Lunch-time Art Jaunts

(1) Chua Ek Kay's works are on exhibition at the SMU School of Economics Gallery from now till 12 September. I have always loved his contemporary ink work on Singapore street scenes. The SMU is very fortunate indeed to have received such a big endowment of his paintings!




(2) "Oil Painting' Photography" by Charlie Lim, at the SG Private Bank Gallery, Alliance Francais, from now till 31 August. A pretty intriguing marrying of fine visual art and photography!

(3) And finally, what I have been waiting for all year! The Singapore Watercolour Society is having it's 38th exhibition at the Ngee Ann Cultureal Building from 1st -4th September. Managed to get an invitation to the private opening this Friday. woohoo!

Anybody wants to buy a sandwich and join me for a lunch time jaunt at the galleries? :)

Musical: <<天冷就回來 >> If there are Seasons

Surprised. At the number of songs and lyrics Liang Wenfu actually wrote for other singers, outside Xinyao. At the commendable collaboration between the "English" and "Chinese" theatre workers in this musical. And how Liang is still, after all these years, the Singapore Boy wanting to sing Singapore's own songs.

Surprised at how many of the songs were familiar to me, for I have never considered myself much of a Chinese music fan. Surprised at the memories they brought back, yet surprised how the lyrics make so much more sense now, as compared to the teenage years when I listened to them.

I bought the full anthology of Liang's songs today, if not for anything but to read those lyrics again. I think the lyrics could mean different things to different people. One could read them in a romantic way, or they could mean more than the romantic. They could be about a friend, a parent, or even somebody or something more important to the you. I guess all good song-writing has that ability - to evoke our deepest memories and feelings.

雨的氣息是回家的小路
路上有我追著你的腳步
腳下邊保存著昨天的溫度
你抱著我就像溫暖的大樹

雨下了走好路
這句話我記住
風再大吹不走囑咐
雨過了就有路
像那年看日出
你牽著我穿過了霧
叫我看希望就在黑夜的盡處

哭過的眼看歲月更清楚
想一個人閃著淚光是一種幸福
又回到我離開家的小步
你送著我滿天燕子都在飛舞

雨下了走好路
這句話我記住
風再大吹不走囑咐
雨過了就有路
像那年看日出
你牽著我穿過了霧
叫我看希望就在黑夜的盡處

雖然一個人
我並不孤獨
在心中你陪我看每一個日出

The Study of Art

I discovered that you don't have to go to art school to learn about art history seriously. Like never before in the history of art education, there is an incredible amount of resources, both in print and online, for someone who wants to systematically study the evolution of art in history.

ok, so most of you know I am kinda nerdy when it comes to pursuing things that interest me. I like reading about the subject and listening to lectures on it. For a few months now, I have been going through the Taschen series of art books which gives the foundational knowledge of artists spanning over the entire Western civilization history. One day earlier this year, I walked into Page One and swiped all the books from the series that covered the modern period of Art History from (1890s to 1960s). It cost me the price of the very good and enduring top-end Michelin tyres that my colleague said I must get for my car. But I think it actually paid for a college year in art history.

It has been a fascinating reading journey ever since. The cool thing is that with Google Images Search, I can find almost any painting online for viewing. Of course, I would love to see some of the works in their actual galleries one day, but this is something art students a decade ago would not be really able to do. They had to travel to those galleries all over the world or rely on libraries.

Anyway, hope to share some of my favorite paintings and stories about the artists from time to time in this blog. It might be a way to discipline myself to take good notes on what I am reading! :)

Book Preview: The Panic of 1907

Waiting for this book to be launched in a few weeks' time.

Coincidentally, exactly 100 years ago, the U.S. went through one of the biggest financial crisis in its economic history - i.e. the "Panic of 1907" as it was commonly called. Two writers Robert Bruner and Sean Carr decided to write a book at this 100th anniversary giving an account of the highly dramatic events of that year. The book is expected to come out in mid-September. Little did the writers of this new book know that the events of the last few weeks would see many analysts drawing comparisons between the 1907 crisis and the current global credit turmoil.

The analysts appear to be saying that there are many uncanny parallels between the two situations. Essentially, both crises came about because of a "perfect storm" or confluence of factors, i.e. a booming economy just prior to it, an unprecedented rash of corporate mergers and acquisitions and a profusion of borrowers and creditors who overreach in their use of debt. In both instances, it resulted in "credit anorexia" amongst financial institutions, which threatens to halt one of the key cogs of the economy - debt provision.

