Light to Night Festival 2018 | Jan 19, 2018


Pictures from Light to Night Festival 2018, currently ongoing at Singapore’s Civic District.


I’ve been looking forward to this since the beginning of the year. Firstly, because I enjoyed last year’s Night Festival. Secondly, because I visited an associated exhibition at the National Gallery on New Year’s Eve, right before I went to wait in the rain for fireworks. I want to use the pictures from that evening to do a combined post.

To quote from the event brochure, this year’s Light to Night Festival is a series of programmes across major cultural institutions and open spaces in Singapore’s civic district, all based on the theme of colour. For me, I also began my evening at National Gallery Singapore. That is, Zone A of the festival.

Of note, this latest “festival” is far more comfortable to navigate compared to the previous Night Festival too. The major locations and performance venues are much, much closer together.

Zone A: National Gallery Singapore

National Gallery Singapore, Supreme Court Wing
The Supreme Court Wing, before it’s “painted” by lights of the festival.
Light to Night Festival 2018 Promotion.
Promotion pull-up in basement.
Walk, Walk, Walk, Search, Deviate, Reunite by Teamlab
One of the highlights of this zone. Walk, Walk, Walk, Search, Deviate, Reunite by TeamLab. This was described as a labyrinth in which one would encounter a myriad of characters in the quest for enlightenment.
Walk, Walk, Walk, Search, Deviate, Reunite by Teamlab
I really liked this digital installation for it featured a traditional Japanese procession, with Yokai and Sakura and all. But it was very hard to get a decent picture!

Century of Light at NGS

This special exhibition of Impressionist art is listed as one of the highlights of Light to Night 2018, but it has actually been ongoing since November 16 last year.

As I mentioned above, I visited on New Year’s Eve and snapped over 1gig of images. Overall, I found Century of Light to be a terse introduction to one of the most important revolutions in Western art, with representative pieces by many big names of the movement. What’s doubly worth seeing is the special exhibitions of masterpieces by Southeast Asian artists Raden Saleh and Juan Luna. I confess to being utterly ignorant of these two regional masters. Their unique styles certainly caught my eye.

Century of Light Special Exhibition
A classical impressionist depiction of the Seine by Claude Monet.
Century of Light Special Exhibition - Gustave Caillebotte
A Caillebotte. I love wintry depictions. I also love Gustave Caillebotte’s other Parisian pieces, particularly those in which he adopted a more “photorealistic” style.
Century of Light Special Exhibition - Latour
Okay, this doesn’t look like much. It is also one of the smallest paintings in the exhibition. But this picture once belonged to a woman a king gave up his crown for.
Century of Light Special Exhibition - Flight of the Nymphs
Flight of the Nymphs by Henri-Edmond Cross. (Naughty!)
Century of Light Special Exhibition
Century of Light is divided into two sections. This is the “Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay” section.
Century of Light - Between Worlds: Raden Saleh and Juan Luna
The other section. Between Worlds: Raden Saleh and Juan Luna.
Century of Light Special Exhibition - Raden Saleh
A rather disturbing but superbly dramatic piece by Indonesian Romantic painter Raden Saleh. According to the exhibition and Wikipedia, Raden Saleh is considered the first modern artist from Indonesia.
Century of Light Special Exhibition - Raden Saleh
Another piece by Raden Saleh. I felt a strong urge to replay Far Cry 3 after seeing this one. (Lol)
Century of Light Special Exhibition - Juan Luna
The Juan Luna section of Between Worlds.
Herois Anònims by Juan Luna
This immense spread by Juan Luna is titled Herois Anònims. Don’t you agree it is tremendously evocative. (As in, I felt like replaying Age of Empires III after viewing. *blink*)

Other Zones and Performances of Light to Night Festival 2018

National Gallery Singapore Art Projection Show.
Great Gatsby-eyes adorn the Supreme Court Wing of NGS.
Light to Night Festival 2018 at National Gallery Singapore
The City Hall Wing is the stage for a game.

See the word “game” on the Corinthian columns? There was indeed a game going on. One in which players stomp on a platform to fill up gauges displayed on the façade. I was … really keen to have a go. But there were too many squealing kids in the queues!

Art X Social 2018.
Art X Social at the Padang, this being Zone B. I didn’t go into this picnic spread as the grass was still wet from afternoon showers and I wasn’t wearing the right shoes.
Light to Night Festival 2018 - The Arts House at the Old Parliament
The Arts House. I.E. Zone C.

By the way I had an interesting half-hour at the Arts House.

The moment I stepped onto the second floor, a lady earnestly invited me to attend A Novel Idea, a dramatized reading performance of 1984.

This was my first attendance of a reading in like, 20 ++ years, and all in all, I have to say it was very enjoyable. (The two readers were really good).

The unusual thing about the reading is also that the audience gets to decide which novel to be read. I entered too late to partake in the voting but I likely would have also voted for 1984. That is, out of the three choices of that, The Great Gatsby, and Frankenstein.

Hues of Horns by Singapore Horn Sounds
Hues of Horn performance by Singapore Horn Sounds at Victoria Theatre (Zone D).
Light to Night Festival 2018 - Victoria Theatre
One of Victoria Theatre’s more colourful “art skins” for the festival.
Homecoming with Iman's League performance.
Homecoming with Iman’s League concert at Esplanade Park. I’m not familiar with these guys, but I’d say they have a great stage presence.
Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay 2018
A classic shot of Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay to end the evening. Incidentally, the same area will be again adorned with light art installations in two months’ time.




Update Jan 22, 2018: More pictures!

Was in the vicinity again, so took the opportunity to snap more pictures and to visit the zones I skipped the other evening.

Light to Night Festival 2018 - House of Mirrors
House of Mirrors by Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney at Zone E, Empress Lawn.

This payable attraction (SGD 2.00) is like those mirror mazes you see in movies and games, and I confess it creeped me out a little. It was quite deserted when I entered at six, and with the mirrors utterly spotless, I kept walking into cul-de-sacs and myself!

Had I entered after dark, I suspect it would have been even more … atmospheric.

BTW, House of Mirrors also strongly reminded of that episode from Gotham Season 3 too. You know, the one with teen Batman confronting teen Joker?

Light to Night Festival 2018 - National Gallery Singapore
The Supreme Court Wing of National Gallery Singapore with another art skin on.

I neglected to mention in the main post that these projections are titled “Art Skins on Monuments” and they are by Brandon Tay X Safuan Johari. The ones for the City Hall Wing of the Gallery, see below, is titled Chromascope and it’s by Spinifex Group.

Light to Night Festival 2018 - National Gallery Singapore City Hall Wing.
Chromascope.
Light to Night Festival 2018, Singapore.
Back to Zone D.
Light to Night Festival 2018, Zone F.
The zone I entirely skipped the other night. F, the Asian Civilisations Museum.
Light to Night Festival 2018 at Asian Civilisations Museum.
These art skins are great, aren’t they?

Read my other Singapore festivals posts.


Light to Night Festival 2019 – Art Week Edition.

Read my other Singapore festivals posts.

Summary
Light to Night Festival 2018
Article Name
Light to Night Festival 2018
Description
Light to Night Festival 2018 pictures. This latest light-up celebrates our colonial landmarks with evening performances and façade “art skin” shows.
Author
Scribbling Geek
Scribbling Geekhttps://www.scribblinggeek.com
Geek, gamer, writer, movie lover, photographer, and occasional graphic artist. I like to consider myself a one-stop content creator of sorts. But the truth is, I obsess over too many hobbies.

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