Voilah! - Cezanne and van Gogh are Coming to Town!

18th October 2011. Written by Xin Li.
Last Tuesday, I was lucky enough to attend the press opening (yes Hossan Leong was the emcee!) of the Voilah! The French Festival Singapore 2011 which hosts a variety of events throughout the length of the festival featuring everything from sports to gastronomy.

As an art lover, I just have to share this awesome upcoming art exhibition (and my amateur sketches of the event =p) with you.

The Card Players by Paul Cézanne,

c.1890-1895,

Oil on canvas

©RMN (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

Hence when I found out about that Voilah French Festival is going to bring works such Paul Cezanne’s The Card Players and Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night to Singapore this October, I am thrilled.

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh,
c. 1888-1889,
Oil on canvas
© RMN (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

If that is not enough to tickle your interest in art, artworks by other big names in the 19th and early 20th Century art scene such as Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Jean-Francois Millet, Berthe Morisot and Edouard Manet are also coming to Singapore from the famed Musee d’Orsay in the Dreams and Reality: Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing and Photography from the Musee d’Orsay, Paris Exhibition (quite a long name eh?)

Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Clemenceau
1879-1880
Oil on canvas
H. 94.5; W. 74 cm
© RMN (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

The exhibition “explores the reaction of man towards modernity at the turn of the century from 1848 to 1912. The changing social and industrial landscapes of Paris in early modernity forced artists and photographers to rethink their approach to the visual world around them. Their varied responses generated new ways of depicting reality and a proliferation of styles.”

Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889)

The Birth of Venus

1863

Oil on canvas

H. 130; W. 225 cm

Paris, Musée d'Orsay

© R.M.N. - Musée d'Orsay

Unless you want to spend 1200 – 1300 SGD to fly to Paris to see it (which might be on loan depending on your luck, my friend went to look for van Gogh in Paris only find it being loaned to MoMA in United States once), then head down to the National Museum this coming Wednesday to see it.

The exhibition is also the result of a series of cultural exchanges between Singapore and France in the recent years, while their works were exhibited in Singapore to give Singaporeans a glimpse of the French culture, we also had a Peranakan exhibition named Baba Bling: The Chinese Peranakans of Singapore, in Paris last year September.

The exhibition runs from 26th October 2011 to 5th February 2012, so there is plenty of time to see the works. It cost 11 SGD for normal admission but 6 SGD for NSFs and FREE for students!


Dreams and Reality: Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing and Photography from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris
National Museum of Singapore
26th October 2011 to 5th of February 2012.
10 am to 6 pm daily.

Voilah: French Festival Singapore 2011
25th October - 15th December 2011.