Amazon and other booksellers are probably taking the chance to hype up the book, well, good for them. I am actually curious about the book for another reason.

You see, the book is supposed to have given a good account of how one man single-handedly bailed the whole country out of a financial implosion. That guy's name is J.Pierpont Morgan, who put together probably the most famous financial rescue plan in economic history, which he basically made (or as people say, forced) all the other bank presidents at that time to sign up to. As an example of what he did during that year 1907 - at one point of the crisis, the New York Stock Exchange was threatening to close down in the middle of the trading day, Morgan essentially prevented a complete meltdown of the capital markets by announcing that he would underwrite a $30 million bond offering (equivalent to $900 million in our day) for the stock exchange.

There are some who even said he engineered the financial crisis in the first place so as to profit from it eventually. Well, if he did that, he certainly made the most colossal gamble that any person dared to make. In any case, after the crisis, he did make a huge amount of money and spawned the creation of many of the key financial and corporate institutions we know of today, e.g. GE, Morgan Grenfell, US Steel, Exxon etc.

I have always been quite fascinated with the man even before I had anything to do with one of his legacy institutions. When travelling in New York some years ago, I came across the House of Morgan (23rd Wall Street), built at a mere 4 storeys amidst the towering blocks around it, which was meant to demonstrate the economic prowess of the man and his institution at that time. There is also the incredible Morgan Art Musuem, which houses one of the most amazing art collections ever (lots of famous paintings, original scores of Beethoven, Mozart, and even a whole roof of a French castle). There are many colourful stories about the man. He was apparently very strange and enigmatic - reticent, all-powerful and demanding perfect authority.

One question that has been asked is who will be the "Morgan" of this crisis (if it does become a true one)? Some say it will be the central banks, who have been pouring in giant amounts of money into the system in the last two weeks. Some say you do need a real "Morgan", since it is about restoring confidence, and a human person putting his own capital at stake is always going to be more convincing than a faceless central bank system. One writer says it may be Warren Buffet, who interestingly, indirectly owns 19% of Moody, a rating agency who may have caused some of the subprime debt issues in the first place.

All pretty interesting to watch and read. Of course, I do hope things to become stable soon. In the meantime, I am actually kind of glad for the time and opportunity to learn a bit more about all these new financial products and systems that were identified to have triggered the situation. While the markets are hot, nobody cares to really explain it to you (and you are busy yourself with the ride). I was surprised to find that there's much good literature out there that tries to explain the issues. That is necessary and good. Afterall, the crisis is partly about Fugu Fish hedge funds selling collateralized debt packages to the Moms and Pops and Auntie Wongs of this world who may not fully understand what goes into them.

Evening Run

The Trees look different from the day.

(More beautiful methinks)

They stand

quietly by, like dear grandparents,

as I run past them at night.

Facebook

Yes, I am finally on it, after months of coy declining of invitations from cyber-resident-happy-friends. It was more out of curiosity than anything. After reading the Wikipedia entry, and being pretty fascinated with discussion on Facebook as a social phenomenon, the intriguing legal suits surrounding intellectual property rights, and the bidding war between giant private equity funds for a stake in Facebook, I was curious enough to finally give in to a friend's cajoling and joined it just before the weekend.

I was promptly Thrown Sheep and all manner of cattle offal, and have been engaged in Food Fights ever since, but I do want to report that it is as much the amazing phenomenon that people have been talking about.

I must say the idea of self-added applications (AIP) is a very clever one - it was pretty cool seeing the bursts of creativity coming from all corners of the cyberworld. And I think it is the best kind of creativity there is - i.e. garnered from the general pool of human knowledge/resource (just like the cool Photosyth technology I blogged about a few weeks ago) and engineered with the clear purpose of human application.

And of course, the biggest boon is that I am connected to some very good friends in another way now (even though not all my social circles are represented on my Facebook - for example, I noted with amusement after a quick search that NONE of my classmates from my junior college humanities class were on it - computer dinosaurs as most of us tended to be. Hello there JC friends, it is not as scary as it seems, really! :)) .

