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National Gallery all set to unveil first collaboration with Tate

More than 200 works of art will be on display, including special commissions from artists in the region

Andrew Gilbert's painting, British Infantry Advance On Jerusalem, 4th Of July, 1879, is one of the artworks on display at the exhibition, Artist And Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies. Photo: Tate Britain

Andrew Gilbert's painting, British Infantry Advance On Jerusalem, 4th Of July, 1879, is one of the artworks on display at the exhibition, Artist And Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies. Photo: Tate Britain

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SINGAPORE — The National Gallery Singapore (NGS) is all set to unveil its much-anticipated collaboration with the renowned Tate Britain, next week from Oct 6.

The exhibition, entitled Artist And Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies, will be held at the Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery. It is a specially curated version of the exhibition that was previously featured in London last November. It ended its run there in April this year.

The version of Artist And Empire looks at art associated with the British Empire and how it has been represented and contested through time.

“When we first learnt that Tate Britain was organising the Artist And Empire exhibition, we were very keen to present a version of it in Singapore,” said Dr Eugene Tan, Director of National Gallery Singapore. Apart from the shared colonial history that Singapore and the region had with Britain’s imperial past, he added, the exhibition would “also be a valuable counterpoint to reflect on the issues of post-colonialism and decolonisation”.

Unlike the London show, which had a more British-centric perspective, Dr Tan said the NGS took Tate Britain’s narrative “as a point of departure to shift the curatorial focus and perspective to the former colonies from the Asia Pacific region, including responses to colonialism by contemporary artists”.

The exhibition examines art produced in relation to the colonial experience, and the rise of modern art in former colonies in the Asia Pacific region – particularly Australia, Brunei, India, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore.

Low Sze Wee, Director for Curatorial, Collections and Education, and one of the curators of the exhibition, said the Singapore show “will offer visitors an opportunity to examine afresh our society today, and how we have built our sense of identity and place in relation to our (colonial) past”.

The exhibition features more than 200 artworks spanning diverse regional and international public and private collections, including Singapore’s National Collection. They include works such as Lady (Elizabeth) Butler's 1879 oil painting, The Remnants Of An Army and life-sized portraits of Singapore’s key colonial figures such as Raffles, Sir Frank Swettenham, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.

There will also be a selection of contemporary artworks from the likes of Singapore’s Lee Wen and Tang Da Wu and Britain’s The Singh Twins and Michael Cook, as well as special commissions by Wong Hoy Cheong of Malaysia and Singapore’s Erika Tan.

Accompanying the exhibition are talks and dialogue sessions as well as guided tours.  

Artist And Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies runs from Oct 6 to March 26, 2017. For more information, visit www.nationalgallery.sg

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