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News / Actualités

Singapore Art Week, Cultural Districts and Art Museums

Annabel Downes’s guide offers an insightful and celebratory overview of Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2025, coinciding with the city-state’s 60th independence anniversary. The article highlights a rich tapestry of art exhibitions, fairs, and cultural events, underscoring Singapore’s role as a vibrant hub in Southeast Asia’s art landscape.

Key Highlights and Contextual Analysis

1. Gillman Barracks: A Gateway to Contemporary Art

Downes introduces Gillman Barracks as an essential starting point for visitors, emphasizing its colonial heritage repurposed into a contemporary art enclave. The exhibitions reflect Singapore’s ability to blend tradition and modernity, a phenomenon observed in urban studies as the “hybrid modernity” of post-colonial cities (King, 2004). A standout exhibit is Gutai: Beyond the Canvas at Whitestone Gallery, which spotlights the avant-garde Japanese art collective Gutai, known for breaking artistic conventions and embracing performance (Munroe, 1994). Other notable displays include Fyerool Darma’s multimedia explorations at Yeo Workshop and the politically charged The Squares by Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu at Richard Koh Fine Art.

2. National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Art Museum

The article shifts focus to Singapore’s prominent art institutions. At the National Gallery Singapore, exhibitions such as Singapore Stories and Kim Lim: The Space Between delve into Singaporean and diasporic narratives, reflecting a growing scholarly interest in the decolonization of art history (Chowdhury, 2017). Similarly, the Singapore Art Museum presents Seeing Forest by Robert Zhao Renhui, an evocative installation exploring the intersection of urbanism and ecology—an apt reflection of “ecological aesthetics” (Morton, 2010).

3. Art Fairs: ART SG and S.E.A. Focus

The third edition of ART SG and the boutique fair S.E.A. Focus anchor the commercial aspect of SAW. ART SG, with its international roster, positions Singapore as a global art market player. The emphasis on Southeast Asian art at S.E.A. Focus aligns with the region’s increasing cultural visibility, fostering a “glocal” dynamic (Appadurai, 1996).

4. Culinary and Nightlife Integration

Downes underscores Singapore’s gastronomic and nightlife offerings as integral to the SAW experience, from hawker centers like Maxwell Food Centre to high-end bars such as ATLAS. These spaces not only complement the art but also reflect Singapore’s identity as a cosmopolitan hub (Yeoh & Kong, 1996).

Conclusion

Ocula’s guide encapsulates the multifaceted nature of Singapore Art Week, where art converges with history, commerce, and culture. This convergence reflects Singapore’s status as a “global city,” where cultural production becomes both an economic and symbolic activity (Sassen, 2001). The guide illustrates how SAW navigates the interplay of local and global narratives, offering a lens into Singapore’s artistic ambitions and identity.

References

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University of Minnesota Press.
Chowdhury, R. (2017). Decolonizing Art History. Oxford University Press.
King, A. D. (2004). Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity. Routledge.
Morton, T. (2010). The Ecological Thought. Harvard University Press.
Munroe, A. (1994). Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky. Harry N. Abrams.
Sassen, S. (2001). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press.
Yeoh, B. S. A., & Kong, L. (1996). The Spatiality of Urban Cultural Politics: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Environment in Singapore. Political Geography, 15(6–7), 565–586.

[Edited by Pablo Markin. The initial draft have been generated using ChatGPT, OpenAI, via prompting based on the reviewed article (January 19, 2025).]

[The text of the review article can be found at this link: https://ocula.com/magazine/features/ocula-guide-to-singapore-art-week-2025/.]

Categories
Posts / Billets

Parisian Arcades, World Cities, Shopping Malls: Walter Benjamin’s Perspective

The post discusses the similarities between 19th-century arcades and modern-day shopping malls.

“”Wir haben«, sagt der illustrierte Pariser Führer, ein vollständiges Gemälde der Seine-Stadt und ihrer Umgebungen vom Jahre 1852 (,) “bei den inneren Boulevards wiederholt der Passagen gedacht, die dahin ausmünden. Diese Passagen, eine neuere Erfindung des industriellen Luxus, sind glas gedeckte, marmorgeiäfelte Gänge durch ganze Häuserrnassen, deren Besitzer sich zu solchen Spekulationen vereinigt haben. Zu beiden Seiten dieser Gänge, die ihr Licht von oben erhalten, laufen die elegantesten Warenläden hin, so daß eine solche Passage eine Stadt, eine Welt im Kleinen ist | Flaneur |, in der der Kauflustige alles finden wird, dessen er benötigt. Sie sind bei plötzlichen Regengüssen der Zufluchtsort aller Überraschten, denen sie eine gesicherte, wenn auch beengte Promenade gewähren, bei der die Verkäufer auch ihren Vorteil finden.« | Wetter |
Diese Stelle ist der löcus classicus für die Darstellung der Passagen, denn aus ihr entspinnen sich nicht allein die divagations über den Flaneur und das Wetter, sondern auch was über die Bauweise der Passagen in wirtschaftlicher und architektonischer Hinsicht zu sagen ist, könnte hier seine Stelle finden” (Benjamin, 1991, p. 83).

