THE POINT

Modernism Without Modernity: 

New Public Art in Singapore

by Lee Weng Choy

Here's the provocation: there is a correlation between the underdeveloped state of civil society in Singapore and the unhappy state of its public art.

Art in Transit is one of the largest public art projects in Singapore. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) commissioned 19 artists to make artworks for the new subway stations in the recently opened North East Line. Given the project's scale, its selection of artists cannot but make a big statement. Yet it is also the fate of major public commissions to spark controversy over curatorial choices. Included among the 19 are persons like Tan Swie Hian; he has probably received more awards than any other living artist in Singapore, though, if you asked me, I'd say his work is highly overrated. No doubt many in the local arts community will have their own opinions about errors of inclusion or omission. However, I believe what's at stake is a larger antagonism. What this commission suggests is an articulation of "official taste."

What l mean by "official taste" is implied in the title of the review. Before I elaborate, let me make some qualifications. Of course, not all art that the state supports is politically correct and artistically mediocre. Among the 19, for example, are Matthew Ngui and Vincent Leow, whom I consider to be among Singapore's best contemporary artists. And Art in Transit does offer surprises, like Eng Tow's The Trade Off. More to the point, my criticism has less to do with the artists or artworks themselves. I'm not saying that, as a group, these 19 represent the taste of the state; nor does it really matter that, individually, some artworks may comply with government ideology, while others dissent. Rather, what's significant are the very structures and processes underlying the whole project.

The LTA commission is exemplary of what a number of intellectuals have argued is a defining characteristic of Singapore society, namely, modernism without modernity. The genealogy of this formulation traces back to Rem Koolhaas. He argued that Singapore is "modernization in its pure form," having "adopted only the mechanistic, rationalistic program," while "shedding modernism's artistic, irrational, uncontrollable, subversive ambitions." In a phrase, Singapore is "modernization without modernism." Sociologists Kwok Kian-Woon and Low Kee Hong disagree slightly, modifying the equation to "modernization without modernity," where the second term signifies "the critical and self-reflexive consciousness of modernity." My response to all this is that Koolhaas refuses to see Singapore's mechanistic and rationalistic ideology (for what is the "program" if not ideological) as continuous with the West's own modernistic ideologies of progress. Moreover, Kwok and Low, by retaining "modernization" as the first term m rather than using my preference, "modernism" also fail to fully express the ideological character of Singapore's rapid advance as a capitalist nation-state.

The North East Line, with its state-of-the-art technology, is not merely a symbol of Singapore's modernization, but its modernism. As Senior Minister of State Khaw Boon Wan said at the opening ceremony, Art in Transit represents the "fusing [of] art and science, art and engineering." Or at least the desire for such a fusion. What is not even on the horizon of desire are the reflexive and critical possibilities signified by the idea of modernity. An opportunity was lost: why not depart from the usual official modus operandi, and instead allow an independent curatorial voice to determine the whole commission?

How does this thing called the "public" express itself? Very often in terms of individual voices, speaking in a space called the public. Social dialogue evolves through the public contestation of these voices. I'm not arguing for bringing "public opinion" into the commissioning process through surveys or other instruments of market research. The public should be a space for independent voices, and not, as it is conjured here (and elsewhere), the manufactured consent of the masses. The failure to choose an independent curatorial voice in this major public commission says a lot about how structural the fear is of ceding power to civil society in Singapore.

Admittedly, it's easy to find fault with big art projects anywhere in the world. So I'll aim my final criticisms not at what I find weakest about Art in Transit, but what I find best. One of my favorite works is Interchange by the couple Milenko and Delia Prvacki. I especially like the former's work in mosaic, which conveys some of the qualities of color, tone, and composition that I admire in his paintings. Unfortunately, the installation smacks of tokenism. The Dhoby Ghaut station is huge, and rather than pursue a curatorial ambition of punctuating the entire space with elements of their work, the art is confined to a relatively small area in an otherwise sterile white and aluminum maze of escalators and passageways. Fusion of art and engineering? - no, more like the subsuming of art.

^{LEE WENG CHOY is an artwriter based in singapore, and artistic co-director of the Substation Arts Center.}