It has been especially good to hook up with those many friends who live in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the world that I don't often get to see. It all suddenly dawned on me why I have felt for a long time it is quite challenging to keep up with these overseas friendships. Even though there is email and instant messaging, it is not always possible to keep up constant interaction with these friends because of different timezones and the crazy work schedules that people have.

From that, I am now beginning to recognize that the essence of most friendships is made up of just as much "Talk" as "Play". And of course, Facebook is about "Reclaiming Play". The friendly banter and silly games takes place in parallel with the more serious private one-to-one conversations. But this is exactly as happens in real life! I was quickly reminded of all the crazy raucous goofing around that used to take place within my HK circle, the stuff that formed the bases for many deep life-long friendships from there....

If you came to know this blog through me, you are probably already a Friend or someone that would be able to find me on Facebook through my real name. Be warned though, my favorite activities are Headbutting and drawing Graffiti on people's Walls. :)

No Mere Mortals

A rather heavy heart tonight, do want to pray but find it difficult to start. It's worse because one knows exactly why. An email, a phone call this afternoon made me realized how little I can really care about the golden commandment. Back home after DG, I flipped almost involuntarily to this passage in C.S Lewis' classic essay which I have read so many times in the past, but which strikes the conscience sharply every time:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

--C. S. Lewis, From The Weight of Glory

So easy for me to say : "Love Thy Neighbour". How many times have I chosen to love those only who are more interesting, more beautiful, more happy, or those who can love me back. So easy to procrastinate a phone call back to a lonely faraway friend, to hasten a boring conversation, ignore an email, and avoid the funny-shaped sheep of Christ.

But for the help of God, it is impossible to love.

Invisible City

Conversation at Billy Bombers (over overly-sweet milkshakes) after watching Tan Pin Pin's documentary "Invisible City" :

EC: "So what do you all think of the movie? You all like it?

All: "I like!" "Not bad" "I like Singapore Ga-Ga better leh." "A qualified No"

(i.e.various responses)

E.C: "What do you all think it is about?"

SomeBody Who Read The Review: "It's about history-both national and personal, and attempts to preserve the seldom spoken parts of it. It's also about memory and the atrophy of memory."

(Conversation then proceeded to recount the things in the past which we no longer see today, including snail-mail pen pals, IRC chat rooms, typewritten school assignments, the kok-kok noodle man. LKP won hands down with his account of the night soil collector who visited his estate up till the time when he was 10 years old)

Me: Will there really be an invisible city in 50 years time? I mean, with the internet, digital photography, personal blogging, electronic storage, everything can be and is being archived for posterity.

E.C.: I think there will definitely still be an invisible city. There will always be people who will keep their memories and private to themselves.

LKP: There will also be those people in society who are marginalized or repressed, who may not find a voice at all despite this state of technological advancement.

Me: That's probably true. I guess preserving history is not the same as preserving the experience of people who lived through that history. Sometimes we ourselves don't remember what happened, even though we have photographs or films depicting the past.

E.C: Ya. Commentary is key. That's why the Ivan guy said he included personal commentary for his old film footage! Other people won't have a chance of knowing what in the world they were about otherwise!

Arrow (ex-government officer) : Anyway, you think our National Archives really keep everything? They destroy records after a certain time you know?

All: "Really ah?!"

Arrow: "Ya lor! That's why the old guy said he didn't like the National Archives mah!"

*************************************

To me, Invisible City is about ordinary people trying to make a mark about their existence, or the existence of something else important to them. Anything that exists, must be reasonable, so saith Hegel. So to be of reason, one must exist, and be visible in some form, even if only to oneself.

A Week in the Studio

"Contentment"

(Watercolour on cold pressed paper. Full poster size.)

"Through a Scanner Darkly"

(Watercolour on Arches paper. My favorite of the week.)

"Sumi Crane"

(I tried this for fun with leftover paper and dark paint, but it was probably the most difficult piece out of the whole lot, I was perspiring after 2 minutes! It sure makes one appreciate the Chinese paint masters! Got a Chinese seal of my surname made for $30 at Chinatown.)

"Bukit Timah Forest Leaves"
(This is fast becoming my favorite subject. There are a million pictures that leaves can provide. I need a better camera to take these photos though.)

"Some Corner of Malacca"
(Quick Pen and Wash done under an hour.)

