Singapore throbs as the art hub of Asia

( First of two parts )

Many things are happening in Singapore these days. And for very good reasons. As world renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma puts it: "I think it is exciting that Singapore is developing in so many ways. This culture is so rich. There is so much cross-pollination going on, it is amazing."

Singapore has taken quite an aggressive mindset in establishing itself as the premier art city in this part of the globe. An imposing national art and cultural agenda has been institutionalized, with both government and private sectors coming together to ensure that the much-needed machinery is well revved up. Two government agencies – the National Arts Council (NAC) and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) – are actively taking part in this joint endeavor.

State-of-the-art infrastructure continues to rise to provide the launching pads for the vision to soar even higher. International artists are constantly being wooed to share their expertise with the locals, ensuring a constant flow of art activities and discourses in the scene. It may just be a matter of time before Singapore will be it – an acknowledged art capital not only here in the region but the whole world over.

Who would ever believe that in the early 1960s Singapore also vowed to the world that it would green its land? Nobody can contest the promise anymore. As soon as the visitor touches down at the Changi airport, he is overwhelmed by how nature has wonderfully blessed Singapore. Trees sway gracefully along its thoroughfares while flowers at perennial bloom make the concrete pavements breathtakingly iridescent. And gleefully like these trees, the seeds of art have been vigorously planted all over town; most of which in fact are already bearing fruits.

What makes Singapore invest in art?

Art draws out the best in man. When pursued for a noble cause, it promotes goodwill among men, as it fosters cooperation among nations. Best of all, art endures.

Singapore is a young nation, and its decision to harness art in nation building can only be logical and lofty. It becomes even more heartening to discover that such national policy comes from young visionary people who now man Singapore’s civil service at NAC and STB. The youthful idealism, however, is matched with firm resolve. These young Singaporeans – bubbly, output driven, and mostly foreign educated – are not only unswerving to chart the directions for Singapore as a global arts city; they also, in the process, breathe and infuse a strong sense of professionalism in the field.

The decision sits well in the nation’s history. Singapore has now reached a point of political maturity and economic stability. In the coming of age of every cultural capital in the world, it is prosperity that nurtures the arts. Singapore has another advantage besides. Given its multiracial mix, art and culture are in constant dynamics for change, ergo, growth.

Kenneth Tyler, president of the Tyler Graphics Ltd., observes it succinctly: "Singapore is modern, cosmopolitan, vibrant, full of diversity and creative synergy – all of which are fertile ground for the arts. What better place to establish an international center for the arts than Singapore? As creative forces inside and beyond this city interact with the artistic community, they will attract notice, respect and investment in a self-perpetuating environment. This confluence of cultures will surely make Singapore one of the leading cultural capitals in the 21st century."

Today, Singapore breathes art. It is handsomely and enviably equipped with resources that fully harness the latest and available technology if only to ensure the finest enjoyment of the arts. When the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay opens on Oct. 12 this year, it will be the largest performing art center in Singapore with a separate theater and a concert hall.

The 2,000-seat theater has a revolving stage, which features two full-sized stages to facilitate swift scene changes. It has an adjustable proscenium arch to suit any type of performance, and a large orchestra to accommodate up to 100 musicians.

The concert hall, which can sit 1,600, is provided with reverberation chambers, acoustic canopy and acoustic curtains, enabling the hall to facilely adapt to different music styles. The acoustic features assure optimum sound quality.

Set against the dramatic skyline of Singapore’s Central Business District fronting the Marina Bay waterfront, the Esplanade, once operational, will present a diverse range of local, regional and international programs, yet ensuring a balance that will cater to all sectors of the community, and thus make it truly a special arts center for everyone.

Benson Puah, chief executive officer, articulates it thus: "The success of Esplanade hinges on its ability to stay relevant to the community, to be a place where people converge to interact, to be encouraged to pursue their artistic interests, and embrace the arts as an intrinsic part of their daily lives."

In the visual arts scene, the 4,000-square- meter Singapore Tyler Print Institute, or STPI, located in a newly restored 19th-century warehouse in the historic Robertson Quay area along the Singapore River, is one-of-a-kind. The print workshop alone, occupying 11,460 square feet, so far the largest in Asia, boasts the only Tyler-designed Siamese Printing Press for lithography and intaglio and large relief printing presses plus the biggest collection of litho limestones weighing as much as 38,000 pounds. Its paper mill can churn out the largest western type handmade paper in Asia.

STPI is lavishly equipped with a gallery, all of 4,750-square feet excluding gallery offices and storage area. The international gallery, as it is now known in Singapore, is dedicated to exhibition of quality artworks by recognized artists round the world. To broaden its local and international audience, the gallery performs a parallel function of assisting educational programs in Singapore art schools through the NAC. With its awesome facilities and educational programs, STPI can but lead in the field of advanced print and papermaking.

The STPI is privileged to have Kenneth Tyler as its director, himself a celebrated figure in fine art printmaking and publishing since the 1960s. He generously agreed with the Singapore government to move his printmaking institute from New York to Singapore. Tyler has done significant collaborative works with prominent artists like Josef Albers, Anthony Caro, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella and Donald Sultan.

