Inaugurating the “White Passage”: Art ‘76

Abstract Within an art exhibition, the disposition of space is fundamental in experiencing artworks. A study of the exhibition space as discourse enmeshes art within a framework of relationship and processes instead of viewing art as an isolated and autonomous object. This paper features the case study of Art ‘76, the inaugural exhibition of Singapore's first large-scale institution of art, the National Museum Art Gallery (NMAG). The NMAG's opening in 1976 had been much anticipated by artists and the art audience since the 1960s, it was also an important milestone in the National Museum of Singapore's process of modernisation and revitalisation. During Singapore's post-independent period, the National Museum began to redefine itself as a civic museum focussing on Singapore's history and culture, shifting away from its previous incarnation of a research-focused colonial institution, the Raffles Library and Museum. Singapore was not alone in exploring the role of modern art in nation-building, as neighbouring Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand also began to moot for their own institution of modern art around the same period of time. Art ‘76 and the NMAG represent a case of distinct spatial typology that arose out of unique institutional and socio-political dynamic in post-independent Singapore. In analysing the legacy as well as the relationships and contentions that shaped the spatial articulation of Art ‘76, this paper studies existing visual and oral archive, as well as critically evaluating the concepts of space as a subject of historical study.