Exhibitions - An Introduction

Whereas in a previous post I introduced theatre, I shall now briefly talk about exhibitions. Exhibitions come in many different forms and serve different purposes, audiences and incite different actions. The most common exhibitions we see today are art exhibitions, interpretive exhibitions and commercial exhibitions.

Art exhibitions, as the name suggests showcases the Arts. The Arts takes on different forms such as music, film, sculptures, paintings and photography, and require different equipments and facilities which are suitable to exhibit certain artworks. For example, paintings and sculptures are damaged to a certain extent, depending on their materials used to create the artwork, by factors like the lighting, temperature and the relative humidity. One example of an art exhibition in Singapore would be the Singapore Biennale, which showcases artworks of many different forms.

In the 2008 Singapore Biennale which I visited, the places used to exhibit the artworks were carefully chosen, modified and even created to create the intended atmosphere and mood. Containart Pavillion was created was made up of 150 ship containers and 35 recyclable paper tubes. I also remember the artworks in the City Hall building. One artwork which I still remember includes paintings of daily commercial objects, like Coca Cola and cornflakes brands. More likely than not, I believe the artist was inspired by Andy Warhol, who is famous all over the world for creations like the design of Campbell’s Soup cans. From this we can see that artists get their inspirations from what they observations and interactions with society. They also inspire one another to create innovative artworks.

Interpretive exhibitions include those involved in natural history, archaeology, history and science and technology. These exhibitions display facts, photographs, diagrams and statistics in a creative and interactive manner. They can also include hands-on, 3D-figures, talks, performances and videos as a complement and supplement to words and statistics. One exhibition I had visited in the past was the Reign of the Kangxi Emperor and the other permanent galleries in the Asian Civilisations Museum.

For the Kangxi Emperor exhibition, there were artefacts like the robes which the Emperor wore, and allows the audience to admire the grandeur of the emperor’s reign. There were many walls of information about his family lineage, different periods in his reign which were significant, and how his contributions have lived till today. The most interactive exhibit was a digital version of one of the scrolls of the Kangxi Emperoro’s Southern Inspection Tour, which stretches for over ten meters in length and 67 centimetres in breadth. Technology offers us many advantages today, and convenience is one advantage that we cannot do without. However, I still prefer art exhibitions as compared to interpretive exhibitions, possibly due to the hard facts of history and the sciences.

I shall not go deep into commercial exhibitions but they basically showcase commercial products in a specific industry or interest. Such exhibitions include those which display furniture, cars, phones, computers, televisions and the like.

In the next post, I will reflect upon my visit to the ScienceArt Museum. Additionally, I will blog about my reflections for the 2011 Singapore Biennale which I will visit this weekend.