A day at the ACM...

One of the things that I really, really love about Singapore is the presence of so many interesting exhibits (and theater shows) all year round in different parts of the city.

Prior to moving here, I made sure that I checked out the different museums.

On my first week of moving here, I spent an entire day visiting the holy trinity (?) of museums in the city-state - the Asian Civilisation Museum, the National Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum.

That day was truly fantab because each museum had exhibits that were of different themes.

For this blog entry, I'm just going to talk about the Asian Civilisation Museum. The other two I will reserve for future blog entries.

The ACM is located near the Fullerton Hotel. If I'm not mistaken, the museum has a permanent exhibit which showcases the rich culture and history of Singapore and its neighboring countries. (I have no idea why there is nothing much about the Philippines though.)

Anyway, during my first week here, a special exhibit on the art of the Congo River was ongoing at the ACM. Lucky guy that I am, there was an open house on my first weekend.

I made sure that I went and it turned out to be such a fantastic visual treat.

The permanent exhibit was marvelous. The pieces on display were rich in culture, and the way the exhibit was curated was just impressive. I recently visited ACM again when friends JB and Miguel were in town, and I must say that I enjoyed it again. I don't think I'll ever tire of visiting that place.

The best part about that day I visited the Congo River art museum, I have to say, was getting to see Picasso art pieces up close and personal!!! It was completely unexpected so I was truly, truly ecstatic when I found out that there were Picasso pieces on dispay!!!

The masks and statues that were on display were awesome, yeah, but it was the Picassos that really made my heart skip a beat. It was just too good.

I didn't think I would be seeing a Picasso that soon.

Unfortunately, photos of the art works weren't allowed. I managed to take some photos from a distance though. Eeep, I hope I don't caned for doing that. Haha!

Oh, that's one other thing I like about museums here. You can actually take photos as long as you don't use a flash. It was just awesome.

In Manila, I don't understand why some museums don't allow photography. Ugh.

Moving on, that day at ACM was just really good.

During a recent visit, I read that an upcoming exhibit would be the… drumroll please… the Terracotta Warriors from China!!! Wooohooo! I'm really excited about it. I've been wanting to go to Beijing so that I can make a side trip to Xian province to see the warriors.

Now, I can see some of the precious pieces. Fantastic, fantastic. The exhibit is going to open sometime this June and I'm definitely going.

This is just the first of several exhibits I'm going to check out here. That's for sure.

On the same day, I visited the ACM, I went to the National Museum for the Beauty in Black exhibit which featured beautiful creations of Lagerfeld, Kawakubo, among others. (Now you know why another blog post is needed. Haha!) I also visited the Singapore Art Museum which featured several contemporary pieces, including works by Filipino artists. Coooool!

Check out the ACM website here for more deets - www.acm.org.sg/