An Unbroken Line: The Wu Guanzhong Donation Collection
An Unbroken Line: The Wu Guanzhong Donation Collection at Singapore Art Museum
9 April to 16 August 2009
Singapore Art Museum is proud to present An Unbroken Line: The Wu Guanzhong Donation Collection,a showcase of works representing five decades of the artist’s creative oeuvre. Wu Guanzhong’s donation of 113 works to the Singapore Art Museum in 2008 is the highest valued donation presented to a public museum in Singapore. A key significance of Wu Guanzhong’s art is the crossing and synthesising of the two art forms of ink and oil which represent art historical and aesthetic contexts of traditional Chinese and western art. A prolific writer of essays and art theory, his Formal Beauty of Painting foreshadowed a revolution in art in the immediate post-Cultural Revolution period when it was published in 1978. To Wu, the feelings of the individual were supreme. Equally important, however, was the individual’s emotional link with the community. Hence his famed line, the “Unbroken Kite String”, which expounds the connection between formal abstraction and everyday life, and acknowledges its source in the community. A strong advocate of developing culture and the arts, and a man who holds deep respect for intercultural values, Wu’s broad brushstroke gesture of presenting his largest donation to the Singapore Art Museum will be celebrated jointly by the art community as well as the Singapore public when the galleries open their doors on 9 April.
The exhibition opening will be officiated by Guest of Honour, Acting Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, RADM (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, on Wednesday, 8 April at 7:00 pm, at the Singapore Art Museum. Media preview led by the curator will be held on the same day at 11:00 am at SAM Glass Hall.
Director of Singapore Art Museum, Mr Kwok Kian Chow, Mr Wu Keyu, son of the profilic artist and Exhibition Curator, Singapore Art Museum, Ms Patricia Ong will be available for interviews during the press conference. The exhibition is co-organised by Singapore Art Museum, Shanghai Art Museum and National Art Museum of China.