ArtScience Museum: Art From the Streets

Kooling (Beads & Blossoms) came to visit for a bit about two weeks ago, and I got to monopolise her for an entire day! Our morning was spent at the ArtScience Museum, as we caught the Art From the Streets exhibition on their final weekend.

Caught Kooling admiring the lotus blooms surrounding the museum.

Before coming to see the exhibition, I thought that it was pretty ironic to have street art exhibited in close quarters. But this trip turned out to be very enlightening! I learnt so much about its history, prominent artists, and the forms that artists have explored so far. Here are some of my favourites, which turned out to be a substantial number of works…

The first section of the exhibit featured works from pioneers:

Distant Traveller by Blade, 1987
Spray paint and marker on canvas. According to the introduction, Blade was the first artist to revolve the colour and composition of a piece around his tag.

Elsie by Futura, 1982
Spray paint on canvas.

Pointmen by Futura, 1995
Marker on transparency.

The Crasher (Tribute to Magritte) by Crash, 1983
Spray paint on canvas. To be honest I’m not sure where the connection to Magritte lies in this piece?

The second section of the exhibit displayed pieces that showed how street art evolved from tags to symbols:

Blinky Blue by Invader, 2001
Micro mosaic on panel. Invader was one of the first artists who took inspiration from video games and turned popular icons into his signature. I loved how the panels were scattered high above our eye line!

After Liquidated Logo McDonalds, Pray for the Shadow by Zevs, 2008, 2018
Logotype sign and paint. The Liquidated Logos series subverts well-known logos from their intended commercial messages through distortion.

BP Liquidated Logo by Zevs, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. There were a surprising number of on-site installations at this exhibit!

Middle East Mural by Shepard Fairey (a.k.a. OBEY), 2009
Mixed media.The translucency of the top layer in this piece was interesting to see up close! A pity that it didn’t show clearly in the photos here.

Universal Personhood series by Shepard Fairey (a.k.a. OBEY), 2005
Collage on paper.

The third section of the exhibit showed stencilled works as a fast technique that was employed by artists on the streets:

Untitled by M-City, date unknown
Original stencil cut-out. I initially thought that these were charcoal pieces!

Sitting Kid and Butterflies by Jef Aérosol, 2016
Stencil on cardboard.

Retired Stencil Cluster by D*FACE, 2000 – 2017
Mixed media, silkscreens, drawings, and studio paraphernalia. There was even a lenticular portrait, which was pretty cool!

STRONG Legends by FAILE (Patrick McNeil & Patrick Miller), 2017
Acrylic paint and silkscreen ink, spray paint on wood.

M-City 1011 (Shipyard) by M-City, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum.

Rat and Heart – Banksy, 2015
Spray paint and emulsion on canvas.

The fourth section of the exhibit, titled ‘New Writings’, explored new approaches and creative typography in the early 2000s:

Untitled by Sten Lex, 2010
Acrylic paint and stencil cut on wood. I watched a video process and it was super cool to see this style on an entire face of a building!

Gilgamesh: The Quest for Immortality by Tarek Benaoum, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. Benaoum trained at Toulous Scriptorium, an art school known for calligraphy and typography. The gold foil was beautiful.

Garden Full of Blooming Democracy by Eko Nugroho, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. Nugroho is renowned for combining Indonesian batik with global pop culture.

Concise by Remi Rough, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. Rough is one of the leading post-graffiti artists in the UK. He went from the old-school graffiti trend of painting on street walls and trains in the 80s, to exhibiting his abstract pieces on canvas.

Titled ‘Art of the Context’, section five showcased artists whom, now that street art is publicly-recognised, work on a massive scale and have more choices in experimenting with media as canvases:

A State of Decline by Speak Cryptic, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. Singapore represent! Speak Cryptic’s distinct style and characters reflect his observations on current affairs.

Shanghai Dust series by Ludo, 2014
Acrylic paint, pencil, dust, and collage on canvas.

The Wrinkles of the City by JR, 2014
Black and white photographs laminated on wood. Kooling had had actually watched a documentary featuring him, Inside Out!

Empress Ngatini by YZ, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. I wish the 3D aspects of this piece showed through the photos!

Empress Wu by YZ, 2016
Paper and Indian ink on found wooden doors. Is it just me, or does this look like Zhang Ziyi?

Eastern Skies by Faile, 2017
Acrylic paint and silkscreen ink, spray paint on wood. I like it when artists make use of the sides of their canvases. This piece had so many interesting phrases written on them!

The final section of the exhibit involved pieces that see how contemporary artists express themselves increasingly through a combination of traditional crafts:

Foundations by VHILS, 2017
Advertising posters recovered from the street, hand cut and carved.

Outlaws of Style by Sheryo & Yok, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum. This Brooklyn-based Singaporean artist and Australian artist duo created a brilliant piece reminiscent of chinese paper cut-outs.

Zahra by Swoon, 2017
Original print on mylar with acrylic paint. Swoon applies classical engraving techniques to numerous repurposed surfaces.

The huge piece on the right is Chromadynamica by Felipe Pantone, 2018
Created on site at the ArtScience Museum.

The exhibit also provided a very interesting activity book for the kids, which included stickers and templates to create mini tags on the printed walls within these pages.