8Q SAM Visit (30/09/09)

Because of time constraint, I went for only 2 exhibitions at 8Q SAM (Singapore Art Museum) - Delicate and President's Young Talents 2009. I will just focus on Delicate for this report.

Delicate is a showcase of artworks by School of the Arts (SOTA) Year 3 Visual Arts students. This exhibition last from 17 September to 16 October 2009. It is located at the first floor of 8Q SAM. There are 12 works and 1 research studies for display.

Possibly because of the students' age and experience, all the artworks are more heavily concept-based and simple in nature, rather than requiring the students to make full fledged complex artworks. Instead, it appears that the students are allowed to use any mediums they wish, including tea, needle and strings, metal plate, and ammonia. Some 4 works also uses video as their medium.

Being trained in the field of design, it is easy for me to see and appreciate why some of the students uses certain materials and method to represent their meaning of their work. While some of them are impressive and the ideas are very clear to me, there are some I found to be too vague or nonsensical all together.

Some of the works that caught my attention are 'the phantom of' and 'Wave'. 'the phantom of' has a good execution and made good use of her medium (ammonia on a piece of paper) as it actually brings out what she is trying to say. 'Wave' made good use of shapes, patterns and space to show what she wants to say.

Notes I took during the visit.

Even though I may be older than the students, there is quite a lot I can learn from them and I strongly encourage art and design students to view this exhibition. As for the general public, you may want to bring an artist or designer friend along so they can explains to you why certain things are done in a certain way which will allow you to better appreciate these artworks.

Something interesting that happened to me during the visit was that to my good fortune, a group of upper secondary school students (presuming to be 'O' or 'N' level Art students) and their teacher was also visiting the museum. The teacher was explaining to the students and I was able to listen to some of her explanations. This was especially true when I was in the 'A View with a Room' by Vertical Submarine. This helped me to understand better for some of the more complex artwork.