Stella is the first artist to exhibit at the gallery, and Sultan is the first artist invited to use the facilities of STPI. Come September, the new works of Sultan done in Singapore constitute an exhibition at the gallery, following Stella’s blockbuster show.

Singapore, as described by the Singapore Tourism Board, is the gateway to a large market of about three billion people in Asia within a seven-hour flight radius. Its strategic location at the crossroads of Asia and the West situates Singapore in quite a unique position to present the arts of the world to the region and the region’s arts to the world at the same time.

The high-profile exhibit entitled Frank Stella in 2002, STPI’s inaugural show, marks the largest exhibition of this stature and magnitude shown by a gallery in Asia. Featuring the recent works by Stella, America’s most eminent living 65-year-old abstract artist, it runs until Aug. 18.

That it is mounted at the STPI gallery, which aims to push the art of print in the region, one expects to view Stella’s prints exclusively. To his amazement, the exhibit displays a variety of works, ranging from prints, collages, paintings measuring 40 feet in length, and relief sculptures weighing over 1,000 pounds, to architectural maquettes.

"To open with a ‘pure’ print show would be counterproductive," says Tyler, who keeps on redefining, if not totally dismantling, the boundaries of print. And what can be more auspicious but to have an internationally-renowned artist in the person of Frank Stella to open the gallery? Stella, after all, through his career from the late 1950s to the present, has constantly worked for the blurring of definitions that only succeed in compartmentalizing painting, sculpture and print. To this end, Tyler prefers to call STPI a place for creating original art.

Another ongoing exhibition worthy of mention here is the sculpture show at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) entitled Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession, showcasing the works of Auguste Rodin. The works in the exhibit come from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection in the US. The exhibit, running until Aug. 25, includes maquettes or model casts of the "Gates of Hell" and the "Burghers of Calais," in addition to casts of the "The Thinker" and "The Kiss." It is the lesser-known pieces that provide the scope of the exhibition. Such fragments, however, clearly illustrate and illuminate Rodin’s sensitivity to aspects of the human form.

SAM is located at the beautifully-preserved building of the former St. Joseph’s Institution, the first Catholic boys’ school in Singapore built in the early 1800s. There seems to be a penchant in Singapore these days to turn even the uncanniest available space into art centers. The CHIJMES, Singapore’s melting pot for the arts with its jazz music performances, dinner theater, and chamber recitals, occupies what formerly was a Catholic convent and orphanage done in the Gothic style. The Sculpture Square, a contemporary venue for the arts of the region, used to be a Peranakan church.

Like a crucible, Singapore leaves no stone unturned to make traditions more palatable, if not digestible, to contemporary palate. Take the case of what it can do to Chinese opera.

There are about 360 types of Chinese opera – Cantonese opera being the most popular for its flexibility and ample accommodation for improvisation. Two principles inform all Chinese operas. First, every sound is music; every movement is dance. Second, everything onstage must be graceful and beautiful following the rule of the opposite, the yin and yang.

The Chinese Theatre Circle or CTC, founded in 1981, is a non-profit professional performing Chinese opera company in Singapore. It is recognized for its pioneering efforts in creating awareness for Chinese opera, dance and music, both locally and overseas, and thereby effect a renaissance of the art form in Singapore.

The CTC is due to participate in the Shanghai International Opera Festival this November. It loves to perform overseas where it is accorded standing ovation. In its performance in Germany in 2000, for instance, the ovation lasted a full 10 minutes, something the company does not get yet in Singapore.

CTC began its "Bringing Chinese Opera to the People" project in 1984, staging without letup Cantonese operas at community centers. It made its debut in the arts education program of the NAC in 1995 and has since visited more than 100 schools and junior colleges, presenting talks, demonstrations and performances of Chinese opera to more than 200,000 students.

In June 1998, CTC started the first Chinese Opera Teahouse in Chinatown, so far the only one of its kind in Singapore to date, to create greater opportunities for the appreciation of the art form. Two years later, in March 2000, CTC did the unexpected and presented a full-length Chinese opera, Madam White Snake, with dialogue and singing in English. Leslie Wong Sze Ying, CTC chairman and director, wrote the opera.

In the context of inter-racial and inter-cultural dimension in Singapore, Chinese opera in English may just be the unique opera form to come from Singapore, making the form accessible and understandable to all.

Wong puts it this way: "We do not change for the sake of change. We renew or remake Chinese opera so that it becomes universal. We are now working on our young generation. It is very important to start with the young. We have Chinese opera classes for children. Even if we know that not all of them will become opera performers, at least they will not resist watching operas. Or better, they can help backstage as theater hands, translators, dancers, and yes, makeup artists, the soul of our opera."

The CTC also plans to mount an opera with a symphony orchestra. It is a colossal task, but the opening of the Esplanade may work to the company’s advantage. The Esplanade, enthuses Wong, "will provide us the opportunity to meet and interact with artists from other countries. This way, we can learn from one another."

Viewing Stella and Rodin’s works and watching Chinese opera in English are but a few of the fares included in the recently concluded Singapore Art Festival 2002.

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For comments, send e-mail to ruben_david.defeo@up.edu.ph.