IMPART Collectors Show 2020 Material Agendas

The IMPART Collectors’ Show returned for its third edition from 10 to 19 January 2020 at the School of the Arts’ (SOTA).

First introduced in 2017, the IMPART Collectors’ Show featured local and international art from the exclusive and private collections of prominent collectors around the world. Curated by Tan Boon Hui, Vice President of the Global Arts & Cultural Programmes and Director of the Asia Society Museum in New York, the show provided a rare opportunity for the public to view outstanding works of art that reside in private collections, many of which have never been shown in Singapore before. The main aspiration of the Collectors’ Show is to bring together the “market, the makers and the masses” by presenting an opportunity for collectors to share their passion and advocacy for art and artists, while encouraging the public to understand, appreciate and support the networks that sustain our visual arts communities.

Themed Material Agendas, the IMPART Collectors’ Show 2020 celebrates the transgressive spirit of artists boldly transforming materials into strange, odd and exhilarating forms. Drawing on 13 private collections around the world, it features works by 20 artists. Many of the works featured in the Show have never been shown in Singapore. The featured artists are: 1. El Anatsui (Ghana), 2. Christine Ay Tjoe (Indonesia), 3. Alwar Balasubramaniam (India), 4. Nadia Bamadhaj (Malaysia), 5. Manjit Bawa (India), 6. Mariano Ching (Philippines), 7. Marcin Dudek (Poland), 8. Ruud van Empel (Netherlands), 9. Jeffrey Gibson (U.S.), 10. Jackson Kang, 11. Idris Khan (U.K.), 12. Bharti Kher (UK/India), 13. Jakkai Siributr (Thailand), 14. Odelia Tang (Singapore), 15. Tromarama (Indonesia), 16. Yinka Shonibare CBE (UK/Nigeria), 17. Adeela Suleman (Pakistan), 18. Kehinde Wiley (US/Nigeria), 19. Yang Yongliang (China),

“The art of the present has freed itself from the limitations of material expectations. The basis of art making is now more than ink, paint, carved stone or casted metal and some of the most interesting contemporary work sees the artist testing the limits of material possibilities. This bold experimentation is carried out not just with new modern industrial materials but also involves relooking at the new experiential possibilities of older materials. In this brave new world, one thing certainly does not look like another, as artworks test our perception of reality and experience. The transgressive quality of these material agendas has helped shape the development of contemporary art. Post war Conceptualism and Pop shattered the very idea that art needed to be made from certain things, or even that art needed to be a physical object. The coming of digital techniques such as image manipulation opened up the possibility that artists could create new worlds and lives that could never exist in the physical world, while obscuring that act of manipulation.” – Tan Boon Hui, IMPART Collectors’ Show Curatorial Advisor