Last night, my girl friend invited me to the opening party of Moving Still, an exhibition at Vue Privée, an independent art gallery located near Somerset (20 Cairnhill Road, Singapore 229652). Amidst the gallery-going crowd which comprises fashionable and attractive young people in their mid-twenties, I felt exceptionally at ease.
With a few glasses of champagne and Sherries down, I was already drifting into a deep conversation with my girl friend. We talked about the cool ambiance of the gallery, the avant-garde art works, the French owner of the gallery, and most importantly, the local art scenes.
As an ardent visitor to MoMa, Guggenheim Museum in New York, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and also the annual Tokyo Art Festival (when I was living in these three cities), I congratulated myself there and then, “Oh man, there are great artworks to see here!”. Unable to suppress my excitement, I shared my delightful thoughts with my girl friend, “Singapore is definitely becoming more vibrant and artistically expressive, yeah!!!”
However, my excitement did not last. As we moved from the first floor to the second floor, I stumbled upon an installation which dampened my elated mood. Let me just say this, it is very creative. For its aesthetic and artistic merits, I would give it rave review. Yet, I wouldn’t say I like what I saw. Without a camera, I wasn’t able to take a picture of it. But let me describe to you what it is about, or at least what I think I saw. For the artist’s statement, please see: http://www.asiatatler.com/singapore/top_stories.php?id=6780
Two plasma TV screens are placed side by side on a white-washed wall. The left screen shows a video of a man in monochrome scheme. In the video, a close-up shot tightly frames the facial expressions of this man. He looks sad, disillusioned and exhausted. He looks up momentarily to reflect upon something weighing heavily on his mind. Then a tear or two stream down his eyes involuntarily as he struggles to maintain his countenance. Sounds familiar? Judging from what the wall write-up says, this installation was apparently inspired by Lee Kuan Yew’s 1965 televised press conference announcing the separation and the full independence of Singapore.
Okay, so is this a reiteration of that emotional historical scene? Hardly so. The video on the right screen depicts a Maggie Cheung look-alike woman (the same man in drag) who is clad in a showy high collar cheongsam with piled up hairdo and a cigarette in hand. She is directing the man from behind the rolling camera. As the saying goes, behind every great man there’s a great woman. We see this strong woman dictating how much “tears” the strong man should shred, i.e. how much tear drops he should put into his eyes, and when to cut the scenes. When she is displeased, she storms to the other side (the left screen) to instruct the man what to do.
Now, what does that suppose to mean? I have seen many political satires in US. If this art installation is meant to be one, I found it rather disrespectful. That is, if humor is made at the expense of a deceased person or someone who did do something tangible for us. The fact is that, our political alignments may vary from one person to another. That’s nothing wrong with that, since people have different needs and concerns. It is very natural for us to think that our concern is the most important issue at hand, and that it should prevail over any other issues. Yet, isn’t right to put ourselves in others’ shoes and pay basic respect to others? I am not going to dwell on political correctness since many people have already written so much about it. My point is: an artist has a right to create, i.e. freedom to express. But it shouldn’t overrule other people’s rights. I want to appreciate an art work for its aesthetic value and/or moral message, not for its unkindness.
This installation reminds me sharply of a controversial Q&A in Miss USA 2011, which happened around a week ago. With four competitors left vying for the crown, Miss Tennessee Ashley Durham was asked a question about whether burning religious books, including the Muslim holy book Quran, should be afforded the same constitutional protections as flag burning. She struggled in her response, but said it crossed a line and shouldn’t be allowed, “I know that some people view it as a freedom of speech, however, burning the American flag is not patriotic at all. No American citizen should do that, and you should also respect other religions. I’m a Christian and a faithful person. I would personally not appreciate someone burning the Bible, and that’s just a line you do not cross.”
In the end, Ashley Durham lost the crown to Miss California Alyssa Campanella. According to the Miss USA judge Penn Jillette, he’s glad that Ashley Durham lost the competition as “she negated the whole First Amendment.” See article: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/21/3717725/penn-jillette-says-hes-glad-tenn.html#storylink=scinlineshareb I wonder if Ashley Durham had an internal struggle when she answered the question the way she did. But ultimately, she chose to say what she really believed in, without hurting other people’s feelings in doing so. For that, I think she is a winner.
