WEE KONG CHAI
Mother and Daughter by Wee Kong
Chai. Year: 1980. Medium: Wood. Size: 52 x 41 x 25 cm.
Source: Kwok Kian Chow. Channels & Confluences: A History of Singapore Art.
Singapore: National Heritage Board/Singapore Art Museum, 1996. Plate 53
Naked Perfection
Naked Perfection Featuring more than 50 artefacts from the Singapore Art
Museum's permanent collection, the exhibition explores the tensions,
expectations and intrigue of nudity and nakedness in art.
Opens Thursday, 12 September 2002 Till 10 November 2002 (Upper & Lower
Galleries, Singapore Art Museum)
(23 August 2002) Singapore Art Museum is proud to present its latest exhibition,
Naked Perfection ( 12 September - 10 November 2002) featuring works from the
permanent collection. The exhibition will be held from 12 September 2002 to 10
November 2002 in the Upper and Lower Galleries at the Singapore Art Museum.
Singapore Art Museum presents Naked Perfection, an exhibition that showcases
more than 50 artefacts from its collection of nudes and naked figures. There are
sculptures and installation in wood, bronze and steel; drawings in pastel or
coal, paintings in acrylic, gold leaf, gouache and oils on canvas and paper.
Artists featured include Ng Eng Teng, Georgette Chen, Chen Wen Hsi, Tay Long,
Tay Chee Toh, Tang Da Wu, Tung Yue Nang, Naina Dalal, Basuki Abdullah, Popo
Iskandar, Vu Cao Dam, Wee Beng Chong, Wee Kong Chai, Anthonie Chong, Dora
Gordine and Pinaree Sanpitak to name but some. The exhibition will be opened to
the public from 12 September 2002 to 10 November 2002 in the Upper and Lower
Galleries at the Singapore Art Museum.
Often, nudity and nakedness in art are examined in its most tangible aspect -
the explicit physical form. To many, artworks of human body convey a sexual
notion. This exhibition seeks to diverge from such conventional examination and
focuses on the relationship of the artworks to nature and the 'natural
environment' - that intangibility that exists in the context it was produced.
The use of the nude or naked figure in history has underlined an entire
tradition of representation, context and form. Between the ancient Greeks and
contemporary American photographers such as Irving Penn, naked figures have been
chosen for their mystery yet prevalence, their ideal, but also their inevitable
soulfulness as a result of their human tangibility. What is it about nakedness
and the naked human body that inspires or provokes us beyond the erotic?
As curator of the show, Ms Bridget Tracy Tan, best puts it, "Radically, the
exhibition hopes to omit sexual connotations and reverse the intimations of nude
as explicit; it in fact hopes to 'uncover' and 'strip bare' the concept of the
nude as implicit: controversially reprehensive at times and unprovocative at
others".
The exhibition seeks to unravel not only the overt details of nude artworks but
also any embedded elements such as human relations. Ms Tan explains, " Nudity
here will tend to evaluate the tension between sitter and painter, and finally,
artwork and viewer, proposing links for both relationships to find that common
thread, which reveal subtleties in human interaction at large and its formal
manifestation in the range of nudes/semi-nudes in the field of art".
Artworks in the exhibition illustrate this very tension. Eduoard Manet's Olympia
deviated from the norms of human interactions with her direct gaze first with
the painter, and then the viewers, which created Parisian public uproar at the
Salon of 1865. The life - size of Olympia emphasized the intention for public
viewing. Indeed, size does matter in a nude painting or artwork. With mostly
academic works and few large works, artists featured reveal their desire to
learn how to draw from life through an imaginative interpretation of the subject
and the usage of lines, volumes and colour. In some instances, size is
manipulated to illustrate the details of the human body and create an impact on
the viewer.
While the explicitness and implicitness of nude artworks are investigated and
laid bare, the exhibition has deliberately refrained from examining any
political implications of the use of nudes in contempoary Southeast Asian art.
Visitors will be subjected to their own interpretation of the "nakedness" found
in any artwork and are encouraged to form their own verdict of 'naked
perfection' in a work of art.
Exhibition Opens to the Public
12 September 2002 - 10 November 2002
Upper & Lower Galleries, Singapore Art Museum