Singapore Art Museum’s new show will look completely different four months after opening

SINGAPORE – The instability of the world today becomes the organising principle behind the Singapore Art Museum’s (SAM) latest show.

Four months after it opens on Oct 2, it will look completely different, with the entire roster of works replaced. There might be screw holes on the walls from where works have been swapped out for something new.

Do not be surprised to see objects mid-installation. This is an experiment in a different sort of presentation – evolving and refusing top-down narratives. It is also sparser, allowing visitors to take their time to develop their own connections.

SAMCollection: The Present Is Unstable is the Tanjong Pagar Distripark gallery’s new exhibition of works from the museum’s collection, which numbers nearly 4,000 now, 30 years after its founding.

Not all will be brought out, but the aim is to restore some of these to public view with new meanings and contexts. With no exhibition theme, chief curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa says it is an invitation to the public to join in the interpretive process.

This has the added benefit of not requiring works to meet a particular theme before they are unwrapped and brought out of storage.

“I can tell you that across these almost 4,000 works, there are probably an infinite number of stories,” he says.

“When I say there is no theme, that doesn’t mean there is no curatorial thinking. A lot of deep curatorial thinking goes into developing the relationships, but the critical thing is to have our public join us without the museum becoming the only narrator of one story.”

A first batch features lots of people walking, which curator Ong Puay Khim says has been incorporated into the gallery configuration. The open layout and multiple pathways ensure people take more than the usual number of steps or have to double back to see works.

Malaysian artist Nadiah Bamadhaj has a monumental sculpture of a woman serving a male warrior food, as seen in Jakarta’s iconic Heroes Monument. But more interesting is her accompanying video, Casting Spells For The Movement (2021), that begins with a group of women adopting the sculpture’s pose but has them relaxing and moving away.

As they move off-screen in various poses of relief and fatigue, they are no longer bound to service man, nation or a single conception of the ideal woman.

Elsewhere, Singapore artist Jason Wee does away with the human altogether to imply this walking. His installation enlarges common barriers and raised metallic strips on the floor to make explicit the ways infrastructure directs movement, and visitors can step into the work.

The raised metallic strips common in places like MRT stations are also morse code fragments of poems by Singapore-Australian poet Boey Kim Cheng, with its attendant meanings of how national borders function in much the same way – and can be transcended.

Erica Lai, SAM’s deputy director of programmes, says that in thinking about the exhibition’s public programmes, her team identified two strands: the body and the invisible systems that govern it.

Movement in a system becomes identity, and there will be weekend activities incorporating drag and Japanese dance form Butoh. Artist Wee will join people in reclaiming public spaces that usually feel outside of their control through choreography derived from poems.

There will be a “party” where people will present PowerPoint slides on what it means to be a woman in the city.

Lai says: “Rather than approaching it from a very theoretical standpoint, these are some of the uncomfortable conversations we try to create space for, because we realise that the city may not have so many opportunities.”

As the National Library begins its new reading movement, she adds: “Literacy is a very multi-faceted thing. We try to bring out this idea of bodily literacy and invite different types of people to talk about it in a very confident way.”

Mustafa, giving a hint of works to come, says with bemusement: “Actually, we have many works that will teach you how to get rich fast with the least effort. Artists have been thinking about this for a long time now.”

This new way of curation is a response to feedback from younger audiences who make up the bulk of SAM’s visitorship for the museum to be more inclusive and not be didactic, he says.

Visitors can leave a mark by pouring saltwater onto Filipino artist Gary-Ross Pastrana’s marble slab, Water Cuts (Stone), inspired by the proverbial saying that persistence beats strength and power.

Like a baptismal font marking the transition into and out of a new space, it may be SAM’s quiet call for agency and activism. But Ong cautions that it is more complicated than that. The saltwater will leave no incisions, only white residue.

Visitors can draw their own conclusions. “There is this faith that through collective action we will eventually create change. But at the same time, it’s also very futile.”

Book It/SAMCollection: The Present Is Unstable

Where: Gallery 4, Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Road
When: Till July 18, 2027; 10am to 7pm daily
Admission: Free for Singaporeans and permanent residents, $10 and $5 (concession) for foreigners
Info: https://www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/art-events/exhibitions/the-present-is-unstable