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Hong Kong art history
Hong Kong Art History Timeline

https://arthistory.hku.hk/hkarttimeline/

A Presentation by Michelle Wong: Navigating Art History in Hong Kong (2014)

https://www.aaa-a.org/programs/presentation-by-michelle-wong-navigating-art-history-in-hong-kong

Books
Art & Place: Essays on Art from a Hong Kong Perspective (1996) by David James Clarke

Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization (2002) by David James Clarke

I Like Hong Kong: Art and Deterritorialization (2010) by Frank Vigeron

Xianggang meishishu by Zhu Qi (香港美術史 / 朱琦著) (2005)

Hon Chi-fun

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58bcfd2017bffc35906f888b/t/5ca381097817f74054fe309a/1554219284200/A+Story+of+Light_Hon+Chi-fun_Chan_2019.pdf

Modern Art Society
On 16 September 1963, the Malaysian federation is established, seeing Malaya, North Borneo (renamed Sabah), Sarawak, and Singapore unite as a single state.

https://issuu.com/asiaartcollective/docs/transcend_

From 12 October to 27 October 1963, the Modern Art exhibition was held at the National Library. The exhibition featured 70 paintings by 7 artists: Johnda Goh, Tan Yee Hong, Ng Yan Chuan, Ho Ho Ying, Tay Chee Toh, Wee Beng Chong, and Tong Siang Eng. The success of the Modern Art exhibition led these artists to form the Modern Art Society (MAS), with the society registering with the Registrar of Societies on 4 June 1964.

In the foreword of the Modern Art exhibition catalogue, the aims of the society are described as including "the promotion of modern art in Malaysia, to better the standard of art composition, and to establish closer relation with artists and others interested in modern painting." Here, the use of the term "Malaysia" rather than "Malaya" or "Singapore" is significant in marking the specific time period of Singapore's merger with Malaysia. The MAS had desired for the Modern Art exhibition to travel to other parts of Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur.

In the preface to the 1963 art catalogue, the MAS also wrote its first modern art manifesto, declaring that: "Strictly speaking, Realism has passed its golden age; Impressionism has done its duty; Fauvism and Cubism are declining. Something new must turn up to succeed the unfinished task left by our predecessors... We do not mean to belittle the achievements of traditional art, but we certainly do not agree with those who stick to the old course".

Extensive media coverage was given to the Modern Art exhibition, particularly through sources like Chinese newspapers and the English-language The Straits Times. Attention was generated by important figures such as writer and physician Han Suyin as the exhibition's guest of honour, and Frank Sullivan, who was the first administrator of the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. Just a week into the Modern Art exhibition, one of the paintings was reported in newspapers as being intentionally damaged by a visitor. Specifically, Tay Chee Toh's painting was slashed by another artist whose practice the MAS had rejected as outmoded, demonstrating the tensions and contestations surrounding modern art and its role in society.

By 1964, the MAS annual exhibition expanded to include 5 new artists: Sim Pang Liang, Loo Pook Chiang, Tan Ping Chiang, Han Kuan Cheng, and Swee Khim Ann.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210613131708/https://mass.org.sg/index.php/history/

https://web.archive.org/web/20210613135722/https://mass.org.sg/index.php/chronology-of-events/

Sun Yee
https://www.goshenartgallery.com/artists-2/sun-yee

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5956175

https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1080448

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43863203

https://nus.edu.sg/museum/pdf/2021/NUSM_FistfulofColours-ExhibitionBrochure-v2.pdf

https://sagg.info/event/generosity-is-the-greatest-virtue-mdm-sun-yees-posthumous-legacy-for-charity/

https://www.galerie-belvedere.com/artist/sun-yee.html?product_list_limit=all

https://twitter.com/artist_sg/status/932466611117735936

Temple sculpture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI0GrQG8Yco

Top: Lord Shiva, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Brahma.

Middle: Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi on their vahana or vehicle, flanked by nandis or sacred bulls.

Lower: Lord Ganesha and secondary deities sit on his vehicle, Moonchooru, on the lowest tier, accompanies by moonchoorus. To their left are Lord Shiva's attendant and devotee.

c. 1960s-1980s

Painted cement mortar with plaster ground layer and brick core

The relationship between the secular and the sacred in art has been a splintered one. Past art exhibitions on sculpture in Singapore, for instance, have not included Hindu temple sculptures. Including these sculptures in this exhibition poses the question: can they be considered art?

Some of the sculptures shown here were from Sri Srivan Temple, which used to be on Orchard Road. In 1983, the land upon which the temple stood was acquired by the Singapore Government to build Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station. The temple relocated and donated some of its sculptures to the National Heritage Board.

