Five excellent shows at Gillman Barracks

GILLMAN Barracks went through another round of bad press recently when it was announced in Parliament that the 6.6 hectare site is being studied for residential development. Factors such as low footfall and a possible under-utilisation of space were dredged up to suggest that the land could be put to better use.

But among the 11 art galleries there, many continue to hold outstanding shows by established and emerging artists. They give credence to the argument that art should have a place in any future plan for the neighbourhood. As a space for creativity and cultural engagement, there has never been anything quite like it in the history of Singapore.

We pick out five in this month’s slate of shows that deserve to be seen.

Mizuma Gallery

Nelo Akamatsu’s debut exhibition at Mizuma Gallery has been quietly drawing raves among art lovers. It is set to close this Saturday (Jun 22) so it is worth making a quick stop to marvel at the Japanese artist’s creations.

The show’s centrepiece are the glass vessels placed on various platforms. In each vessel of water, a tiny whirlpool spins continuously, created by magnets hidden beneath the platforms. These mesmerising whirlpools have a delicate and almost hypnotic effect, reflecting Akamatsu’s fascination with the unseen forces of nature. The works have a low starting price of S$2,500 each, worth considering if you are a collector.

Elsewhere, Akamatsu uses magnetic energy to orchestrate a symphony of countless little pins floating in water and gently tapping against the walls of their glass jars. The pins are geo-magnetised to search for the North or South Pole. As with the first work, Akamatsu uses natural phenomena to create an inspired piece.  

Other sculptures and paintings similarly draw on the intersection between art and science to celebrate the hidden rhythms of the natural world.

Ames Yavuz

Ames Yavuz also has a knockout show featuring Myanmar’s top conceptual artist Po Po. Although it was scheduled to close earlier, the gallery is keeping it open till this Saturday due to demand.

Po Po is an excellent veteran artist in his late 60s. But he is not well-known in the global contemporary art scene – in part because of the decades of military rule in Myanmar that restricted travel and exchange, and in part because Po Po himself created very little art during long lulls when he was disillusioned with art and politics.

SEE ALSO

Fathers and sons: What inspires us

The works on display at Ames Yavuz are spare and precise, with clean lines and geometric shapes, carrying deep symbolism. Painted in only black and red – colours that are frowned upon by the military regime for political reasons – they seek to distil certain truths about life through common signs and symbols.

Their one-word titles such as Wealth, Spiritual and Challenge offer clues to decode their pictorial puzzles. And once deciphered, they cannot help but take on a universal resonance. 

ShanghArt Singapore

If you do not intend to fly to the Venice Biennale to see the Singapore Pavilion featuring Robert Zhao Renhui, go see his retrospective exhibition at ShanghArt instead. Zhao and the gallery worked closely together to display some of the most representative works in his oeuvre. Even so, some crucial works had to be left out because there were just so many.

What is available here, however, is comprehensive enough to give anyone unfamiliar with Zhao a satisfying overview of his long investigation into the relationship between humans and animals. Some of his earliest photographs from 2008, for instance, depict “zoologists” hiding in camouflage cloaks and spying on wild animals. Droll and ironic, they hint at the understated satirical humour the artist would employ throughout his career.

His more iconic works include A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World (2013), an exuberant imagining of how human interference has supposedly shaped the natural world. They include genetically modified eggs whose shells do not break so easily, a lab-engineered “fluorescent zebrafish” whose stripes start to glow when they detect pollutants in the water, and other curious creations.

Titled Evidence of Things Not Seen (a James Baldwin reference), this is a show that has to be seen and understood.

Yeo Workshop

Ng Joon Kiat is one of the most underrated veteran painters in Singapore. His intricate practice has become even more complex with his first showing at Yeo Workshop. In recent years, Ng has been deconstructing the medium of painting – slicing, smashing, puncturing, poking and carving up his canvases, in order to open the medium to new dimensions and meanings.

Some results look utterly bizarre: His 2017 work titled Autopsy Painting 8 is a thick slab of paint, cleaved somewhere in the middle to expose wooden wedges and joints. Others are more lyrical: Painting Vocabulary: 3 is a three-canvas work, each containing residues of paint and paintwork that shed light on Ng’s studio processes over different periods of time. (Both these works are featured in this exhibition.)

His latest set of works created during the pandemic (2020 to 2023) continues to explore the relationship between the artwork and its constituent parts. A series of works titled Painting Techniques on the Go is made up of sheaves of watercolour paintings fastened together onto white frames, allowing the viewer to manipulate the work like a flipboard. Another terrific series titled Surgery, Zombie Abstraction and Covid created during the pandemic has the artist attaching surgery instruments onto layers of canvases, resulting in near-manic assemblages that capture the anxieties of the times.

The works balance creation and chaos, method and madness. One hopes that Ng’s fearless experimentation finds a larger audience.

Fost Gallery

Fost’s roster of talented artists has come together to present a collection of works on paper. The gallery’s popular abstractionist, Ian Woo, showcases a series of unique paintings alongside several prints offered at affordable entry prices. Figurative wunderkind Yeo Tze Yang presents an array of pencil sketches and watercolour paintings. Additionally, acclaimed abstractionist Wyn-Lyn Tan unveils a collection of rarely seen, ethereal watercolours.

Malaysian maestro Ahmad Zakii Anwar beautifully depicts a Balinese Rangda performer in charcoal, while Grace Tan has made a series of sculptural objects out of watercolour paper dipped in ink. Other artists included in the showcase are Bovey Lee, Tan Shao Qi and Eng Tow.