Art Prize for curators.

A Lasalle College of the Arts graduate, Jon Chan is a painter who is guided by “an attunement with the notion of the divided self and a sense of alienation which is situated in doubt”, his works often featuring empty rooms and vacant stares.

His fellow winner Kent Chan, who holds a master’s in fine arts from the Sandberg Institute in the Netherlands, is interested in the intersection between film and art. He has a bachelor of arts in film from Lasalle.

For instance, his work, Hot House, is a heated space constructed from wood and PVC strips created for meditation stimulated by video streamed from screens.

Where: 01-06 Gillman Barracks, 5 Lock Road
MRT: Labrador Park
When: Saturday to Feb 26, 11am to 7pm
Admission: Free

Days Of Yore

Days of Yore sets out to remember and honour the paths that Singapore’s early art has taken, thanks to these pioneers.  PHOTO: CONFLUENCE ART SPACE

This is an exhibition of 19 works by nine important Nanyang artists, from titans Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Wen Hsi to acclaimed second-generation artists Lim Tze Peng and Tan Choh Tee.

Themed Days Of Yore, it is Singapore-based gallery Confluence Art Space’s first exhibition of the year. It sets out to remember and honour the paths that Singapore’s early art has taken, thanks to these pioneers.

The exhibition’s blockbuster piece is Bali Life by Cheong, executed in the 1950s shortly after he returned from his defining trip to the Indonesian island.

It is one of the few artworks by Cheong in the traditional Chinese handscroll format, and shows Balinese women painting batik and villagers preparing for a procession.

He combines the linework of traditional Chinese ink painting with Western elements of light and shadow – a trademark melding that would later come to define the art of the region.

Where: Confluence Art Space, 02-29, 2 Havelock Road
MRT: Clarke Quay
When: Till March 3, Wednesdays to Sundays, 1 to 6pm, Mondays and Tuesdays by appointment
Admission: Free

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