Recent posts
- Aerosol Arabic in Malaysia
- Intriguing project announcement - (on the invaluab...
- Horse-Head
- Cow Under Surveillance
- Creative Home - an interview with founder of Socia...
- nice capture - some current Singapore graffiti
- Globalization and monuments - let's move the Littl...
- The Wall St Bull - great public art photo illustra...
- Singapore Biennale in the public art biz - a win-w...
- Graffiti
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Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Aerosol Arabic in Malaysia
# posted @ 11:10 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Intriguing project announcement - (on the invaluable Farm.sg)
"Are you bold enough to challenge the official strategy? Are you humble enough to listen to your surroundings and cooperate with the general public in shaping your art project?
Window for dialogue want to open up familiar sites in Singapore and develop tactical responses to exclusive city planing, commercialization of everyday life and public exclusion in decision making. Concerned with the shifting notions of site-specific art, and the emerging informal public sphere, it is the objective of Window for dialogue to experiment with public participation in the constructive process of public space and initiate a dialogue about how the public sphere is utilized. This will be achieved by inviting the general public, in corporation with artists, academics and the authorities to partake in the creation of public site-specific artworks."
Contact: Nik Tao. theoperativeoffice@gmail.com
LINKLabels: public space, Singapore
# posted @ 1:30 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Horse-Head
Last Tuesday I walked across Raffles Place for a meeting nearby. I purposely chose a route that would allow me to walk through the area, one of the more important (and usually quite pleasant) public spaces in Singapore. My mood was spoiled very quickly.
I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite as disturbing as these "Fashionista Horseshoe" things placed around Raffles Place. This amalgam of hindquarters, high-heeled shoe and horsehead pressed to the ground is simply spooky. As I read in the Sunday Times of May 10, the sculptures, commissioned by the Singapore Turf Club, are shown "perched atop giant shoeboxes". (But not giant enough to actually be capable of holding the horseshoes I can't help but note.)
From the Sunday Times I also learned that these "Fashionista Horseshoes" were placed at Junction8, Plaza Singapura and Clarke Quay by CapitaLand, in addition to Raffles Place.
I guess this blog's (fading) commitment to cover public art means I have to look at stuff like this an comment, but really it's too depressing.Labels: public_art, Singapore
# posted @ 5:40 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Cow Under Surveillance
Asian Public Art News welcomes good advertising in public spaces. We're not like the Mayor of Sao Paolo, Brazil, who banned billboards.
A recent self-promotional foray by Singapore outdoor ad co, Moove Media, an arm of public transport giant Comfort Delgro, raises questions. Today's Sunday Times had the news that more than 200 of the 600 CNY-themed cut-out cows placed in public spaces had been stolen, despite the presence of "cows under surveillance" signs. So, the natural question, in law-abiding Singapore: why did so many people steal the cows? 1) Because they loved them so much and wanted to take them home? 2) because they hated them and thought they were a blight on the urban landscape, and wanted to remove them?
Purely aesthetic motives don't begin to capture it -- this sort of "theft" is all about authority. My guess is that the cow-eye-lash surveillance signs and the ease with which the cows could be removed together constitute something just short of an invitation to vandalize... (it wouldn't be vandalism if you were overtly invited to "steal this cow"). You are invited to transgress in a safe and relatively wholesome way that will give the advertising company lots of free publicity. And this almost-invitation to transgress is probably quite powerful, especially in law-abiding Singapore. I'm guessing that "number of cows stolen" was a KPI for this particular campaign - how else to get this sort of publicity (well timed for a slow news day)?
What was the ostensible reason for placing the cows in public spots around the island? Says Moove Media CEO Jayne Kwek, "to bring cheer and hope to Singaporeans". (Makes me a bit depressed, really. ) When asked whether the cow campaigns have a commercial point: "Even if the benefit is intangible, it doesn't matter as that's not the point. To me, the landscape is my canvas and this is art..."
Well, I think outdoor advertising execs should try and be just a little more humble or thoughtful about the public space which is "your canvas". As for your art, we thought the white elephants of Buangkok were actually a lot more interesting and cheerful than your cows. They were also the victim of some sanctioned vandalism...Labels: advertising, public space, Singapore
# posted @ 10:46 AM 1 comments | add a commentMaybe they were not stolen and it was made up to get media attention?
ByARDT, at 1:41 PM
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Creative Home - an interview with founder of Social Creatives
Today's Agatha Koh Brazil interviews Faris Basharahil, 20-year old founder of Social Creatives. We like what he has to say about images of home in Singapore:“If you ask a Singaporean to draw a house, a typical interpretation would be a square-shaped building with a triangular roof. Perhaps there is a chimney while on the front there are two windows and a door. “But where can you find a house like that in Singapore? “Surprisingly not many people draw HDB flats with poles hanging out by the many windows ... This exercise shows how there is a misalignment to what we see and how we feel for our home.”
Faris was behind the recent project to paint public dustbins along Orchard Rd. For more pix, go here. While it didn't excite us as much as Farm.sg's Stamp project, it still shows some very useful thinking about urban landscape. Good luck Social Creatives... keep it coming!
Image is found on the Social Creatives homepage... to think - what a nice fantasy of the relationship between young people and their urban environment.Labels: Orchard Road, Singapore
# posted @ 8:43 AM 1 comments | add a commentThank you for the nice words of encouragement.
Warmest regards
Faris Basharahil
Faris@socialcreatives.com
By
Saturday, December 20, 2008
nice capture - some current Singapore graffiti
The backlanes... it's all happening in the backlanes...
# posted @ 10:46 AM 0 comments | add a comment
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Globalization and monuments - let's move the Little Mermaid to Shanghai (or the Merlion to Venice)
Well, if we are really globalizing, can't monuments move across continents too? Once upon a time, monuments were thought to be the very embodiment of a spirit in place, crystallizing shared memory and community-created meaning in a landscape or cityscape. But in today's world, we can't imagine communities that can fit any monuments (or is it that we just lack the ability to dream up monuments to fit the non-communities we imagine?). So we are left with the next logical step - put those monuments in a container and ship them around the world. At least we can celebrate the fact that some of our monuments work just great as marketing icons, as the city's equivalent of the Nike swoop.# posted @ 2:39 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Architects working on the Danish pavilion in Shanghai's Expo 2010 have proposed to move the Little Mermaid to China. Hate to say it, but it seems a bit derivative of Lim Tzay Chuen's proposal to move the Merlion to Venice for the Venice Biennale 2005. However the public debate around this (see the Art Newspaper article) seems a heck of a lot more enjoyable and juicy than the Singapore equivalent: "We asked Cabinet to approve and they said no".
