ON a balmy evening last Saturday was near Dhoby Ghaut Singapore, a few hundred people - residents and in-the-know tourists - were standing or sitting in rows of plastic chairs taking sips of Tiger Beer extracted from a child ice-filled inflatable pool.
The crowd had assembled to see 10 local artists - photographers, a painter, a fashion designer, a filmmaker - to present their work, with a wall standing in a white projection screen.
The biennial gathering, named for the Rojak Salad inventive Singapore and Malaysia, is one aspect of a recent effort to raise the cultural profile of Singapore. While the government is luring international artists and architects to Singapore, gallery owners, artists and entrepreneurs are finding innovative ways to nurture the art and fashion here and at the same time, the challenge of image of a buttoned Singapore, better known for its gleaming towers and a center of culture independent art scene.
Called "cultural desert" too many times to count, the Lion City has never been associated with the burgeoning art and design scenes of places such as Jakarta or Bangkok. Rather, it is considered a stronghold of the sanitized, the effectiveness of chewing gum without, admired for its modernity and order to otherwise chaotic in South Asia. It is a place where creative expression was not cultivated. In efforts to protect its power, the People's Action Party, which has dominated politics since the founding of the republic in 1965, applied the strict laws that affect everything from speech freedom of the press performance art .
These stodginess cut, critics say, came at a price of authenticity. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas infamous Singapore used to illustrate the term "generic city" in a 1996 interview with Wired, and even Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister, said that the culture of Singapore was likely to emerge from soon, according to an article in The Straits Times in 2006.
Ten years ago, visitors interested in art and design have been mostly limited to contemporary art-shy commercial galleries and exhibitions in foreign cultural centers such as the Goethe-Institut and the French Alliance . There were - and still are - the institutional options as the National Museum of Singapore, the Philatelic Museum and Singapore Art Museum, which became the first city-state of the Visual Arts Centre since its opening in 1996 (and remain as such until the National Art Gallery opens in Singapore two years). As for the local fashion design, it barely existed, most people shopping in malls brand obsessed.
In keeping with its practice, the centralized nature, the government believes it can change that image. With the stated goal of transforming Singapore into a "city of the arts world" by 2015, it has invested over a billion dollars over the past 20 years in new museums and cultural institutions such as the $ 487 million performing arts center, Esplanade and 8Q SAM, a space dedicated to pioneering work at the Singapore Art Museum. He drew starchitects as Moshe Safdie and Norman Foster to build new hotels like the glittering Marina Bay Sands and the Capella Singapore, and has recruited art world icon Lorenzo Rudolf to organize the art scene in Singapore, an event like Art Basel, which began in January. Some 32,000 visitors were to see works artists such as Anish Kapoor, David LaChapelle and Takashi Murakami.
Meanwhile, many of those involved in independent cultural scene - including the founder of 34 years Rojak, Torrance Goh architect - working on a basic level to create an authentic cultural identity of the city-state.
"Many Singaporeans are playing with new ways of examining themselves, and I wanted to create a platform for that," said Mr Goh. "The system does not allow for spontaneity, so we are bypassing the network of patronage and make ourselves overlooked, public spaces." Other recent locations of the event six years have included offices an advertising agency and an alley in the district of Little India.
Chun Kaifeng, 29, an artist whose complex assembly facilities mundane domestic scenes earned him the Prix Singapore Art Exhibition in 2009, recently participated in a group exhibition organized by Valentine Willie Fine Art entitled "In- Beyond LKY ", which examined life after Mr. Lee, the most powerful of Singapore. Organized by the gallery Valentine Willie, one of many contemporary art spaces that have recently erupted in a warehouse in the Tanjong Pagar Distripark, the exhibition includes works by 20 artists from Singapore, both emerging and mid- career. Paintings, drawings, installations and photographs exploring controversial topics like the death penalty, immigration and national identity, the object can result in fines and prosecution by the government.
"I expected the Media Development Authority to attend," said gallery owner Valentine Willie, referring to the government agency that oversees public content. "But nobody came."
Anchors Gallery recent Singapore Arts, which has expanded to include a half-dozen galleries in recent years, including Ikkan International Art and Light Editions, which displays regional photography. Located in a busy warehouse that serves as a container port neighbors, but only ten minutes by taxi from the central business district, no-frills space with freight elevators and exposed pipes is certainly right for the part of center 'avant-garde. Visitors can easily spend several hours looking at art that goes from the work of young artists from the region to Aboriginal teacher before slurping a bowl of the famous bak kut the spicy soup (pork-rib) to the Outram Park Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha coffee shop, a five minute walk.
Visual art is not the only cultural field is booming. A group of young Singaporeans is striking out on his own to start fashion boutiques and independent labels to prove that there exists a distinct identity in Singapore, far from shopping.
"In Singapore, creativity is no longer frowned upon," said Kenny Leck, who became one of the pioneers of the movement when he abandoned a career as an accountant and BooksActually opened in 2005 with Karen Wai, his business partner. Filled with the collection of the pair of vintage typewriters, cameras, accordions and toys, the store is the kind of place that can not keep magazines like Monocle and Granta on the shelves. In order to foster an atmosphere of room type, BooksActually regularly invites emerging artists, authors and playwrights to organize events and readings at the store, recognizing that many of them have nowhere to go . The events are advertised on the Facebook page of the shop and the blog, hellobooksactually.blogspot.com. With its slow but steady success, the store has recently moved to Yong Siak Street in back-and-coming residential Tiong Bahru, also home to the White canvas art gallery whose exhibitions are accompanied by discussions led by artists and dinners, and strange quarks, a design store where you can choose offbeat lamps crystals Ice-inspired radio and MP3-friendly retro style wood.
