Arts Picks: Fernando Zobel show, Sun Yee and students exhibition, SCCC's Cultural Extravaganza

Straits Times

08-05-2025

Transcontinental artist Fernando Zobel's exhibition Order Is Essential at the National Gallery Singapore opens from May 9 to Nov 30. PHOTO: NATIONAL GALLERY SINGAPORE
Fernando Zobel: Order Is Essential
Transcontinental artist Fernando Zobel is the subject of an illuminating exhibition that reveals how various strains of modernism – brewing across the 20th century from the United States to Europe to Asia – coalesced in a towering figure of modern art.
Zobel – born in the Philippines to a prominent Spanish family in 1924 – was dazzled by a Mark Rothko exhibition when studying in Rhode Island, lived in a house of Japanese design, studied Chinese ink and experimented with the use of a syringe in applying paint to his canvas .
Order Is Essential, co-curated by Patrick Flores and Clarissa Chikiamco, is a whirlwind tour through his worldly education.
Transcontinental artist Fernando Zobel experimented with using a syringe to paint.
PHOTO: NATIONAL GALLERY SINGAPORE
In Manila, he created the first museum of Philippine modern art, Ateneo Art Gallery. An earlier work, Carroza (1953), was inspired by his interest in Philippine religious imagery such as floats and carriages – but the picture is fractured through his experiments with Cubism .
Things get radically pared down as one moves through the rooms and witnesses how Zobel's abstraction almost sublimates into pure form. The magnum opus in the exhibition i s La Vista XXVI (1974) – a painting of an enormous gorge Zobel could see from outside his museum in Cuenca, which is perched on a cliff.
The magnum opus in the exhibition is La Vista XXVI (1974) – a painting of an enormous gorge Zobel could see from outside his museum in Cuenca, which is perched on a cliff.
PHOTO: NATIONAL GALLERY SINGAPORE
What remains in this piece are airy brushstrokes reminiscent of the movement of Chinese ink on rice paper and faint lines made by a syringe that hold up the entire edifice of the painti ng.
It is not just Zobel on show. Artists whose works he collected and those he was influenced by make the exhibition special. American painter Rothko's Multiform (1948) is a treat, as is Chinese artist Liu Kuo-sung's Lofty Zigzag (196 8) and works by Spanish modernists.
In place of a straightforward linear biography at the end of the exhibition, a networked illustration closes the show, visualising Zobel's various connections to modernism across time and spac e.
Where: National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew's Road
MRT: City Hall
When: May 9 to Nov 30, 10am to 7pm daily
Admission: Free for Singaporeans and permanent residents, $20 (standard) and $15 (concession) for foreigners
Info: str.sg/MGLP
The Storytellers at Confluence Art Space
Singaporean artist Wee Kong Chai's The Storyteller (1961) is on show at Confluence Art Space.
PHOTO: CONFLUENCE ART SPACE
Few can name a female pioneer artist in Singapore's art history who is not Georgette Chen. A small exhibition offers an opportunity to view a work by Sun Yee (1919 to 2010 ), t he former head of the Singapore Academy of Arts, and the impact she had on four of her students.
Like her Nanyang artist peers, Sun Yee blended Chinese and Western techniques in her art. She is represented in the exhibition by Cathedral (1960s), in which she depicts modern automobiles and horse-drawn carriages cross in front of a towering cathedral. Mr Goh Chee Keong, director of Confluence Art Space, says of Sun Yee: 'Her French training may have likely inspired some of her students such as Wee Kong Chai and Yeo Kim Seng to pursue further studies in Paris.'
The late artist Wee, one of her students at the academy , vividly captures the drama of ordinary life in his oil paintings – be it of a street storytelling scene or of workers at a charcoal factory in Tanjong Rhu. Dim hues of yellow and blue cast his crowded scenes in a melancholic glow, reminiscent of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh's palette.
If one finds The Storyteller (1961) familiar, it is because a sister piece from 1962 now hangs in the National Gallery Singapore's revampe d art history exhibit Singapore Stori es.
Works by Eng Siak Loy and Tong Chin Sye are also on show.
Where: Confluence Art Space, 02-29 Havelock 2, 2 Havelock Road
MRT: Chinatown
When: May 9 to 25, 1 to 6pm (Wednesdays to Sundays); other days, including public holidays, by appointment only
Admission: Free
Info: confluenceartspace.com
Cultural Extravaganza
Ding Yi Music Company is presenting The Last Episode, which spotlights vanishing trades, such as lion dance head-making and Malay songkok crafting through Chinese chamber music, at the Cultural Extravaganza.
PHOTO: DING YI MUSIC COMPANY
The Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre's (SCCC) annual festival of Chinese arts is back from May 9 to June 7, with a range of shows examining themes of cultural fusion.
Nine Years Theatre's Home Kitchen (May 10, 11, 17 and 18), written and directed by Nelson Chia, stages a father-son rivalry within a three-generation Teochew restaurant business. While chef Lau Dua Gim believes in preserving the tradition of old Teochew cooking, his Paris-trained son believes that old ways have to evolve.
Dance Ensemble Singapore also brings its own brand of fusion with Intersections (May 16 to 18), a multisensory dance experience that blends arts forms such as Cantonese opera, music, theatre, multimedia art, Peranakan fashion, photography, wayang kulit and calligraphy.
Music lovers can look forward to the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra Alumni Concert Reunion 3.0 (May 31), which will showcase how Chinese music can embrace global influences while maintaining its essence. The repertoire includes a performance of a Studio Ghibli soundtrack.
Ding Yi Music Company is presenting The Last Episode (June 6 and 7), which spotlights vanishing trades such as lion dance head-making and Malay songkok crafting through Chinese chamber music.
Where: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, 1 Straits Boulevard
MRT: Shenton Way
When: May 9 to June 7, various timings
Admission: Free and ticketed
Info: Go to str.sg/dyme for a full list of events
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.