Olafur Eliasson* and Demos Chiang* at SAM

We looked for some cultural activities last week instead of our weekly outdoor adventure, to break away from routines and to rest a bit more from our 9 day 160km TMB. 

Lily and I were attracted by the a special exhibit of Olafur Eliasson - "your curious journey", at Singapore Art Museum (SAM). The exhibit involved sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience. It was immersive and sometime interactive as well.

The first art piece was right at the entrance, yellow corridor, which used mono frequency yellow light to change what we saw. One's skin color turned greyish.

yellow corridor

We then went into a dark room, with a fountain under a constant flash of lights - strobe light, which was mysterious and dizzy at the same time. We wonder if the water fountain was optical illusion or not, I extended my hand to the fountain, and it was real. The official name of this exhibit is "Object defined by activity (then)"

water fountain under strobe lights

Another interesting exhibit is "life is lived along lines" - 3D wired objects were projected on a flat screen and still gave a sense of 3D.

the side where the 3D objects are

the other side of the 3D objects

One interactive exhibit was "beauty", a cloud of mist under spotlights. Depends on where a viewer stands, the color of the mist changes, using pretty much the same principle as the formation of rainbows. Some children actually walked into the mist, to enjoy its coolness.

Another immersive and interactive exhibition is that viewers participate in the motion picture generation under multiple light sources. We had fun in generating our own art on screen.

We saw a sculpture with 7 rocks changing in size from large to small.  There were 7 glass balls placed by the rock in reverse order of the size to the rocks. We liked the pattern as well as the inverse images of the rocks in the balls, nothing else. The artist's intent, however, is reflected in the name given to the sculpture - last 7 days of glacial ice. With this sculpture, the artist has climate changes.

We were way off from artist's intent, but the interpretation of a sculpture is in the eyes of the beholder. 

last seven days of glacial ice

We also visited a few other exhibits at the museum. What impressed me the most were some of the paintings by Demos Chiang. Each of his paintings has a poem come with it, and basically let the viewers know his emotions, feelings at the time of each painting. I could feel his melancholy about the autumn, and longing for companionship and love.  

Walking through last stage
Walking through colors from the closed chapters
How strange it is that we are what we been through
How strange it is that we created with the colors from the past
Now we must start the next chapter so that we can coat ourselves with colors that were never ours

I rest here and look back
waiting for the ripples of life to settle

The hidden soul
there is no new black under the rainbow
black is always black
rainbow is always rainbow
I am fine to be shadow under your rainbow
for that how you see the colors under the rainbow

Keeping my heart
I can lose my heart and join you
but I decided to keep my heart and wait for you to join me

Falling forward
to fall down is a blessing
for it gives you another chance to get up
so you can see the world in a new perspective

we write our stories together
Together we climb the mountains
cross the lakes and journey the valleys
Together we imprint us onto the world
that is how we make our stories into a classic

Note * -

Olafur Eliasson is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience.

Demos Chiang 蒋友柏 Taipei Taiwan. He studied in the United States, at the New York University.
1990, graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Information Management. He then worked in the entertainment and fashion industries in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In 2003 He created in Taiwan the design studio : DEM Inc and he became a Designer. His achievements brought him many awards. As  an artist he turned to painting, installations and sculpture. He is the great grandson of the late president of Republic of China, Chiang Kai-Shek. 

The exhibit at SAM is his first solo exhibition. The following was his opening statement

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The only constant is change.
Every day, we face changes and adjust or adopt ourselves to the changes.

Just like how we cope to the seasons:
in spring we reclaim hope,
in summer we embrace heat,
in fall we harvest colours,

and in winter we silent warmth.
By repeating these change cycles, our lives are unfolded.

If one break down one’s life time into sections of seasons, I am at the end of summer and the beginning of fall. This is the time when I start to consolidate my life in search of my own peace of mind.

Changes are plots in our story. It is these plots that makes our story interesting.
After all, if life is not interesting, what are we living for?

- Demos Chiang