“The passage quoted above describes the arcades, a type of covered passageway that was a recent invention of industrial luxury in the mid-19th century. The arcades were characterized by glass roofs, marble paneling, and elegant shops lining both of these commercial establishments. The arcades were not just a functional built structure but also an environment for the symbolic expression via consumption and sauntering of social status and refinement. Customers found everything they needed within the arcade, and during sudden rain showers, the arcades were a place of refuge for the unprepared” (OpenAI, 2023).

“From this perspective, shopping malls in global cities might be considered a modern-day version of the arcades described in the passage. Like the arcades, shopping malls are indoor spaces designed for leisure and retail purposes. They offer a sheltered, climate-controlled environment that provides a secure and comfortable shopping experience for their diverse customers. In the present period, shopping malls feature a variety of shops, restaurants, and entertainment options, all conveniently located within a single complex. Just as the arcades were a symbol of luxury and refinement in the 19th century, in existing and emergent global cities shopping malls can be seen as a status symbol and a reflection of modern consumer culture” (OpenAI, 2023).

“From an economic and architectural perspective, shopping malls are also significant. They are typically built as large-scale landmark projects that require significant investment and collaboration among multiple stakeholders. The design, architecture and construction of shopping malls involve considerations such as site selection, zoning, financing, and environmental impact. The architectural planning of shopping malls often incorporates innovative design elements, such as natural light, water features, and greenery hotspots, to create an inviting and visually appealing environment for shoppers” (OpenAI, 2023).

“While the arcades of the 19th century may have been a recent invention of industrial luxury, shopping malls have become a modern-day equivalent. Both offer a comfortable, controlled space for customers to shop, socialize, and be entertained. Shopping malls are also significant from an economic and architectural perspective, reflecting the complex collaboration and innovation required to create such large-scale, landscape-defining projects” (OpenAI, 2023).

Edited by Pablo Markin

References

Benjamin, Walter. Gesammelte Schriften, V, 1. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991.

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT. [Large language model]. Retrieved from https://chat.openai.com/chat.

Categories
Cities / Villes English / Anglais News / Actualités

Shanghai’s Booming Art Scene Adds Another Landmark: The Museum of Art Pudong

As its cultural industries develop, Shanghai evinces the traits of an alternative center of global cultural production in the making.

A Blog Post by Pablo Markin.


As this city seeks to further its status as a cultural hub, such as by supporting research centers dealing with its cultural heritage, the Museum of Art Pudong has recently opened in the vicinity of Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower located in the Lujiazui district in early July, 2021. While not necessarily rivaling the total floor area of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, which stands at almost 66,000 square meters, this newly opened museum compares well with that by offering the estimated 17,200 square meters of gallery space that MoMA sports, as right from the beginning it offers around 13,000 square meters of exhibition areas across 13 halls over the planned total floor area of 40,000 square meters. Designed by the world-renowned, prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, this art museum reflects the industry-building approach behind this landmark that aims to provide art education, serve as a tourism destination and hold academic and leisure events.

In other words, this museum is but one example of Shanghai-centric urban development strategies seeking to claim a piece of the globalized event economy pie. To do that, the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP) not only adds to the local cultural cluster that the historical Bund promenade forms at the other side of the Huangpu river, but also draws on the growing international cultural clout of this metropolis, such as via partnerships with London’s Tate Gallery in an extensive loan of the more valuable 100 works from its holdings spanning the development history of modern Western art, such as from British pre-Raphaelites and classical painting, e.g., Joseph M. W. Turner to a representative loan show of the eponymous artist’s 60 works from Barcelona’s Museum Fundació Joan Miró. These extensive retrospectives are topped off with a commissioned art piece from the celebrated, New York-residing contemporary Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang built around the perennial topics of Odyssey and homecoming.

This highlight is only one spot across the burgeoning cultural landscape of Shanghai, which most likely in the not-so-far-off future will add the new venue for the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts in the refurbished steel factory in the Baoshan district, as part of the redevelopment plans with which the architectural team of von Gerkan, Marg and Partners has carried the corresponding international competition. With the estimated total floor area of 220,000 square meters, this art cluster will comprise academy premises, artist studios, library quarters, public areas, museum halls, restaurant facilities and exhibition sites, in reflection of the ambitious efforts by this city to become a crossroads for global art exchanges.

