Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery hosts key Minimalist artworks

Enter the Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery to begin a visit to Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.

Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. the first exhibition on the art form in Southeast Asia, is an eye-opening encounter with the beginnings of art that moves beyond convention. 

Held in Singapore and organised by National Gallery Singapore in collaboration with ArtScience Museum, Singapore, the exhibition features seminal artworks in the Minimalism movement from the 1950s to the present day.

Visitors to the Concourse Galleries and Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries, National Gallery and the ArtScience Museum can view over 100 major works by 70 artists, including Donald Judd, Mark Rothko, Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson and Haegue Yang. 

Instead of viewing an artwork on a wall passively, at a distance, Minimalism shifted the focus to the physical encounter with the artwork, and the space it occupies. As Frank Stella famously said, "What you see is what you see". The phrase is now inextricably linked with Minimalism, which as the name implies, is about stripping everything away until only the bare essentials are left.

Intriguing works on display at the National Gallery include:

Untitled, by Morris.

Robert Morris' Untitled. A collection of mirrored cubes constantly interact with the gallery space and visitors.

Mona Hatoum's Impenetrable. What looks like a cube made up of fine black threads hanging from the ceiling resolves into lines of barbed wire and a more chilling message.

Minimalist artists also used light in their installations. Neon Light Installations by Peter Kennedy is likened by the artist to being in the middle of a rainbow.

Kapoor, forever known as the artist linked to the pigment colloquially known as 'the blackest black', has Void on display. Viewed full on, it is so black it is hard to tell whether the surface is flat or concave.

Olafur Eliasson's Room for One Colour has orange-toned lights that turns everyone one-dimensional and monochrome, like walking newspaper cutouts.

John McCracken's work on planks and monoliths is ground-breaking for being placed on the floor, instead of on a pedestal or plinth.

Neon Light Installations by Kennedy is likened by the artist to being in the middle of a rainbow. In Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square Bruce Nauman hitches up his hips as he walks around a square, showing how the moving human body can be used as art. The grainy, black and white video is at the end of the corridor housing Neon Light Installations, providing a monochrome contrast to the colourful neon (which is much more saturated than the camera shows).

Details:

Read more about the exhibits in the WorkSmart Asia blog post about the exhibition

View pictures of exhibits on Facebook

Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.
Till 14 April 2019
At dual venues: Concourse Galleries and Singtel Special Exhibition Galleries, National Gallery and Art Science Museum

There are two audio tours available at the National Gallery: Minimalism Highlights, and The More You Look At It.

Book a ticket

Hashtag: #minimalismsg

*The guided tour was sponsored by Singtel.