Thursday, February 2, 2012

Another taste of Paris in Singapore at the NSM

The National Museum of Singapore, also called the NSM, has an exhibit of works borrowed from the famous Musée d'Orsay of Paris until Sunday, February 5 2012.

National Museum of Singapore

The special exhibit is called Dreams and Reality: 
Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing and Photography from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Wed 26 Oct 2011 – Sun 5 Feb 2012 | 10am – 6pm


Entrance to the exhibit in the basement
We went during the open house so there was quite a line

If you have never been to the Musée d’Orsay, and if you're like me, who loves everything French, then you would probably enjoy checking this out.  Here are some of the paintings I liked, some I've seen just for the first time, while the others are the reason I was curious to see the exhibit.

Young Woman on the Beach (or the Jetty) 1888-1889
by Philip Wilson Steer 
Dancers climbing a staircase 1886-1890
EdgarDegas 
The Ball 1899
Felix Valloton
The Cardplayers 1890-1895
Paul Cezanne
Study of a figure outdoors:
Woman with a Parasol Looking to the Right 1886
Claude Monet
Starry Night (one of them) 1888-1889
Vincent Van Goh 
My little girl getting a dose of French Culture at an early age

That's basically all my favorites. 

The last room of the exhibit is an interactive place where you can create your own artwork, and display it on ready frames. You can instantly claim to the word that your work was displayed at the Dreams and Reality Exhibit at the NSM.

Tables where you can create your artwork
The frames where you can display your work

After the visit, I remember thinking to myself, the Musée d’Orsay does not need to worry about disappointing all the tourists who come to visit while they have some paintings on loan to the NSM. While there are some nice ones, they definitely lent only the paintings they could spare. And while this is a good taste of what's in store at the D'Orsay, they do have some really exceptional works of art, it's NOT even the tip of the iceberg of what the Musée d’Orsay has to offer.  Just Saying.

The Musée d’Orsay is my favorite museum in the whole world. I may not have seen all the museums in the world, but believe me, I've seen my fair share. I just love Impressionism and the D'Orsay has a lot of that, but then I love it's location by the River Seine too, as well as the character of being an old train station. 

I am not maligning the Dream and Reality Exhibit in anyway. But visit it with the knowledge that it's a good Amuse-Bouche that will make you look forward to going to Paris to visit the real thing. Now, if you've already seen the real thing, then go if you love it, or if you have nothing else to do, and you don't mind spending the $11 entrance to the exhibit. I'm just glad we went on an Open House day.  

You can read more about the exhibit here.

The bright side about our visit was that we got to explore the other parts of the NSM too.

The NSM Dome with stained glass detail
The upper floor
The museum building is a combination of old architecture that has been well preserved and  the modern look  that comes with the use of glass and steel.

I'm quite glad my daughter enjoys visiting museums. I asked her if she wanted to go home, or go around some more after the Dreams and Reality Exhibit. She asked if we could look around some more even knowing that she was about to fly back to Manila in a few hours, so we compromised and I told her we could look around quickly.

She chose to visit the Singapore History Gallery
After entering, you'll see a 360degree movie on Singapore
They have a lot of displays of what Singapore looked like

Sorry, we don't have a lot of pics from this exhibit. I wish we did not have to run through everything because it did look interesting, but we needed to head home before heading to the airport.  Maybe we will plan another visit.

The National Museum of Singapore is located at
93 Stamford Road Singapore 178897
Gallery Operating Hours: 
Singapore History Gallery 
10am - 6pm daily (Last admission at 5.30pm)  
Singapore Living Galleries 
10am - 8pm daily (Free admission from 6pm - 8pm daily, Last admission at 7.30pm)

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