Need your quick art fix? Live music, nights at the museum, Southeast Asian video installations… Singapore Art Museum’s the place to be
Here at Honeycombers, we love our art weeks, festivals, and what-nots… there’s nothing quite like being in a city buzzing with artsy activities. While we’re anticipating the reopening of Singapore Art Museum, the program of events is still going strong at SAM at 8Q (the annexe building at Queen Street), giving revellers plenty to look forward to, especially on Friday nights.
Live music showcases, provocative exhibitions, immersive video installations… If you think museums are boring, you’ve got to see what’s happening in SAM at 8Q.
Night time’s the best time
Celebrating the start of the weekend? Do it at SAM Late Nights. Besides extended gallery opening hours, free museum entry and meet-the-curator sessions, the museum’s also hosting live performances where you can get lost in lush tunes matched with hypnotic visual projections, featuring local artists like Amon Wong, Ffion and Canvas Conversations. Feast on nosh and drinks from Standing Sushi Bar; we say it’s got all the elements perfect for a casual Friday night date – al fresco style.
Watch the reel deal
Cinerama, SAM’s latest exhibition, boasts quite the collection of moving image installations on Southeast Asian identities, memories and observations – by Southeast Asian artists, no less. It’s got everything from Tromarama’s music video for acclaimed Indonesian band, Rock N Roll Mafia, which is also a loving tribute to their hometown of Bandung (a city famous for garment manufacturing), painstakingly made with buttons; to a dissection and remake of Roman Polanski’s 1974 mystery, Chinatown, by local and Berlin-based artist, Ming Wong.
Don’t forget to catch The Propeller Group’s AK47 vs. M16, which features bullets from the Soviet and American-made weapons in collision with each other, frozen in motion within a ballistics gel block (it’s the closest to human flesh one can get). Our fave, though, is Hayati Moktar’s Falim House: Observations, which documents an abandoned mansion in Ipoh and what remarkable life it still hosts. Dive into everything that’s left behind – furniture, love letters, and the occasional insect flitting across layers of settled dust – in cinemagraph-like video installations. Keep your eyes open; trust us.
Tip! SAM at 8Q remains open all through Chinese New Year. There’ll be lion dance performances, craft activities, Chinese calligraphy and more on Saturday, 17 Feb – you’ll be well occupied, whether you’re celebrating CNY or not.
SAM Late Nights run every second Friday of the month through February and March – catch it next this Friday!
SAM at 8Q, 8 Queen Street, Singapore 188535, p. 6589 9550