As part of the curriculum of a new Minor in Art History programme, students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) will now have the opportunity to discover what goes into the making of a national gallery, and attend classes within museum galleries.
They will also go behind the scenes of an art exhibition curation, NUS said in a press statement on April 7, 2017.
Jointly offered by the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and National Gallery Singapore, the minor will allow students to gain in-depth knowledge in Art History.
This programme, which is offered by the NUS Department of History and supported by NUS Museum, will be taught by NUS faculty and practising curators. The Minor is open to all NUS students.
Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, launched the new programme at National Gallery Singapore, together with Professor Robbie Goh, Dean of the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Dr Eugene Tan, Director, National Gallery Singapore, on April 7.
“Singapore’s arts and culture sector continues to grow as more people show greater appreciation for the arts. Our new Minor in Art History contributes towards Singapore’s plan to transform the nation into a distinctive global city for the arts, by grooming young arts scholars, professionals, audiences and custodians of world heritage," said Prof Robbie Goh, Dean of the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
"We are delighted to partner National Gallery Singapore, which oversees the largest public collection of modern art in Singapore and Southeast Asia, in offering this unique programme. NUS students will benefit greatly by picking up industry knowledge and skills from professional curators from the Gallery. In addition, students could also choose to do internships at the Gallery and other state-of-the-art museums in Singapore to gain practical work experience,” Goh added.
Art history: Interpreting arts and heritage
Introduced in January this year, the new Minor in Art History programme is designed to help students cultivate the analytical skills to interpret a wide range of arts and heritage: from painting, sculpture and architecture to contemporary installation art.
The programme aims to prepare students for a specialist or managerial career in universities, museums, heritage spaces, statutory boards which engage with arts and culture, art galleries, and auction houses.
Students who declare Art History as a Minor will have to read a minimum of six modules. They could choose to read interesting modules such as “Collecting Art in Europe and Asia”, “Empire and Art in India, Singapore and Malaya” and “Time Traveller: The Curatorial in SEA”.
Students will also be exposed to many different types of Art spanning across different cultures and eras, such as Japanese woodblock prints, visual arts of China, poetry, painting and photography, as well as the more modern digital culture and art.