Cargo by Sopheap Pich (Courtesy of the National Gallery Singapore)

A newly opened exhibition examines the Minimalist art movement and its Asia-West interaction. It is the first exhibition of its kind in Southeast Asia.

“Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.” marks the first exhibition of Minimalist art in Southeast Asia.

The five-month exhibition, which runs until April 14 next year, brings some 150 works by more than 80 artists and 40 composers to two venues: the National Gallery Singapore and the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands.

“While Minimalism has had a significant impact on contemporary design and lifestyle in Asia, its relationship to art in the region has been less well understood,” said National Gallery Singapore director Eugene Tan.

The exhibition, he said, aimed to examine the relationship of Minimalism to art in Asia, as well as the influence that Asian spirituality and philosophy had on the movement’s origins.

Minimalism, one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century, offers a powerful new way of experiencing art: rather than referencing the world outside, its simple forms invite viewers to contemplate what is physically before them in the present moment.

This fundamental shift was inspired by questioning the role of art amid the great social changes of 1960s America, which spurred a search for new forms of consciousness. The movement’s key influences were Asian spirituality and emerging ideas on perception.

Minimalism contributed to the transformation of how artists used materials and space and how they involved the viewer – considered fundamental to the development of contemporary art forms such as installations and performance art.

Tan curated the exhibition over two-and-half-years alongside the gallery’s Russell Storer, Silke Schmickl and Goh Sze Ying, as well as Adrian George and Honor Harger of the ArtScience Museum.

Visitors to the exhibit can trace the development of Minimalist art and ideas from the 1950s to the present at the National Gallery Singapore, before heading to the ArtScience Museum to explore key aspects of the movement’s artistic trends, including color and spirituality.

Work No. 1343 by Martin Creed (Courtesy of the National Gallery Singapore)

“Playing to our strengths as a museum of art and science, we have also chosen to present artworks which meditate on the notions of the cosmological void, emptiness and nothingness – principles which resonate with both Minimalism and science,” said Harger, the executive director of the ArtScience Museum.

Featuring many iconic pieces that have never before been shown in Southeast Asia, the exhibition focuses on how Minimalism moved from color-field painting to Minimalist objects in series and geometric shapes in the 1960s.

It also features a range of contemporary works from around the world that employ Minimalist forms and ideas to advance social engagement and commentary.

These include three new major commissions by Cambodia’s Sopheap Pich from, Singapore’s Jeremy Sharma and Belgium’s Frederik De Wilde.

Pich’s shipping container-shaped sculpture Cargo is a potent symbol of global trade and capital: these hardy “vessels” streamline the distribution of consumer goods all over the world.

While a regular shipping container is opaque to obscure its contents, Pich’s container made of bamboo, rattan and metal holds only air and offers a through view, illustrating a relationship between what is inside and what is outside.

Pich said he had been toying with the idea of Cargo around four years, inspired by the significant role shipping containers played in modernizing society as they transported ideas along with objects.

“The application of Minimalist ideas in my practice is also a reflection of my background and aspiration for my works. Despite travelling from country to country since young, I long for my art to be a singular piece of work with multiple cultural influences, yet simplified in its presentation – just like Minimalism,” he said.

Storer, deputy director of curatorial and research at the National Gallery Singapore, said the Minimalism movement was still very relevant today.

“It’s a movement that has been profound in the history of art. It changed many things, but it has not been seen very much,” said Storer.

Work in progress: Trajectories of Western art and traditional Chinese ink painting converge in Zhang Yu’s Ink Feeding. His sculpture is a point of confluence between Western Minimalism and Chinese Maximalism, an Asian approach to art-making that emerges from Buddhist and Taoist culture. (JP/Stevie Emilia)

“People know Minimalism through other ways like in design, lifestyle or aspects of the contemporary arts. There has never been a show [on Minimalism] in Southeast Asia,” he said.

British artist and Turner Prize winner Martin Creed has contributed Work No. 1343 to the exhibit in its first presentation in Asia. The installation is on display in the gallery’s Gallery & Co cafeteria.

Creed has blurred the distinction between art and everyday life by transforming the cafeteria into a whimsical yet functional work of art, in which every unique piece of furniture, crockery and cutlery is crowd-sourced from the community.

Work No. 1343 also redefines the relationship between the viewer and art, with the cafeteria’s customers becoming part of the installation.

“What we like about [Creed’s] work is his sense of humor. There’s real wit in his work. Something very simple, like lights going on and off,” said Storer, referring to the artist’s Work No. 312 A lamp going on and off, which is also on display at the gallery.

“He connects art to life. Placing that idea into the gallery is something else as well. Quite profound. Very powerful. [...] Controversial, [maybe] because it’s very simple. It does resonate with the idea of life and death, failure and success,” said Storer. “I think simplicity can be very powerful.”