Exterior of the Singapore Art Museum at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Courtesy Singapore Art Museum.
Singapore Art Museum
Delays Reopening Again
The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) has announced that it will remain at
Tanjong Pagar Distripark for the foreseeable future. SAM’s previous locations, the old St Joseph’s Institution
building and the former Catholic High School building in Queen Street, have
been closed since 2019 as a result of a SGD 90 million architectural heritage preservation
project. Singapore’s Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong announced on May 8 that potential uses of St Joseph’s Institution are under
evaluation and will be shared at a later date. No immediate plans were announced for the
Queen Street building. Whether Tanjong Pagar Distripark will become a permanent
location for SAM remains unclear. As the reopening dates for the
two buildings were previously pushed back from 2021 to 2023, and now to 2026, the
delays, along with little to no evidence of construction at the old St Joseph’s
Institution building, have intensified speculation that other museum
institutions may take over SAM’s former home.
Exterior view of the inaugural Art Week Tokyo Focus, “Worlds in Balance: Art in Japan from the Postwar to the Present,” at the Okura Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2023.
Art Week Tokyo
Announces Plans for 2024
On May 8, Art Week
Tokyo (AWT) announced that its 2024 edition will encompass 52 participants, including 40 galleries and art spaces as well as 12 institutions.
Spanning multiple venues, AWT will feature a solo project
by multimedia artist Yuko Mohri at Kyobashi’s Artizon Museum as well as a major
retrospective of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois’s (1911‒2010) career at
Roppongi’s Mori Art Museum. There will also be a retrospective of interdisciplinary artist
Keiichi Tanaami, coinciding with performance and media
artist Ei Arakawa-Nash’s solo at The National Art Center, Tokyo. The
second edition of AWT Focus will invite guest curator Mami Kataoka, director of
Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum and National Center for Art Research, to organize an
exhibition of modern and contemporary art from the works of AWT’s participating
galleries. In addition, AWT Video has invited New York-based SculptureCenter’s
director Sohrab Mohebbi to create a collection of single-channel video works by
Japanese and international artists. The event will run from November 7 to 10.
LI YI-FAN received the Golden Harvest Award for Outstanding Short Film. Courtesy Golden Harvest Awards.
Li Yi-Fan Wins Golden Harvest Award
On May 4, the Taipei
Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee announced that the Golden
Harvest Award for Outstanding Short Film went to Taiwanese new-media
artist Li Yi-Fan’s What Is Your Favorite
Primitive (2023), the first time an experimental video has received the award. The film, which discusses social and ethical problems of image-generating
AI, also received the Audience Choice Award and Special Jury Award. A recipient of the inaugural Taishin Visual Art Award, Li has
exhibited his works at Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, the Taipei Biennial in 2023 at the Taipei Fine Art Museum, and
SculptureCenter in New York. He will be awarded NTD 5,400,000 (USD 166,000) and
a Sony camera.
HAN OK-HEE, Untitled 77-A, 1977, single-channel video with color and sound: 6 mins 26 sec. Courtesy National Asian Culture Center.
M+ Launches Inaugural Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival
Hong Kong’s museum of
visual culture, M+, has announced its inaugural Asian Avant-Garde Film
Festival, which will run from May 30 until June 2. The festival will include screenings, exhibitions, performances, talks,
and workshops with artists and filmmakers from across Asia, including Nick Deocampo, Simon Liu, Ellen Pau, Wing Shya, and Wong Ping. The first edition, titled “Encounter the Unexpected,” will explore the history of
Asian avant-garde filmmaking as well as consider interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and
intergenerational lineages.
