Song Dynasty ‘A Moving Masterpiece’ @Singapore Expo
Exhibition
We were at the largest art exhibition in Singapore last week entitled ‘A Moving Masterpiece: The Song Dynasty as Living Art’. It was held at the Expo, taking up a whopping area of 10,000 sq metres. Exhibits include the items that were used during the era and explanations on how the people lived. The main attraction is the 128m x 6.5m animated reproduction of Qing Ming Shang He Tu (Along the River during Qingming festival), an enormous paranormic painting by Zhang Zeduan. That was what we came to look at.
Our first exhibition experience as a family turned out to be rather solitary, as they issued a tape recorder and earphones for each visitor as an aural guide to the various sections of the exhibition. I’d thought that we would walk together and ogle at the masterpiece, but in the end we walked about on our own to explore the place. ‘Own time own target’. IN FACT, almost everyone at the exhibition was walking alone. What is this?!
Mobile stall selling tea leaves
Coins
Ingots
Song Dynasty was the first government in world history to issue banknote/money
Pipes used for smoking
Start of the digital masterpiece
Villager and cows travelling
It goes on and on~
Rural village
It was amazing how every single character was moving and interacting with the others, and the coolest part was that they even produced a ‘night-scene’ of the original painting. I’m sure the artist didn’t paint one in night mode!
Riverside in the day
Riverside at night
Finally at the end!
In my opinion, I felt they’d overdone it with all the merchandise and ripping parts of the painting off to decorate pillow covers/pencil cases/bags/paper fans/lamps/poker cards. Yes, the painting was even printed on poker cards, and they are not cheap. The original painting might belong to public ownership, but doing all these just shows that the painting is somehow not very valuable as everyone can own a piece of it. Well that’s my opinion, and others might counter by saying that it’s a form of art and they would wish to see it on every possible accessory.
Rows and rows of merchandise
Mini scrolls in day and night versions -_-''
Printed on red packets. Fancy giving it away during lunar new year?
Masterpiece printed on poker cards?
Overall, it wasn’t as enjoyable I thought it would be, and seeing all those expensive merchandise scared me off a little. It made me wonder if the masterpiece was just a tool to make money after all. You may beg to differ.
Venue: Hall 3, Singapore Expo Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Duration: Ends Feb 6 next year; weekdays from noon to 9pm, weekends and public holidays from 9am to 9pm.
Admission: $18 for adults; $13 for students, those above 60 years old and children between three and 12; free for children below three.
I wish I could of been there, I love the art and learning about what life was like back then. Culture and history is always amazing :) I definitely would of bought a lot of merchandise especially the red pockets :)
Hahaha then you definitely would have enjoyed this, just like my aunt did, who came out of the exhibition half an hour later than the rest of us!
Your experience seems to have been a better one than ours. When we went there were loads of school children who all had worksheets and each rested them on the glass tops of the exhibits so that the rest of us could not enjoy a thing! So sad!
The “moving picture” was fascinating though.
Oh man, poor children who had to answer questions on the exhibition! It probably wasn’t enjoyable for them as well. :S And you could not exactly scold or ask them to stop leaning on the glass tops… The teachers should have done something!
I thought it was really cool, how it was made!