Disclaimer: You really have to follow Singapore events pretty carefully to understand this story. But the short lived public display of the "white elephants of Buangkok" was definitely a milestone moment. Vernon Chan posts a thoughtful article on the Substation's online magazine. Among other things he sees the white elephants as demonstrating some principles of good Singapore public art:

1. Site specific art that speaks directly to the public
2. Relevant to area residents
3. Strong, clear social and political commentary
4. Controversial, yet humorous and cheeky
5. Safe and almost legal

He says that the police could find no grounds to prosecute the people who put up the elephants, but we should remember how certain members of the press were egging the police on to do so! Also, at least according to one newspaper report, it was not an "outraged citizen" who filed a police report, but the SMRTC themselves. I'm glad Vernon takes the discussion a bit further, and shows how considering the white elephants as art production helps to better frame Singapore's existing art production, which he describes (tentatively) as:

«Conceptual, aesthetic, avowedly non-confrontational, even to the point of avoiding biting socio-political commentary. Interred in formalised spaces within galleries; if public, curiously uninterrogative of public discourse. Perhaps the public are not that naïve when they ask: "How do (can) artists here operate, given the restrictions of the state?" The internalisation of legal and political strictures creates a commonsensical second nature of the artist to instinctively reject certain tropes as beyond artistic markers, while maintaining protestations of his unsullied creativity.»

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Labels: Singapore

# posted @ 11:32 AM