A MERLION’S SHARE OF ART: SHOWS TO CATCH DURING SINGAPORE GALLERY MONTH
Last week marked the start of the first community-led Singapore Gallery Month, coinciding with the major SG60 celebrations celebrating 60 years of Singapore’s independence. Audrey Yeo, president of the Art Galleries Association Singapore (AGAS) which organises Singapore Gallery Month, has noted, “As we mark SG60, we’re proud to contribute to a broader cultural conversation—one that puts people and partnerships at the heart of the arts.” Ocula have chosen their top picks of the exhibitions happening across the city, starting with Woo Kukwon at Tang Contemporary Art. In Universe’s Universe, Woo presents his intricate oil paintings, inspired by medieval unicorn tapestries and classic literature. The next exhibition on the list is A Thousand Histories by Suzann Victor at Gajah Gallery. Featuring four installations of thousands of Fresnel lenses refracting archival images into ‘lens-scapes,’ Victor explores themes of gender, colonial histories, and perception. At Ames Yavuz, a group show of five Filipino artists will be running until mid-September. Kristoffer Ardeña, Clarence Chun, Jonas Eslao, Is Jumalon, and MM Yu all explore abstraction as a fluid, ever-changing language. Columns Gallery have opened Image + Reality by Kim Kang Yong, who blends oil, sand, and ground stone on boards to mimic the surfaces found in urban environments. Continuing with galleries in Gillman Barracks, Sundaram Tagore has just opened Soft Power, featuring works by Anila Quayyum Agha, Lalla Essaydi, Golnaz Fathi, Jane Lee, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Lê Hiên Minh, Soe Yu Nwe, Pannaphan Yodmanee, and Neha Vedpathak; the exhibition places a focus on feminine perspectives and underrepresented cultures. The list continues, featuring shows at galleries including Whitestone Gallery, Yeo Workshop, and ShanghART.
Pannaphan Yodmanee, Cosmic Mother of the Universe, 2024
$5.1 MILLION BARBARA HEPWORTH SCULPTURE TO REMAIN IN U.K. AFTER PUBLIC APPEAL
A public appeal has raised £3.8 million ($5.1 million) to ensure a Barbara Hepworth sculpture will remain in the UK. Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943) was sold last March at Christie’s London for £3.54 million ($4.44 million). However, the British government placed a temporary export bar on the work to allow regional institutions ample time to raise funds for its acquisition. The final amount included donations from artists Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, as well as major donations from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Art Fund. The sculpture has now found a new home at the Hepworth Wakefield art gallery in West Yorkshire, where it will be available for continuous public viewing. Celebrated for her carved wooden and stone sculptures, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red is one of the only wooden carvings that Hepworth produced in the 1940s. Olivia Colling, interim director and CEO of Hepworth Wakefield, has said, “Barbara Hepworth often talked about her need to be part of a community and its proactive development. We think she would have been delighted that so many people have come together to enable her work to be part of a public art collection, which can be experienced and enjoyed by so many.”
Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, 1943
GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS SCALE GAS RIG TO HANG ANISH KAPOOR PROTEST WORK
Activists from environmental group Greenpeace climbed an active Shell gas extraction platform on August 13th to unveil Butchered by Anish Kapoor to protest the environmental impact of oil and gas. The work comprises of a 1,000-square-foot white canvas soaked in a red liquid, with Kapoor describing it as “a visual scream that gives voice to the calamitous cost of the climate crisis, often on the most marginalized communities across the globe.” This successful installation of the work comes after a failed attempt by the activist group last year. Situated around 45 miles off the coast of England, the group spread the canvas across the frame of the gas rig before spraying a dark red solution made up of seawater, beetroot powder, and a nontoxic pond dye, onto the surface with a high-pressure hose. Shell have responded to the protest, saying, “Safety at sea is our priority. Greenpeace entered a restricted safety zone around the platform without permission, which is established under UK law to protect people and prevent collisions. Their actions were extremely dangerous, involved illegally trespassing and put their own and others’ lives at risk. We respect the right of individuals and organizations to protest, but it must be done safely and lawfully.” Anish Kapoor has also shared his thoughts, commenting, “It’s tragic that governments all over the world are forbidding protests—not just forbidding it, actually arresting people. What’s wrong with us? This is our right and duty as citizens to protest and keep our consciousness alive.”
