The inaugural exhibition at The Culture Story is a selection of thirteen Asian artists from Singapore, China, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines. The show is titled “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, after Milan Kundera’s seminal novel completed in 1984. The novel was made into a film in 1988 and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche.
The founders chose to reference Kundera’s classic, as we believe that art can be a great connector of people and a reflector of our society. Art should not be just visually attractive or provocative but art has to tell a story about the artist and the collector, and their place in the universe of time. Just like Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being“, art can be emotive, art should inform history, art must question our status quo of comfort and consent, turmoil and pain.
The thirteen artists featured in this show are people with stories to tell, they are mostly in their senior years of practice and are known for their mixed media and abstract works, representing the second generation of pioneer modern and contemporary artists from each of their countries. Most, if not all, have spent many years of their lives, studying and working overseas in places like Australia, London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florence, Taiwan, Japan, China and Malaysia. Some have lived through their own version of Prague Spring, like the Cultural Revolution in China, while others have endured dictatorships in the Philippines and Taiwan.
Whatever their inspiration is, their choice of artistic language or unique approach to art-making, their rich experiences combined with their artistic talents have produced the kind of works which we believe speaks to and can resonate with an international audience of art lovers and collectors.
List of Artists Exhibited
Anthony Chua
Augusto Albor
Han Sai Por
Hong Sek Chern
Hsiao Chin
Iskandar Jalil
Leo Hee Tong
Jolly Koh
Liang Quan
Shi Jin Dian
Wong Keen
Yu Teng-Chuan
Zhuang Sheng Tao
Venue: The Culture Story, 2 Leng Kee Road, #03-06 Thye Hong Centre, Singapore 159086
When: 17 Jun 2017 - 7 Jan 2018,
