SINGAPORE – Faced with the pressure of being part of the James Bond film franchise, French actress Lea Seydoux, who plays Dr Madeleine Swann in Spectre (2015), quizzed in a video interview: “Will I be good enough?”
Her apprehension is one of the many self-critical voices that begins the ArtScience Museum’s latest exhibition, Goddess: Brave. Bold. Beautiful, which opens on April 6.
From this, the show from Melbourne’s ACMI – formerly Australian Centre for the Moving Image – quickly moves on to strike a more defiant tone, featuring 196 iconic costumes, sketches and behind-the-scenes material. It explores thematically screen “goddesses” in the last 120 years of film history and offers doses of Hollywood glamour, such as Marilyn Monroe’s racy, million-dollar cocktail dress in Some Like It Hot (1959).
Singaporean curators have supplemented the original exhibition with sections on Asian stars, one of the most substantial highlighting actresses Saloma, Maria Menado and K. Fatimah who shot to fame during the golden age of Singapore Malay cinema from the 1940s to 1970s.
A small sanctum is devoted to Fann Wong, the first Singaporean actress to break into Hollywood. She has loaned some of her set passes from action comedy Shanghai Knights (2003), which co-starred Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson.
These are placed near the combat costumes of Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in wuxia film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), in recognition of Wong’s trailblazing role in local martial art performance, particularly with her pan-Asian success in television series The Return Of The Condor Heroes (1998).
Singaporean photographer Russel Wong’s photos of East Asian celebrities are also fresh additions, blown up to life-size and slotted into various sections.
There is one of Zhang mid-leap in her billowing red robes in Hero (2002), part of a set of photos which the Chinese actress voluntarily posed for on her day off. A set of images of Chinese-American actress Joan Chen contains annotations by Wong, such as “too demure” and “too successful”, and makes explicit his search for the perfect shot.
Co-curator Deborah Lim, 32, said Wong would usually have to scramble for stars’ attention in between set breaks for his shoots, which made the then-rapidly rising Zhang’s dedication noteworthy.
Ms Lim said: “The Melbourne exhibition had about 150 items. With our additions, ours is closer to 200. As much as we loved some of the Melbourne works, we felt we could give that space to additional content from Asia and Singapore.”
Vice-president of ArtScience Museum Honor Harger, who had wanted to bring in the exhibition since she heard that it was being planned by ACMI during the Covid-19 pandemic, said: “In some ways, this has come out of the #MeToo movement.
“Katrina Sedgwick, who was the former chief executive of ACMI, wanted to think about how you would look at the legacy of women in the film industry in a really positive and empowering way, that shows them as part of an ecosystem through the decades.”
Among links spanning generations is American actress Zendaya’s homage to the legendary African-American dancer Josephine Baker: A pearl-sleeved gown she wore to the 16th Annual Chrysalis Butterfly Ball in 2017.
The exhibition notes that the Dune (2021 and 2024) star’s speaking out against racism in the film industry continues the legacy of Baker, who refused to perform for segregated audiences and was the only woman who spoke alongside Martin Luther King when he made his I Have A Dream speech in 1963.
Another parallel is the dragon motifs on the costumes worn by Anna May Wong in Limehouse Blues (1934) and Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil in 102 Dalmatians (2000), which spotlight the demonising of women who did not fit conventional beauty standards, whether they are from ethnic minorities or middle-aged.
But the costumes also make space for reinvention. There is Tilda Swinton’s ivory gown from her dual gender, time-travelling lead role in Orlando (1992), paired with items borrowed from Hong Kong of Cantonese opera legend Yam Kim-fai, a veteran of gender queering in Chinese opera
The curators acknowledge that some screen goddesses, such as those from the Philippines, Thailand and South Asia could have been better represented.
An entire gallery is dedicated to Bollywood tragedy queen Meena Kumari, but other research they had done had to be discarded due to space constraints.
A full suite of activities accompanies the exhibition’s run, such as film screenings featuring Shu Qi, Anna May Wong and Michelle Yeoh, a three-hour stunt masterclass taught by professional stunt performers and make-up workshops.
Singapore is the exhibition’s first stop outside Melbourne, and the show kickstarts ArtScience Museum’s Year of Extraordinary Women programme.
Book It/Goddess: Brave. Bold. Beautiful
Where: ArtScience Museum, 6 Bayfront Avenue
When: April 6 to Aug 11, 10am to 7pm daily
Admission: $20 (local adult), $23 (standard adult)
Info: str.sg/AN9e
