Rendezvous in Singapore
"All the Best. The Deutsche
Bank Collection and Zaha Hadid" at the Singapore Art Museum
After
its successful appearences at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin and the
Hara Museum in Tokyo, the anniversary show of the Deutsche Bank Collection
can be seen at the renowned Singapore Art Museum through November 20 2006.
In "All the Best. The Deutsche Bank Collection and Zaha Hadid," over 150
controversial works on paper by young artists merge with the visionary
exhibition design of the London-based star architect to create a
spectacular gesamtkunstwerk. Dr. Ariane Grigoteit , Global
Head of Deutsche Bank Art and one of the show's curators, on the
encounter between art and life and a museum with a very special aura.
One
of Zaha Hahid's sculptures in front of the Singapore Art Museum
A
first visit to the famous Singapore
Art Museum reveals it to be a magical place indeed. After a long
flight and a drive from the airport in the sultry climate of this Asian
city-state, over roads lined by tropical forests teeming with animal life,
we are greeted by the museum’s staff of experts headed by Director Kwok
Kian Chow and curator Joselina Cruz. The internationally renowned art
museum possesses the world’s most comprehensive public collection of South
Asian contemporary art and plays a central role in the cultural life of
Singapore.
The
courtyard of the SAM
Yet, at first sight, the
complex of buildings in classical Italianate style appears to promise
anything other than a collection of Asian art: the museum is housed in a
former Catholic boys‘ school, whose white colonnades, Corinthian capitols,
and cupola crowned with an ornate cross attract the eye. Singapore owes
this imposing edifice to the enterprise of the De
La Salle Brothers. The Catholic order began construction of the
neo-classical missionary school — St.
Joseph’s Institution — on the corner opposite the cathedral in
the mid-19th century. After the school moved to a new location in the
1980s, the historical building was declared a national monument and
lavishly converted into a museum under the direction of architect Wong
Hooe Wai.
Dr.
Ariane Grigoteit, Global Head of Deutsche Bank Art, and
Kwok
Kian Chow, Director of the SAM, in the atrium of the museum
But
it is something more than the impressive façade recalling Bernini’s
colonnade in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, something more than the courtyards
with their palm trees and fountains, or the still-extant chapel with its
Stations of the Cross in which generations of schoolboys worshipped, that
makes this a magical place. It is also the young bridal couple that, with
apparent incongruity, have chosen this site to pose before the camera —
she in a long white bridal gown and he in a traditional dark-colored
wedding suit. As we join them in their photo shoot, the groom proudly
relates that he absolutely had to bring his bride to this place, for it
was here that he went to school.
Zaha
Hadid's exhibition design
The magical aura
of the Singapore Art Museum is composed not only of the commingling of
past and present, of art and religion, but also—and above all—of such
multifaceted encounters between life and art.
|
Martin Eder, untitled, 2006,
©
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
Deutsche Bank Collection
To be received as guests in Singapore’s renowned art museum
is thus both an honor and a pleasure. After the presentations in the Deutsche
Guggenheim in Berlin and the Hara
Museum in Tokyo, the trilogy of exhibitions marking the 25th
anniversary of the Deutsche
Bank Collection culminates here in a spectacular finale. All
the Best. The Deutsche Bank Collection and Zaha Hadid has been
specially conceived for Singapore and presents more than 150 exhibits from
the bank‘s collection in yet an-other visionary landscape that brings the
latest developments on the international art scene even more sharply into
focus. A gigantic white calyx unfurls before the baroque façade of the
SAM, welcoming guests already initiated into the visionary design of All
the Best at the museum’s entrance. The elliptical structures in the
palm-lined museum courtyard seem to flow through the walls or to reach up
into the sky. In the building’s interior, this movement is continued in
the organically shaped architectural elements, which guide the visitor
through the exhibition rooms inside.
|
Juergen Teller, Bambi's Rescue, 2005,
© Juergen Teller, Deutsche Bank Collection
|
Any attempt to compile an exhibition of the objects in the
Deutsche Bank Collection must first of all come to grips with the wide
spectrum of artistic creativity represented in the collection's inventory
of more than 50,000 works. And faced with a list of renowned artists
ranging from the early 20th century to very recent newcomers on the
international art scene, curator Joselina Cruz has decided on a radically
contemporary orientation for the Singapore Art Museum‘s hosting of the
anniversary exhibition.
Robert
Lucander,
Doch zuviel Realität
sieht eben nicht aus,
Sammlung
Deutsche Bank,
©Contemporary
Fine Arts
Flanked by artists the likes of Joseph
Beuys, Eva
Hesse, and Bruce
Nauman, it’s primarily the works of the subsequent generation and
recent acquisitions that predominate in the show. While contemporary
German art is represented by artists such as Tobias
Rehberger, Martin
Eder, and Gregor
Schneider, the focus is on the collection’s global approach.
Accordingly, All the Best presents new works from
the USA, Latin America, South Africa, Russia, and Asia. In his opulent
nudes of black women, Chris
Ofili, the "Young British Artist" of Nigerian descent, picks up on the
exotic myths of the Expressionist group "Der
Blaue Reiter."
Dr.
Lakra, Untitled (mono blanco), 2005, © Dr. Lakra
Deutsche
Bank Collection
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
|