The crowd had assembled to see 10 local artists - photographers, a painter, a fashion designer, a filmmaker - to present their work, with a wall standing in a white projection screen.
The biennial gathering, named for the Rojak Salad inventive Singapore and Malaysia, is one aspect of a recent effort to raise the cultural profile of Singapore. While the government is luring international artists and architects to Singapore, gallery owners, artists and entrepreneurs are finding innovative ways to nurture the art and fashion here and at the same time, the challenge of image of a buttoned Singapore, better known for its gleaming towers and a center of culture independent art scene.
Called "cultural desert" too many times to count, the Lion City has never been associated with the burgeoning art and design scenes of places such as Jakarta or Bangkok. Rather, it is considered a stronghold of the sanitized, the effectiveness of chewing gum without, admired for its modernity and order to otherwise chaotic in South Asia. It is a place where creative expression was not cultivated. In efforts to protect its power, the People's Action Party, which has dominated politics since the founding of the republic in 1965, applied the strict laws that affect everything from speech freedom of the press performance art .
These stodginess cut, critics say, came at a price of authenticity. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas infamous Singapore used to illustrate the term "generic city" in a 1996 interview with Wired, and even Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister, said that the culture of Singapore was likely to emerge from soon, according to an article in The Straits Times in 2006.
Ten years ago, visitors interested in art and design have been mostly limited to contemporary art-shy commercial galleries and exhibitions in foreign cultural centers such as the Goethe-Institut and the French Alliance . There were - and still are - the institutional options as the National Museum of Singapore, the Philatelic Museum and Singapore Art Museum, which became the first city-state of the Visual Arts Centre since its opening in 1996 (and remain as such until the National Art Gallery opens in Singapore two years). As for the local fashion design, it barely existed, most people shopping in malls brand obsessed.
In keeping with its practice, the centralized nature, the government believes it can change that image. With the stated goal of transforming Singapore into a "city of the arts world" by 2015, it has invested over a billion dollars over the past 20 years in new museums and cultural institutions such as the $ 487 million performing arts center, Esplanade and 8Q SAM, a space dedicated to pioneering work at the Singapore Art Museum. He drew starchitects as Moshe Safdie and Norman Foster to build new hotels like the glittering Marina Bay Sands and the Capella Singapore, and has recruited art world icon Lorenzo Rudolf to organize the art scene in Singapore, an event like Art Basel, which began in January. Some 32,000 visitors were to see works artists such as Anish Kapoor, David LaChapelle and Takashi Murakami.
Meanwhile, many of those involved in independent cultural scene - including the founder of 34 years Rojak, Torrance Goh architect - working on a basic level to create an authentic cultural identity of the city-state.
"Many Singaporeans are playing with new ways of examining themselves, and I wanted to create a platform for that," said Mr Goh. "The system does not allow for spontaneity, so we are bypassing the network of patronage and make ourselves overlooked, public spaces." Other recent locations of the event six years have included offices an advertising agency and an alley in the district of Little India.
Chun Kaifeng, 29, an artist whose complex assembly facilities mundane domestic scenes earned him the Prix Singapore Art Exhibition in 2009, recently participated in a group exhibition organized by Valentine Willie Fine Art entitled "In- Beyond LKY ", which examined life after Mr. Lee, the most powerful of Singapore. Organized by the gallery Valentine Willie, one of many contemporary art spaces that have recently erupted in a warehouse in the Tanjong Pagar Distripark, the exhibition includes works by 20 artists from Singapore, both emerging and mid- career. Paintings, drawings, installations and photographs exploring controversial topics like the death penalty, immigration and national identity, the object can result in fines and prosecution by the government.
"I expected the Media Development Authority to attend," said gallery owner Valentine Willie, referring to the government agency that oversees public content. "But nobody came."
Anchors Gallery recent Singapore Arts, which has expanded to include a half-dozen galleries in recent years, including Ikkan International Art and Light Editions, which displays regional photography. Located in a busy warehouse that serves as a container port neighbors, but only ten minutes by taxi from the central business district, no-frills space with freight elevators and exposed pipes is certainly right for the part of center 'avant-garde. Visitors can easily spend several hours looking at art that goes from the work of young artists from the region to Aboriginal teacher before slurping a bowl of the famous bak kut the spicy soup (pork-rib) to the Outram Park Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha coffee shop, a five minute walk.
Visual art is not the only cultural field is booming. A group of young Singaporeans is striking out on his own to start fashion boutiques and independent labels to prove that there exists a distinct identity in Singapore, far from shopping.
"In Singapore, creativity is no longer frowned upon," said Kenny Leck, who became one of the pioneers of the movement when he abandoned a career as an accountant and BooksActually opened in 2005 with Karen Wai, his business partner. Filled with the collection of the pair of vintage typewriters, cameras, accordions and toys, the store is the kind of place that can not keep magazines like Monocle and Granta on the shelves. In order to foster an atmosphere of room type, BooksActually regularly invites emerging artists, authors and playwrights to organize events and readings at the store, recognizing that many of them have nowhere to go . The events are advertised on the Facebook page of the shop and the blog, hellobooksactually.blogspot.com. With its slow but steady success, the store has recently moved to Yong Siak Street in back-and-coming residential Tiong Bahru, also home to the White canvas art gallery whose exhibitions are accompanied by discussions led by artists and dinners, and strange quarks, a design store where you can choose offbeat lamps crystals Ice-inspired radio and MP3-friendly retro style wood.
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