The Emergence of Collective Performance Art during Rapid Urbanisation in Singapore

The poacher was watching in ambush near the tigers, preparing to strike at the weakest of them. Clad in a simple red gown with a 3-metre-long train behind him, he weaves in between the white paper tigers like blood splashing across them. He picks up the oars lined up on the ground, pointing towards a bed, and drums them on the ground as he moves along. Finally, he carries one of the tigers on his shoulder and begins pushing the rocking chair back and forth. The last scene of the act was later adapted into an installation work now in the collection of the Singapore Art Museum. It was a powerful 1991 performance by Singaporean artist Tang Dawu. First presented in Chinatown,1 the performance addressed the exploitation of tigers. The animals have been hunted since the 1970s for their genitals, which are prized for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities. Tigers are among the many exotic animals hunted because of Chinese superstitions: powder made from rhino horn can cure cancer; crocodile meat can treat lung illnesses and improve memory; a bear penis and testicles is a potent aphrodisiac; the list goes on and on.  The Tiger’s Whip is one of the best-known works by an artist considered to be one of the key figures of the Singapore art scene. 

L: Tiger’s Whip by Tang Dawu, Mixed Media, Collection of Singapore Art Museum
R: Performance of Tiger’s Whip by Tang Dawu at National History Museum, Singapore, in 1991

The Artists Village: A Radical Experiment
Born in 1943, Tang attained his BA in sculpture from the School of Fine Art, Birmingham Polytechnic (currently Birmingham Institute of Art and Design), pursued advanced studies in Saint Martin’s School of Art (now Central Saint Martins), and received an MFA from Goldsmith’s College, University of London, before returning to Singapore in 1988, where he led a group of artists to establish The Artists Village (TAV). The village was, essentially, the artist’s home. It was a 1.6-hectare kampung (traditional Singaporean village) in Sembawang, Lorong Gembas. Beginning in 1988, Tang invited like-minded artist-friends to stay in the village and enabled them to explore radical ideologies and ways to make art that were in sync with societal changes of the time. The name “The Artists Village” was first used in early 1989, when the artists working and living in the forested enclave organised their first public programme – “Open Studio Show”. It featured 10 artists, with exhibitions and avant-garde performances over two weeks.  

L: Artists Village at Lorong Gambas, 1988–1990. Courtesy of Koh Nguang How
R: Tang's performance at the second Open Studio Show at The Artists Village.

Art thrived in the village. At its peak, the enclave housed 35 artists and another 50 young artists participating in art activities run by the village. The collective explored various art forms, pushed the boundaries of art, and later – the authorities in Singapore. In the 1980s Singapore went through key sociological changes. The country encountered its “first post-independence recession after years of rapid growth”,2 and there was a rise in unemployment. All this occurred in a period when art was flourishing. Attendance at performing arts events was about 410,000 – a tremendous figure for a developing country with only 2.4 million population. About 1,700 cultural events were staged in 1988, including 488 under the Singapore Festival of Arts. 

Creativity and Resistance
The Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts was published in early 1989. The council was set up to review the state of arts and culture in Singapore (between 1988 and 1989), and to recommend measures that could make Singapore a culturally vibrant society by the turn of the century. It was a cornerstone in the development of the ‘hardware’ for culture and arts in Singapore. The Report paved the way for the formation of cultural governance statutory bodies such as the National Arts Council, the National Heritage Board, and the National Library Board. Within the next decade, the Singapore Art Museum, the Asian Civilisations Museum, and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, and other elements of arts infrastructure were built to support the key belief that “the arts broaden our mind and deepen our sensibility. They give a nation its unique character and provide the much needed social bond to hold its people together.”3 Art was encouraged and recognised as a gel to bring the people of the multicultural society together, which echoed Singapore president Wee Kim Wee’s (term in office, 1985–1993) speech calling on Singaporeans to “hold together, renew our common bonds, and emerge tested, tempered and strengthened”.
 
With a stamp of approval from the authorities, the arts climate was in the pink of health, it was liberal and free. The climate appeared to allow for infinite growth and possibilities for artists. But rapid urbanization would soon cloud this sunny picture, as the government steered Singapore towards being the “centre of excellence”. In December 1989, The Artists Village group organised The Time Show, a 24-hour, site-specific, continuous performance art show in response to the repossession of their land by the government. At the time, the buildings surrounding the site where the performances were taking place were in the process of being demolished. In March 1990, the authorities ordered the artists to move out, and the remaining structures to be knocked down. TAV had officially lost its physical space to government-mandated urbanization. But key members of TAV held on to the spirit of performance art and braved through the economic hardships. TAV formalized the collective by registering the group as an art society under the Societies Act, but the process took about 2 years. It was only in 1992 that the TAV was officially recognized as an art society. They remained active, and their dynamic art performances, known for examining social issues and changes in the state of affairs, gained greater public awareness. Because of their growing fame, they were invited to exhibit and perform beyond the village. TAV was invited to show in the fringe event of Singapore Festival of Arts 1990, QU Art Support II in Hong Kong at QU Art Society, Bangnan Dato Jaafar (a cultural space in Malaysia), Adelaide Festival in Australia, and many other venues.

One performance muted it all.

