Arts Picks: Tamil murder mystery, exhibitions on spheres and Hainanese art
Avant Theatre’s Murder Mystery
A board member of a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company on the brink of a major breakthrough dies from a heart attack. Accusations fly, and trust is a precious commodity.
Bilingual theatre company Avant Theatre is staging a whodunnit for the technological age, titled Avan Aval Athu, or He, She & IT.
Played in Tamil with English surtitles, it fits 11 characters and a sentient AI programme into 100 minutes of taut action at the Stamford Arts Centre.
Avant Theatre’s artistic director G. Selva says the audience can expect corporate espionage, questions about AI ethics and the spilling of dark secrets.
“The play is a reminder that we are being watched whether we like it or not. Moving forward, our reliance on AI will be overwhelming,” he says.
Where: Stamford Arts Centre, 155 Waterloo StreetMRT: BugisWhen: June 20 and 21, 8pm; June 22, 3 and 8pmAdmission: From $35
Info: str.sg/aZcP
Spherical Moments
Jordan Kasey’s Light Crystal Ball (2024). PHOTO: JORDAN KASEY
A short pop-up exhibition at Tanjong Pagar Distripark will put Beijing-born artist Liu Bin and Chicago-born artist Jordan Kasey’s spherical subjects in conversation.
Organised by Onfinitive Project, an organisation based in Hong Kong with affiliate offices in Singapore and Tokyo, Japan, Spherical Moments will be held at Artspace @ Helutrans, showcasing more than 10 new works by the pair.
Both artists reach for surreal images that have a graphic design sensibility.
Curator Elvina Chan says: “Liu creates a Pinocchio figure, for example, and Jordan creates all these colourful round figures that are not ordinary people. Their magical imageries allow us to get lost in an imaginative world.”
There will be a DJ performance by Bernadette Belle Ong, who was crowned Miss Universe Singapore in 2020, during the opening reception on June 25.
Where: Artspace @ Helutrans, 01-05 Distripark, 39 Keppel RoadMRT: Tanjong PagarWhen: June 25 to July 1Admission: Free
Info: str.sg/KUDS
3rd Hainan Art Exhibition
Wong Keen’s Blue Torso. PHOTO: THE ART SPACE BY NATALIE WONG
More than 70 Hainanese artists of different generations, each presenting one work, are part of this biennial exhibition co-organised by The Art Space by Natalie Wong and Chinese dialect organisation Palm Island Club.
The third in the series, it showcases the creativity of the Hainanese community. Some 40 of them are artists in Singapore.
They include internationally renowned painter Wong Keen and Cultural Medallion recipient Foo Tee Jun, a veteran photographer who will also be holding his own retrospective at Objectifs – Centre for Photography & Film.
Visitors will see works in a whole range of media, from oil, watercolour and Chinese ink painting to Chinese calligraphy, photography and ceramics.
Where: The Art Space by Natalie Wong, 01-01 Hor Kew Business Centre, 66 Kallang Pudding RoadMRT: MattarWhen: June 21 to June 29, 11am to 7pmAdmission: Free
Info: facebook.com/Theartspacebynw