Like i've posted before. The budding Artist was insensitive in
the display of his works.
However i'd take my stand that the installation work is Art, not
protest.
If local viewers sees this as a protest, then i think ambitious
artist should pack bag and leave Sg.
__________
The Protest Art that Wasn't
Matija Milkovic Biloslav, a Slovenian artist participating in
Singapore's Lasalle-SIA College of the Arts Asian Arts Camp:
Urbanonurban exhibition, had his installation (entitled "I am going
to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.") altered
after the exhibition opened. Logically, "I am going to send you
..." would seem to have referred to the imminent hanging of
Australian citizen Nguyen Tuong Van, who was convicted of drug
smuggling and sentenced to death in Singapore in 2004. The
installation included:
Nooses dangling from the ceiling.
Knocked-over stools.
One upright stool, upon which an unused piece of rope sat, and
which was further embellished with a piece of paper that read,
"C856." (This is Van's prisoner number.)
The name of the piece, itself, is that phrase Singapore's veteran
hangman, Darshan Singh, utters prior to opening the "trap door"
during an execution. (With me so far on the "logically"
part?)
However ... however ... after the exhibition's opening night, the
numbered paper was removed, an Australian newspaper was threatened
with a lawsuit if it published an image of Biloslav's installation
and Lasalle-SIA officials have vehemently denied the piece was, in
any way, political. It was all coincidental, in fact. Interesting
to note that while political art is not, strictly speaking, illegal
in Singapore (though it is considered "out of bounds"), visiting
artist Biloslav's was the lone voice from within Singapore saying
anything at all about Van's upcoming execution - something that has
caused a public uproar elsewhere. The execution is scheduled for
Friday, December 2, 2005. The Urbanonurban exhibition closed
today.
__________________
Pictures from the Installation
http://voctir.blogspot.com/2005/11/what-lasalle-does-not-want-you-to-see.html
__________________
Quote from http://blog.gerek.org/2005/11/monkey-do-monkey-pain.php
Milenko Prvacki, dean of fine arts at Lasalle School of the Arts,
who created the program, said: "I don't think it's a political
statement in this case ... it's not fair to ask so much about it
because he doesn't know so much about it, he's an outsider." The
artist, Matija Biloslavic, from Slovenia, said he preferred to let
the work speak for itself. He has worked in Singapore for the past
14 years, since he fled the Yugoslavian civil war, and said he had
never felt constrained as an artist.
But a Singaporean artist from the art camp said it was "quite hard"
to do political art in his country. "If we did (the hanging) we
would be more subtle," he said.
