Singapore Art Museum.(SAM)

  

I spent about 4 hours on the open top of a double decker bus today touring Singapore and I have the sun burn to prove it.  There is a great  tour company called Hippo and Duck that has double decker buses and amphibious vehicles to tour the town.   The Hippo part of the company runs four lines of buses touring different parts of the city.  You can get on and off wherever you want, eat, go to a museum, shop, drink whatever.
So my sister and my niece got on the red line hippo this morning getting off in China Town to shop and eat, then getting back on and finishing the circuit. That took about four hours.  My traveling companions then took a cab ride back to the flat while I ventured out alone on the yellow line.
The Singapore Art Museum is on that line so I decided to get off and soak up some culture.  What I forgot about what I read in my guide book is that SAM is CONTEMPORARY art museum, you know, modern "art".
The main building of the museum is now dedicated to a special show called "5 Stars: Art reflects on Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress". I should probably tell you that the Singapore flag has five stars on it that stand for, you guessed it: Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress.  Plus, last year was the 50th anniversary of the founding of Singapore.  So, it all kinda makes sense, except its modern art, which doesn't always make sense.
Here is the flag.

Here is the logo and explanation of the exhibit

Probably the best part of  SAM is the building it is housed in. It was built as a catholic boys school in 1867 and was added on to in 1906 and was opened as an art museum in 1996.

Since they didn't have any air conditioning in 1867 OR 1906 it was built with wide balcony s with arches that allowed the air to circulate through the buildings.  Well by 1996 air conditioning had been invented so during the remodel they put up  glass on the edge of all the balcony s to keep the cold air in.  It makes it a bit claustrophobic, but  the original architecture was left intact.

above 2 pics you can see through the arch.  Notice the metal bar reinforcing the glass panel.  That steeple and dome are part of the old school.

Above are more pictures from the balcony taken through the  glass.

The more things change the more they stay the  same ; rowdy school kids running up the stairs.

Althouigh the building was devoid of crucifixes, the chapel remained the same with the stations of the cross and places for the holy water.  This is the front of the chapel.

One exhoboit consisted of copper pipes installed by a  Singaporean"sound artist" named Zulkifle Mahmod with  long metal wires and elctroinc gadget that made random sounds.  I wouldn't say music, but close.  I did catch the art monitor/security guard humming along.

Here is an exhibit I could have done. T.K. Sabapathy taped a bunch of old art magazines to the wall, turned off the lights then lite up the magazines

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A fun exhibit was food made out of post it notes.  There were tons of fresh post it notes and visitors were encouraged to make their own art.  The same room had a 3 foot by 3 foot board that looked suspiciously like a carrom board  buit with no sticks.  I didn't get a picture of it becasue two Muslim teenagers were playing on it by flicking the "cue carrom" with their index finger. I am guessing they were Muslims because there are a lot of Muslims in Singapore and the girl was wearing a very colorful and stylish hijab (head covering).

There was an annex building but my bus was coming soon and I wanted to get back to the central point so I could do the green line tour.  It turned out that I could have stayed because the green line bus never showed up.