The Yellow Man and more
Two exhibitions at the Singapore Art Museum provide fruit for thought and balm for the spirit
Other than Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, another favourite hangout of mine whenever I’m visiting the island state is the Singapore Art Museum. The fine institute offers memorable exhibitions of contemporary art works, mainly from our region and attempts to make them accessible and comprehensible to anyone. While my timing rarely corresponds with the museum’s guided tours, I often come across a group of young students escorted by their teacher and a museum guide, and I just follow their path and eavesdrop to learn more about the exhibited works.
On display now is “Lee Wen: Lucid Dreams in the Reverie of the Real”, the first solo exhibition by this internationally renowned Singaporean multi-disciplinary artist. Lee Wen, better known as “The Yellow Man” thanks to the series of works in which he voices his comments on the stereotype of the Western views towards Asians, has 40 works on show.
Although Lee is best known as a performance artist – meaning his act of creating his art live is more intriguing than the documentation of display of it – the exhibition manages to recreate some of the “liveness” and interactiveness of many works by this highly opinionated social, cultural and political activist. His “Erasing Self-Portraits”, for example, reveals the remains of the eraser he used. Young-at-heart spectators can also try his “Ping Pong Go-Round” hands-on. In “Art v.s. Art”, you can operate the remote controlled cars that are made of papier mach
