a r t m u s e u m

Went with MJ to the Singapore Art Museum today! =) Felt really good catching up with her again.. Irritating how uni semester seems to rob you of all your time sometimes... Took this picture in front of a Chalcography print of a mural.. Do I hear the 'huh?'s haha... It's about making replicas of famous paintings etc by etching on copper plates and applying a special mix of ink on the plate before rolling a sheet of moist-ed paper on top of it under high pressure... Quite amazing, the skills of these engravers, with their abilities to create light and dark with just different densities and angles and depth of etch lines... Yet never heard of it as a form of art, yar...

We were stopped from taking more photos by the security guard after a few shots, thought that it'd be fine since these were prints instead of the actual paintings and are easily reproduceable blah blah (you know, vs the usual reasons they quote for not allowing you to take photos in art museums)..

Quite lucky that we went today, cos it so happens that quite a number of exhibits were on.. Think we mostly liked the Chacography and Idealism (by Zeng Fanzhi) exhibits.. The above was done by Zeng Fanzhi using colour pencils... He seems to have a few different painting styles though.. He has a few like the one above, with school children with the red scarf-tie thingy which MJ says was compulsory for schoolchildren in China, and some wearing masks, which represents the feeling he had that his friendships in Beijing were superficial unlike those he had in his hometown Wuhan... Only realised after a few of such similar ones that there's a bit of surrealism too, most evident in the one with 2 schoolchildren just standing upright facing you against a beautiful clean background of mountains and sky... The flesh-coloured paintings of humans and raw meat were kinda grotesque... We had some fun guessing what the oil paintings of stark strong brushstrokes hid, wonder whether he even knew himself haha..

Couldn't really appreciate the abstract expresionism exhibits though.. It was a pleasant building, the former SJI building, especially when it's air-conditioned now haha... We had some fun scribbling with crayons at some tables like kids again haha, maybe you can find it there if you do visit that place soon! ;) Maybe it'll fetch a reaaallly high price in a few years' time haha..