Surfing The Channel

Posts Tagged ‘etiquette’

There are a number of variations and ways of stating the notion that great art does not provide answers, but only asks questions. It’s such a recurring theme in the 20th and 21st centuries, that it’s certainly worth looking into, but who knows what answers might come? There are plenty of situations in a city-state as wonderful as Singapore, in which guests and locals might be able to ask the big questions that art often evokes here.

It’s one of the more interesting places in the world these days, because it is developing and unrolling itself so quickly, and seems so rushed to become what it is. This is driven by the artists and designers of the next generation, who are eager to see changes come to the island, and originate in their own ideas. Of course, their ideas are sparked and modified through lifetimes, and based on the ideas of some previous generations, making a link between the contemporary and the historical.

It’s certainly evident in the Etiquette exhibition, which was showing here in the spring. The exhibition brought together 18 international artists to ask questions about what is proper women’s behavior. The links between contemporary women are very much on the surface, although they intertwine in complicated ways just beneath the perceivable order of things. The links to the past may not be so apparent, but they are absolutely there. This was a great excuse for spending time here and booking a Singapore hotel , and there are always new works worth seeing here. The artist-citizens ask very good questions.

In many parts of the world, art that looks at gender consciously can become an exercise in re-inventing the wheel. So the critics say. It may be true, and it might be true that the wheel needs invention everywhere so that it might be useful. In making the connections that revolve around the cycles of repetition in expectation, there are ancestors who rise up out of the center of the axis and start to speak. It’s territory that has a lot of ghosts, because the territory is so precarious for the living. There are many reasons for visiting the Substation , and this has been one of the best arguments for it in awhile.