On arrival at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) I noticed the large bronze statue of a man with 2 children above the entrance (Used to be a school and the man is, certainly hard to miss. I was fortunate enough to time my arrival (2pm) with the start of a free tour presented by a French woman.
The start was walking upstairs to the old school chapel, the glass window is not original here, the original stained glass window (built in England and shipped over) was taken out during world war 2 and hidden to prevent it getting damaged. Unfortunately one person took it out and kept it a secret from everybody, died during the war , and so the glass has been lost ever since. The new piece is actually lots of large chunks of glass place together around a metal frame to give it’s appearance, up close it is 3D, not a flat 2D glass panel.
Inside the chapel
We then went to the textiles area, of which some artists used effectively for strange effects, that main eye drawing feature in this room though has to be the costumes made by a European artist who immigrated to Indonesia and designed and made them to show the cultural differences in attitudes towards animals. The closest is made from Squirrel skin, the one behind from snake skin and the furthest one back from suade with index fingers on all pointing down to demonstrate how you can’t use your index finger to point (you use the thumb) as it is rude.
Textile area of SAM
It was at this point a security guard told me off for using my camera (the tour guide didn’t seem to have a problem with it though). Next to that exhibition was a completely black room with lighting on little girls dresses painted white and held stiffly with starch. The empty dresses represented the girls from China who would have been if they were male, but because of the one child per couple rule, and a boy being the preference a lot of girls are aborted. Which was quite moving to see, and very clever as I think everyone was slightly disturbed when they see it.
With that done, outside I found these two Chinese men eating, so decided to help advice them on what to eat.
Hand crafted statues beside SAM
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I love those sculptures!