National Gallery Singapore Places Southeast Asian Art on World Map

First Special Exhibition to be Co-curated with Centre Pompidou

Singapore, 19 June 2015 – National Gallery Singapore today announced its international partnership strategy to kick off curatorial collaborations with leading art institutions worldwide. The international collaborative framework will complement the Gallery’s research under its special exhibition series, and strengthen the Gallery’s presentation of the art histories of Singapore and Southeast Asia within a global context.

The first major collaboration will be with Centre Pompidou, which houses one of the most important modern and contemporary art collections in the world. The two parties inked an exhibition agreement today in Paris, building on the strong cultural relations between Singapore and France.

Sam Tan, Singapore’s Minister of State for the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, said, "This collaboration between Singapore’s National Gallery and France’s Centre Pompidou will allow our art practitioners in both countries to engage and share expertise in the arts. We hope that through this collaboration with Centre Pompidou, our two institutions will find ways to share the arts with many more people in France and Singapore."

Slated for the second quarter of 2016, the co-curated exhibition about reframing modernism will examine the relationship between the art from Singapore, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world.

"We want to create shows that are relevant to this part of the world rather than just hosting classic travelling exhibitions. In order to achieve this, we are delighted to be collaborating with a prestigious institution like the Centre Pompidou, to build on each other’s strengths and give our visitors reasons to return to our respective museums throughout the year," said Chong Siak Ching, CEO, National Gallery Singapore.

In addition to Centre Pompidou in France, National Gallery Singapore will introduce over the next year partners to collaborate on new exhibitions or loans, and to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and expertise. The list includes regional institutions from Thailand and Vietnam, and others from China, Japan, and The Netherlands.

"We are delighted to be working in such a collaborative fashion with National Gallery Singapore on this new type of project, which testifies to the Centre Pompidou’s international reach and its pursuit of collaborations with prestigious partner institutions. We are excited to study and select significant works that will be of interest to visitors in Singapore. This fruitful relationship also creates an opportunity for a sizeable number of works from our collection to travel across the globe and be showcased in the new and iconic National Gallery Singapore," said Serge Lasvignes, President of the Centre Pompidou.

The inaugural special exhibition will be co-curated by National Gallery Singapore Director Eugene Tan and his team Lisa Horikawa and Phoebe Scott, together with the Deputy Director of the Centre Pompidou’s National Museum of Modern Art, Catherine David and curator Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov. Presented by Asia's leading communications group Singtel, the exhibition will offer new perspectives to current understandings of modernism by using Southeast Asia as new point of reference, as well as provide a reframing of the development of modernism in the 20th century in a global context.

The exhibition, specially curated for Singapore, will be staged at the Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery and is expected to showcase more than 200 pieces of artwork, with about half of the works on loan from Centre Pompidou.