This three-tiered display echoes the racks on which these sculptures are stored at the Heritage Conservation Centre as well as the tower-gateways or gopuram of Hindu temples, which are filled with sculptures. Made by unnamed South Indian artisans known as sthapathiyaars, these sculptures were meant to enhance the spirituality of the temple they adorned. They are of great significance in South Indian style of temple architecture, working in tandem to emphasise Hindu cosmology and mythology.

https://www.nationalgallery.sg/content/discover-learn-publications-exhibition-catalogues-nothing-forever-rethinking-sculpture

Sri Mariamman

https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-12/issue-3/oct-dec-2016/time-honoured-temple

Hindu temple sculpture and murals
The tower-gateways or gopuram of Hindu temples in Singapore are often filled with sculptures made by unnamed South Indian artisans known as sthapathiyaars. These sculptures are of great significance in the South Indian style of temple architecture, working in tandem to emphasise Hindu cosmology and mythology, enhancing the spirituality of the temple they adorn. While religious art has a complicated relationship to art history, with temple sculptures not conventionally included in Singapore's art history, such works are now being more closely studied as art.

Examples of Hindu temple sculpture may be seen at the Sri Mariamman Temple. Closely intertwined with the arrival of the first Indians in Singapore, the Sri Mariamman Temple was built in 1827 as the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. Sculptures and ornamentations added during a major reconstruction from 1862 to 1863 were created by skilled craftsmen from the Nagapattinam and Cuddalore districts of Tamil Nadu in South India. While the original gopuram of the temple was initially more sparsely decorated, during another restoration of the temple in the 1960s, elaborate sculptures and carvings were added. The inner walls are further embellished with mural that depict scenes from Hindu mythology. Until today, artisans and sculptors from South India are engaged to restore these sculptures each time the temple is renovated and re-consecrated.

Another example includes the Hindu temple sculptures from the Sri Sivan Temple, approximately dating from the 1960s to the 1980s, which are in the collection of the National Heritage Board. Originally located on Orchard Road, the land on which the temple stood was acquired by the Singapore Government in 1983 to build the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. The Sri Sivan Temple was relocated, donating some of its sculptures to the National Heritage Board, including sculptures of Lord Shiva, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Brahma, or of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati on their vahana or vehicle, flanked by nandis or sacred bulls, and a sculpture of Lord Ganesha and secondary deities sitting on his vehicle, Moonchooru.

Malay printed material
https://wardahbooks.com/products/merdeka-utusan-imprinting-malay-modernity-1920s-1960s

https://www.malayheritage.gov.sg/en/~/media/mhc/documents/exhibitions/mhc_mereka%20utusan%20exhibition%20gallery%20guide_english.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/38023203/Expanding_the_Historical_Narrative_of_Early_Visual_Modernity_in_Malaya

The Malay Archipelago's traditions of illuminated manuscripts and early Malay illustrated newspapers can be found in Singapore as examples of visual modernity. Scribes would adorn books with illustrated motifs and decorations, as seen in the decorated frontispiece of Hikayat Abdullah (The Tale of Abdullah), the autobiography of Munshi Abdullah. It was lithographed at the Mission Press in Singapore in 1849. One of the first Malay language books published in print and written by someone who identified as Malay, Abdullah was born in Melaka in 1796, though his work bringing him to Singapore where he was a secretary and personal Malay tutor to Raffles.

The frontispiece is simply decorated to suit lithographic methods, with figurative sketches of red and green flowers and leaves, with text surrounded by a frame. These decorations show attempts to experiment with more realistic depictions of subject matter like flora by manipulating of depth and space. Scripts were darkened to suggest three-dimensional forms and shadows, providing the illusion of depth to illustrations and patterns.

An example of a Malay newspaper was the Jawi Peranakan, published since 1876 in Jawi script and produced in Singapore as one of the main trading hubs in the region. The newspaper remained in circulation for nearly 20 years until 1895. Jawi Peranakan had a large masthead with an illustrated logo depicting a pohon beringin (banyan tree) frame which contained elaborate mirrored Jawi typography which were encapsulated by a garland.

Later, the 1920s would see the growth of Malay publishing houses throughout the Straits Settlements. Besides religious texts, 20th-century Straits Settlements also saw Malay publishing play a greater role in politics, commerce, and entertainment. Malay identity was no longer seen as strictly Islamic, with movements towards more local or ‘peninsular’ perspectives. Discussions of Malay identity took visual form in satirical editorial cartoons in the 1930s, and in advertisements introducing foreign products that influenced lifestyles of local communities.