National Gallery Singapore Art Writing

This new, peer-reviewed imprint celebrates the diverse voices and genres of writing that create the discourse of art in Southeast Asia, both historically and in the present. Going beyond conventional art history, books in this imprint include compilations of artist writings, art criticism and experimental approaches to the image.

Written by Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

135 × 205mm

496 pages, paperback

ISBN: 978-981-18-2396-1

USD 25 | GBP 20 SGD 35

Published October 2022

“To be an artist is … just like shit in a clogged toilet, stubborn shit that can’t decide whether it wants to be flushed or to stick around” writes acclaimed artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook. Composed as an irreverent dialogue between masculine and feminine narrators, this book of essays is an fusion of art criticism, feminist theory, art pedagogy, gossip and autofiction. It presents an insider account of Southeast Asia’s contemporary artists being catapulted into international circuits since the 1990s. Araya’s provocative prose is translated from Thai for the first time by Kong Rithdee.

History and Imagination: Modern Photography from Singapore

Edited by Charmaine Toh

280 × 190 mm

116 pages, paperback

69 colour illustrations

ISBN: 978-981-18-0631-5

USD 30 | GBP 25 | SGD 35

Published September 2021

History and Imagination presents the works of four Singapore photographers: Tan Lip Seng, Lee Lim, Lim Kwong Ling and Lee Sow Lim. These amateur photographers were active members of camera clubs in the 1950s and 1960s, a period of rapid political and urban change in newly independent Singapore. Navigating the desire to document the emerging nation against the conventions of pictorial photography, scholarly essays and full-colour plates trace how their images parallel a newfound search for independence from British rule and the anxieties of modernity.