Greenpeace activists install Anish Kapoor's Butchered onto a Shell platform in the North Sea, August 13, 2025.
SAN FRANCISCO’S DE YOUNG MUSEUM OPENS REVAMPED NATIVE AMERICAN ART GALLERIES
On Sunday 24th August, San Francisco’s de Young Museum will be re-opening its newly installed galleries of Native American art. This project has been led by a team of predominantly Native curators and will include both historical and contemporary pieces, with recent acquisitions showcased alongside new works commissioned for the occasion. The curators, Joseph Aguilar, Meyokeeskow Marrufo, Hillary C. Olcott, Will Riding In, and Sherrie Smith-Ferri, re-envisioned the galleries with help from an advisory group. Olcott shared in a statement, “We have opted for a multi-vocal interpretative framework instead of a single curatorial perspective. Our hope is that this will bring a liveliness to the galleries and will re-centre people within the stories of this art.” The new galleries will be primarily spotlighting Native California, but there will also be rotating exhibits that will focus on specific geographical regions. The museum has been in conversation with the communities to which the pieces originate, both for permission to display them and for their interpretations. Thomas P. Campbell, the director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (which oversees the de Young and Legion of Honour Museums), has said, “The re-conceived Arts of Indigenous America galleries embody our ongoing commitment to building lasting collaborative partnerships with Indigenous communities to better care for and share our collections.”
Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Special Forces, 2025
FRIEZE, KIAF SEOUL TO RETURN AMID FLUCTUATING ART MARKET
Frieze Seoul and Kiaf Seoul are returning to Seoul this September, marking the fourth year of their five-year partnership. The fairs will be held at COEX in southern Seoul, both opening on September 3. Frieze will be presenting more than 120 galleries from 28 countries, with over a third of them also operating spaces in Korea. The fair will keep its two feature sections: Focus Asia and Frieze Masters; the Focus section will spotlight 10 artists through emerging galleries from the region, while Frieze Masters will showcase postwar and modern art from Asia and beyond. As for Kiaf Seoul, the fair’s 24th edition marks it as the country’s longest-running homegrown contemporary art fair this year’s edition will be presenting over 175 exhibitors from across the world. Lee Sung-hoon, president of the Galleries Association of Korea, has noted that, “While an extension has not yet been decided, conversations remain positive, with details still under careful review.” Patrick Lee, Frieze Seoul Director, has also added, “Kiaf has a long history in Seoul, and obviously, we are beneficiaries of that. I think the relationship has been very positive, symbiotic. Look at the support we’re getting from the government and all these [citywide cultural] initiatives. We’re a great anchor for that.”
A view of Mitchell-Innes & Nash's booth at Frieze Seoul 2024
CHANEL LAUNCHES WOMEN’S ARTIST RESIDENCY WITH THE PINACOTECA DE SÃO PAULO
Chanel have launched a new annual residency for women artists, in collaboration with Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Alongside studio space, resources for their practice, and mentorship, the chosen artist will also be given the opportunity to present a new body of work at the Pinocoteca. The inaugural recipient of this residency is Juliana dos Sanatos, who explores the relationship between colour and perception within her practice, often working with natural pigments. She will be opening her institutional debut Temporã at the Pinacoteca this week, which studies the oxidizing effects of time. Jochen Volz, the director of the museum, has shared that Chanel’s three-year commitment to this residency has allowed Pinacoteca to invest in emerging artists and fulfil their aims to become a site of artistic production. In addition, the artists will have access to Chanel’s Art Partners Network, which includes some 40 cultural institutions across 15 countries. This residency will provide reach and institutional visibility for the artists, increasing opportunities for their practices. Volz noted how, “Chanel’s global presence opens doors to international networks. For Pinacoteca, this creates bridges that amplify voices from Latin America and situates them in a wider, transnational conversation about art and society.”
Juliana dos Santos in her studio at Pinacoteca de São Paulo
Jordan Tan holds an MA in History of Art from the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art. With a passion for fine art and the art market, Jordan plays a key role at Art Works by researching and interpreting trends across the primary and secondary markets, delivering valuable insights and business intelligence for the fine art department.
