Cultural stop

No not putting the brakes on culture, but us popping into the Singapore Art Museum. It's housed in the former Saint Joseph's Institution boys high school, which was relocated to the suburbs years ago along with all the other surrounding schools. I guess this probably had something to do with skyrocketing property prices together with increasing student intakes with no means of expansion, and the government's desire to have that area (being close to the CBD) serve a fine arts type role. Indeed, the area has other museums, galleries and we even spotted a ballet school.

The entry fee was S$10 which is halved for students (thankfully no 2 child had brought her school ID with her) and free for local students. On show today were pieces from the finalists in the Asia Pacific Breweries Signature Art Prize 2011 (what a mouthful), many of which were pretty good. There were also a few exhibitions from other local artists and (I'm told) well known Chinese painter Wu Guan Zhong. I thought many of his pieces had an elegant simplicity about them, with the sparse but deliberate splashes of colour providing the appropriate emphasis on his subject matter. (There, my transformation to art critic extraordinaire is complete)