Next Stop Ueno

Four trips to Tokyo in the last five years, the sprawling city is starting to gain a certain familiarity, which usually happens when one location within it becomes a point of reference, in this case the cool designer Andon Ryokan in Minowa, which we went back again this year to stay.

Funny how cities like Tokyo can become so familiar and yet remain an effort to get to. Anyone who's been there would know what I mean. There's only one hour time difference between Japan and Singapore, but it is a solid 7.5 hours plane ride from Singapore to Tokyo. When you land at Narita, there is a longish train ride into the city that takes at least an hour. Door to door, you are talking about nearly 12 hours of travel time to get there.

One banker that I travelled together with recently commented that the greatest cost of doing business in Asia is the amount of travel time from city to city. Many of the investment banks are trying to figure out how to cut short that time, including using private jets or corporate time sharing of aircrafts. But he says these methods are still prohibitively expensive. Apparently it costs $50,000 to make a private landing at Narita. And somehow, I just don't see the CEOs of Morgan Stanley, Goldman and Merrills all sharing a private plane to go for a competitive beauty parade in any city at the same time.

Last Monday afternoon, while sitting in the subway train going from Tsujiki back to our ryokan in Minowa, and anticipating the long drawn travel route back to Singapore that evening, Agent M quipped, "You know, I am really not looking forward to the plane ride back. How nice it would be if the next stop was Clementi, and then Bishan." Sitting in that now-familiar Tokyo train, it seemed dreamily possible that we could be conveyed to our own doorsteps without further ado. It would be great if travel one day really got that efficient, and we could just take the MRT to eat sashimi uni in Tokyo when we got off.

Art Books Kinokuniya

Did you grow up in the 70s? If so, did your mother make clothes for herself and the family using Japanese dress pattern books like this?


My mom did. I was always curious why those pattern books were invariably in Japanese. My mom did not read Japanese, how useful did she really find those books? Why could she not get those books in Chinese or English? It was one of those childhood puzzles that I don't think I ever solved.

But then last week, while visiting the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, I came across these books in the museum shop, which had an unusual array of art instruction books and even art supplies.


I bought a rather big bunch of these, and am pretty excited about the new "discovery" - Japanese art instruction books were inexpensive (compared to the ones from the US and Europe sold here) and were very detailed in terms of pictoral representations (which is helpful since I don't read Japanese!) Best of all, they had an "oriental" slant to the painting styles, i.e. clean and less fussy than the traditional Western methods, which is personally an appealing thing to me.

Another section to explore at Kinokuniya! :)

Inside Studio Ghibli

My favourite part of the Ghibli Museum in Mitake Tokyo was definitely the two "preparatory spas" which re-created Miyazake's work studio for his early career. They were more like personal studies of an individual, with personal collections of the artist's books, music and of course sketches and paintwork. The museum was styled in a way that allowed visitors to touch and handle the personal artefacts in the rooms.

It confirmed one thing that I have always believed about great artists - their interests are always extremely broad. You could tell from the books (both Japaneses and foreign language) that were in Miyazake's studio - everything from children's and classical literature, to architecture and even engineering. There were books on botany, insects, trains, ships and aeroplanes. No wonder his animation work is so full of delightful nuances and details, a product of wonderfully curious mind!

Just spent N-Day afternoon re-watching some of the Ghibli collection, including Totoro. The more I watch Miyazake's stuff, the more I see his (and his studio workers') sensitivity to both to art and character development. The setting in each movie is like a beautiful, lovingly crafted art canvas on which people and magical creatures come to live. His characters are never simple, the storyline always profound and wildly imaginative. It's a shame that kids (and adults) in another part of the world have to be satisfied with Walt Disney, at best Pixar.

Sunflower Land

Yep. Hokkaido is as pretty as people say it is. :)

It is quite amazing how one week of doing nothing but roaming in flower farms, soaking in onsens and eating an undefined number of ethereal cream puffs did do to get rid of the effects of the past crazy months at work.

On the Sixth Night - Waking

"That first green night of their dreaming, asleep beneath the Tree,
God said, "Let meanings move," and there was poetry."

- Muriel Rukeyser, "Selected Poems," 1935

(oil on canvas, 8 x 11, impasto trial of a tree at night, using phthalo blue straight from the tube, ouch. "vincent" must have been more generous than people make him out to be)