Recent posts
- Graffiti
- Singapore at the Cans Festival
- Public sculpture in the way of retail experience? ...
- portrait of Thomas Woolner
- Knitting Graffiti
- Move this tin can!
- Not so delightful "Turkish delight"
- The 'mysterious tower' of CBD
- Roman fountains run red
- Nada Surf - an urban projection
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Sunday, May 25, 2008
Graffiti
Melisa Teo is a book editor who's also a very happening photographer. (Just follow the link to her photostream to see what I mean). Here's a shot she did in Singapore. So tagging could be very cool, if we all had Melisa's eyes to see it... Or at least there's one tag out there that in the right light looks just perfect. I'm guessing this is back of Ann Siang Hill.
# posted @ 10:13 AM 1 comments | add a commentThis girl is a special talent.
By, at 5:06 PM
Monday, May 05, 2008
Singapore at the Cans Festival
With all the press hype over the appearance of Singapore films at the Cannes Film Festival, it's a bit disappointing that a Singapore-related entry at the Cans Festival didn't merit a mention in the Straits Times. But here it is... nothing subtle about this!
# posted @ 1:55 PM 3 comments | add a commentHey Peter, I haven't caught up with your blog feeds for a long while. Came over here after receiving the Twitter notification.
Speaking of "public art", here's a question -- does public art extend to cyberspace? Like, what if we posted music online? Does that count as public art by your definition?
(Ok, here's a blatant and shameless plug: my song, which I consider as "public". And then it lead to a collaboration, here. "Collaborative Public Art"?)
Cheers.
ByIvan Chew, at 11:19 PM
Hey Ivan, I liked the tune, and I especially liked the "minus lead" version to invite collaboration. A bit of a shameless transition from "what is public art" though ;-)...
I think cyberspace is a kind of public space, and my early work on the web is one reason I became interested in "real" public space.
But for the blog I'm still most focused on what's happening in our physical cityspace.
ByThanks for listening. OK, I promise no more shameless plugs from me. Er, this year. LOL. Take care!
By
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Public sculpture in the way of retail experience? Off with their heads!
Look what they've done to my sculpture, ma!
How to react to these latest images from Orchard Rd (by MMS from Lucy Davis)? Can they just speak for themselves? (Maybe not, as the figures appear to have been muzzled). Shall I get all pedantic on you and write an entry on the conflict between the needs of privatized retail space and real old-fashioned public space? If I did I could have the pleasure of quoting Daisy Loo, (a fiction writer would get in trouble for giving a character who is the Head of Retail for Jones Lang LaSalle in Singapore a name like that): "Retail is a living system which needs to be constantly refreshed."
No, I shall just sit back and present the pix, and let you enjoy the latest absurdity of Singapore's urban environment...(But I might just email Sun Yuli and ask him what he's going to do... surely this is a violation of his moral rights of authorship (as they call them in the UK)).Labels: Orchard Road, public space, sculpture, Singapore
# posted @ 7:15 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Saturday, March 29, 2008
portrait of Thomas Woolner
Stumbled across this portrait of Thomas Woolner. He's the artist who created the Raffles sculpture that now sits in front of the Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore. This image is in the collection of the National Library of Australia. Follow the link for more info on the image. # posted @ 8:37 AM 0 comments | add a comment
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Knitting Graffiti
Am so loving the new possible angles of attack on the idea of "graffiti" - interventions in public space. Check out "knitting graffiti"...(thanks to Glenn Schloss for the reference - he points out that this recently received plenty of publicity in the US - more than many high profile big name commercial projects.# posted @ 2:19 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Move this tin can!
The Art Newspaper does a story on the backlash against tasteless public art in London. Among the data points: an editorial in The Burlington, and an attack by Tim Knox of the Sir John Soane's Museum on the "epidemic of these Frankenstein monster memorials". It strings together some rather good criticisms of recent works, and speaks to a representative of the Westminster City Council, which is responsible for statuary. Worth a read.UPDATE: Here's an article in the New Zealand Herald covering the UK controversy, and pointing out the the Nea Zealand WWII War Memorial is attracting notice as one of the worst of the lot.
"A colossal sculpture by Paul Day of a man and woman embracing (The Meeting Place) at St Pancras Station is described by Mr Shone thus: “As romantic as a couple who have just been refused a mortgage.” Mr Shone argues that Westminster City Council, which is responsible for the statuary of central London, should enforce stricter controls. A council spokeswoman said that it is “now consulting on plans to limit the number of applications for statues”. But Ian Leith, deputy chairman of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, says the problem is that no “government agencies actually audit public art”. This has led to the removal of works by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth."Labels: controversy, UK
# posted @ 1:08 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Friday, December 28, 2007
Not so delightful "Turkish delight"
# posted @ 12:50 PM 0 comments | add a commentPublic sculpture of the nude remains a crucial genre for Western public art. And there is still room to innovate this ancient form, as per Antony Gormley or Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in London's Traflagar Square.
But I'm not sure that Olaf Metzel's work can claim to be in the same category. His life sized sculpture (left), displayed in the project space of the Kunsthalle Wien, near the Succession in Vienna Austria, portrays a slouching female nude, wearing only a headscarf. To me, the directness of Mentzel's giving a female nude figure a headscarf, and its crude title, "Turkish Delight", moves it from art to polemic, aimed squarely at the Muslim community of Austria. And there should be little surprise that the work has been vandalized twice.
Gerald Matt, Director of the Kunsthalle, has announced "deep respect" for differences in aesthetic opinion and religious feeling, and according to ArtForum "has said that such debates should not occur through violent means". But I am not sure that the public vandalism of a work which is purposely offensive really qualifies as violence. I'm afraid I'm with the vandals on this one. But they could have chosen a more positive way of making their feelings know, as indeed unnamed art activists did when they dressed Copenhagen's Little Mermaid in a burqa.Powered by ScribeFire.