By Pablo Markin


Featured Image Credits: Vue sur Pudong depuis le Bund, Shanghai, China, January 24, 2015 | © Courtesy of Nicolas Vollmer/Flickr.

Categories
Books / Livres

Archaeological Networks, Knowledge Production and Scholarly Communities

Published by Manchester University Press in 2019, Communities and Knowledge Production in Archaeology, edited by Julia Roberts, Ulf R. Hansson, Kathleen L. Shepperd and Jonathan Ralph Trigg, has become available in Open Access at the Open Research Library earlier this year, as part of the KU Select 2018: HSS Frontlist Books collection.

A Blog Post by Pablo Markin.


Roberts, Julia, Ulf R. Hansson, Kathleen L. Shepperd, and Jonathan Ralph Trigg, eds. Communities and Knowledge Production in Archaeology. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://openresearchlibrary.org.
Roberts, Julia, Ulf R. Hansson, Kathleen L. Shepperd, and Jonathan Ralph Trigg, eds. Communities and Knowledge Production in Archaeology. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://openresearchlibrary.org.

Description

This volume, edited by Roberts et al., explores dynamic processes of knowledge production in archaeology and elsewhere in the humanities and social sciences. These processes are increasingly viewed as the collaborative effort of groups, clusters and communities of researchers, rather than as the isolated work of so-called ‘instrumental’ actors. Shifting focus from the individual scholar to the wider social contexts of her work and the dynamic creative processes she participates in, this volume, titled Communities and Knowledge Production in Archaeology, critically examines the importance of informal networks and conversation in the creation of knowledge about the past. Across its diverse essays dealing with the place of thought collectives in Serbian archaeology, archaeology networks around the Smithsonian Institution and American classical art collections in the late 19th century, this edited book also engages with theoretical approaches such as the sociology and geographies of knowledge and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). These and other examples taken from different archaeologies in Europe and North America from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, e.g., Dutch excavations in Italy, Egyptological networks and the history of archaeology in the Balkans, this book caters to a wide readership, ranging from students of archaeology, anthropology, classics and science studies to the general reader.

Outtake

In their introduction to this edited volume, Julia Roberts and Kathleen Sheppard have focused on clusters of knowledge production that have also provided a theoretical rationale for its contributions that are among

“the first to apply scientific network theories to the history of archaeology. As an innovative approach to historiography it takes its place amongst recent studies that have transformed the discipline. Using theories including those of Ludwik Fleck, David Livingstone, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, the authors of the following chapters have taken an unprecedented approach to their subjects: rather than looking at individuals and groups biographically or institutionally, or  accepting that this is simply how archaeology was, these studies look  at how networks are formed and how this in turn impacts on how  archaeological knowledge is generated and disseminated. This original perspective has yielded novel and surprising insights into the history of archaeology which, we believe, will become the foundation of a new appreciation of the complexity of archaeology’s history. […]

Inevitably, as more nuanced and informed histories of archaeology have been written, there has been increased interest in the subject both from within and outside the discipline. External historiographers have brought different methods and theories to the writing of these stories.  There is a wider range of critical approaches and analytical frameworks available to bring about new angles of inspection, such as feminist history, queer theory, science and technology studies, and political his- tory. In turn, these new approaches have been adopted and utilised by archaeologists who now define themselves as historians of archaeology rather than simply archaeologists interested in the discipline’s history.  These alternative perspectives utilise new research agendas, theoretical  foundations and critical approaches that incorporate archaeological  practice into the narratives of political, economic, social and cultural  history (Patterson, 1995; Schmidt and Patterson, 1995; Meskell, 1998;  Roberts, 2005), histories of education (Janssen, 1992), histories of the professionalisation of science (Levine, 1986), conversaziones (Alberti,  2003), feminist and gender theory (Gero and Conkey, 1991; Cohen  and Joukowsky, 2004) and more. In doing so, it becomes clear that  archaeology’s history is not a simple, teleological tale of heroic excavators digging up remnants of a past civilisation, but instead contains  an exciting, multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted complexity of stories,  which have opened up the history of archaeology and revealed so much  more about our past” (Roberts et al., 2019, pp. 1, 3).

Edited by Pablo Markin


Reference

Roberts, Julia, Ulf R. Hansson, Kathleen L. Shepperd, and Jonathan Ralph Trigg, eds. Communities and Knowledge Production in Archaeology. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://openresearchlibrary.org.


Featured Image Credits

Congresbury Ware Jar Rim Sherds, Bristol, England, United Kingdom, June 8, 2017 | © Courtesy of Wessex Archaeology/Flickr.