Singapore art in a new light

National Gallery Singapore's revamped Singapore gallery injects moments of levity and spotlights more women and minority artists

- Shawn Hoo

For two weeks in 1992, 100 eggplants of various girths and ombres jutted out of three slate walls at Parkway Parade. Singaporean artist Suzann Victor, who co-founded art space 5th Passage in the mall, was hoping to tickle the fancy of idle office workers with her risque visual gag as the phallic fruit rotted in public.

Three decades later, the ephemeral aubergines in Still Life have found a new lease of life as part of National Gallery Singapore's (NGS) revamped Singapore art history exhibition. The commission, featuring around 200 new brinjals, is one of over 400 artworks and artefacts on show at Singapore Stories: Pathways And Detours In Art, which opens on July 18.

Lead curator Adele Tan, who led this first major revamp of the Singapore gallery, admitted that the inaugural 2015 exhibition Siapa Nama Kamu?: Art In Singapore Since The 19th Century was sombre, if necessarily so, for a fledgling institution. "There was tremendous urgency to tell the story as if we were instructing the art history to our audiences."

Her maxim for the revamp is, therefore, "let there be lightness". While the exhibition's flow remains largely chronological, expect moments of levity and detours into lesser-known figures and episodes in art history, as the new show is more free-flowing and almost doubles its exhibition footprint to 35,400 sq ft, comprising the entire second level of the City Hall wing.

But her lightness is also an invitation to ponder seriously.