Saturday, November 29, 2008

Singapore Biennale 2008

A few weekends ago my friend Soon Fen and I went to see the artwork at the Biennale. It's an exhibit of contemporary art held every 2 years. Most of the work is site specific and displayed in unused public buildings. I really enjoyed this show. Soon Fen and I went on both Saturday and Sunday because it was so large (3 venues) and we enjoyed the first day so much. The site-specific element was one reason I liked it. I felt like an eyewitness to the art because it was displayed in the context the artist intended. When I visit an art museum I feel more detached. I also liked being able to walk completely around the art or even through it. Several artists used this to play with perspective. You can see it in the pictures of Blackfield below. From one side all of the flowers are black. It looks very post-catastrophe. As I walked toward the other side the flowers began to change to cartoon color. All of the flowers are angled so that the color seems to flow over the field as I walked closer to the opposite end. Unfortunately, you can't get a sense of the scale of the work in the pictures. It had 10,000 flowers in a field of 100 square meters. All in all, it took up 1/2 of a very large room.


Blackfield

Blackfield


Teratoma II: War of the Worlds

Slipper Forest

Felice Varini Project: Drill Hall

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