The front page of The New Paper, 3 Jan 1994, featuring a photo of Josef Ng's Brother Cane performance

The Turning Point
In 1994, Brother Cane by Josef Ng, a young artist in his early 20s, became the “most controversial performance in Singapore’s contemporary art history”.4 It was part of a 12-hour closing event over the New Year in 1993 during the Artists General Assembly, a week-long arts festival held at a gallery space within a shopping mall, co-organised by TAV and 5th Passage Artists Ltd. The performance was a response to the arrest of twelve men charged for homosexual solicitation, and ultimately punished with three strokes of the cane. Wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, Josef whipped twelve tofu blocks with a rattan cane, each stroke bursting a bag of red dye (which had been placed carefully on top of the tofu) resembling blood. Josef then turned his back to the audience, and snipped his pubic hair in protest of the caning sentence. The local tabloid The New Paper published only a photo of that last act on its front cover, under the headline “Pub(l)ic Protest”, which fuelled a heated public debate on performance art. This eventually led to the withdrawal of public funding for performance art and forum theatre for the next 10 years. 

The art scene plunged into murky waters after this incident, and artists and collectives struggled to defend their work. TAV was forced to go on a year-long hiatus, as their proposals to the National Arts Council were repeatedly rejected, and some artists left the scene altogether. Josef Ng was eventually charged for committing an obscene act in public and fined S$1000. He was also banned from performing in public. Josef later shared in an interview that he left Singapore and abandoned art after that, to assess his situation. During this hiatus he helped out in his family’s business.

The reverberating impact of the Ng’s performance ran deep. More than a decade later, despite the ban having been lifted, performance art still faced challenges in seeking its audience. Josef Ng only returned to Singapore in 2017, taking up a role as curator and gallerist at Pearl Lam Gallery. TAV was taken over by a new generation of artists, who held annual exhibitions, featuring paintings, mixed media, and installation – anything but performance art. Its founder, Tang Dawu, is currently an adjunct lecturer at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. The arts climate in Singapore has significantly changed since the promising period in the 1980s, despite the much developed arts infrastructure of today built to complement artistic and creative vibrancy.

Legacy and Lessons
A 2017 article in the Straits Times raised questions about the effectiveness of the curriculum at the School of the Arts, Singapore’s first pre-tertiary arts school, established in 2008.5 It found that only three in ten graduating students go on to pursue arts-related university courses. Cheri Wee, the 19 year-old recipient of the Prime Minister’s Valedictorian award that year, explained why she left the arts, “SOTA gave me a safe space to fail, for experimentation, after six long years of blood, sweat and tears…I have found that my place isn’t as a dancer on stage.” She has moved on to pursue an undergraduate degree in psychology and philosophy at the University of Oxford. It is ironic that the modern Singapore citizen is so often bashed and stifled for creative and ‘modern’ thoughts, while at the same time Singapore spends so much on arts infrastructure. “Naïve”, “impulsive”, “passionate” were some of the words bandied about by several young artists to explain why they decided to pursue the arts as a career. One is often told that being an artist is the worst career choice in Singapore, with no or little prospects for adequate income, and small chance of success. Despite the evolving arts scene, young artists today struggle to make ends meet – “for artistic millenials, making a living out of the arts is a craft in itself”.6

On a flip side, some key members of TAV continued to perform, and even established their own company. One was Lee Wen, a cultural medallion recipient known for his series of “Yellow Man” performances, where he painted himself yellow to express an exaggerated symbol of his ethnic identity as a citizen of Singapore with Chinese origin. He set up the Independent Archive in 2012, a reference library housing a collection of archival materials pertaining to art in Singapore. It runs occasional programmes, including film screenings, performance art pieces, and performing arts events and discussions. It has always been dependent on volunteers and meagre donations by kind art afficionados and collectors for its survival. The unfortunate passing of Lee Wen this year has resulted in the temporary closing of the Archive. Another early member of TAV, Jeremy Hiah has begun a series of performance art events titled Wu Wei, which provide many performance artists a platform to showcase and practise their work. Similar to TAV, the events are held in his humble abode and art space called Your Mother Gallery. 

Conclusion
Often addressing societal issues, performance art can have great impact for good, and should not be feared or discriminated against. It should be appreciated and regarded as an important social commentary that inspires reflection − by policymakers and the people. The art form can be a contributing factor in the making of cultural policies. If not the performances themselves, then the discourse arising from and around them can be meaningful for knowledge building.  
   
 In this time of social unrest around the world, artistic freedom and artists voices are crucial, “Don’t make art, make questions,” advised Tang in his latest public seminar held to complement his solo exhibition at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts this year. This cannot be more true. 

Notes:

1: Chinatown, once an enclave for Singapore’s Chinese immigrant population, is currently a popular tourist spot in Singapore.
2 : “Growth years (1981−1990): A recession, political changes and drive for excellence”, The Sunday Times, 10 January 2016, by Walter Sim.
3 : Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts, April, 1989,  www.sg
4 : “Brother Cane is part of me”: Josef Ng opens up about past controversies and future hopes”, 8 May 2017, Lifestyle section of ChannelNewsAsia.com, by Mayo Martin.
5 : “More Sota students go on to pursue non-arts related fields”, The Straits Times, 15 May 2017, by Winnie Tan.
6: “The Big Read: For artistic millenials, making a living out of the arts is a craft in itself”, 14 January 2019, ChannelNewsAsia.com, by Navene Elangovan.