Publications

Volume & Form

ARTLINK VOL 19 No 2

Sculpture sculpture everywhere Artists rejoice! Cities everywhere area vying with each other to be the capitals of culture, cities for the arts etc and it must be good news for artists who, in survey after survey, are shown to earn the lowest amount for their work of any professional group.

In an unexpected manifestation of this trend, 250 works of contemporary sculpture by living artists are on show in Singapore until 5 September in an extremely ambitious event encompassing work by 130 artists from 16 Asia-Pacific nations, including 18 from Australia. Volume & Form is the brainchild of Jonathan Benavides, director of 3D only Art Consultancy and he has assembled a strong group of backers including TIME magazine and the Singapore Tourism Board who, together with a raft of government instrumentalities, have helped realise the vision of turning the user-friendly city of Singapore into a veritable sculpture gallery for nearly four months. The unique aspect of this event also depends on the fact that Singapore is probably the only city in the world where sculpture of every kind could be exhibited out of doors and not be vandalised.

The sculpture starts when you arrive at Changi Airport (no less than 70 pieces here and a special brochure describing the works) and continues with a Sculpture Trail which will take visitors through the Botanic Gardens to Orchard Road, Istana Park, Esplanade Park and the Business District to Far East Square. Works will also be housed in the Singapore Art Museum, Asian Civilisations Museum and in Sculpture Square and there are 24 days of seminars and lectures in the SAM Auditorium by sculptors and academics.

The organisers have attracted some of the region's most interesting talents, for instance - from India: Pushpamala; Indonesia: FX Harsono; Japan: Yoshiko Takikawa; Korea: Jung-Hoo Kim; New Zealand: Chris Booth; Singapore: Amanda Heng; Taiwan: Jun Tsun-Tsun Lai; Thailand: Montien Boonma; Vietnam: Nguyen Quan; Australia: Hossein Valamanesh. Unusually, for an event of its type, works are offered for sale, so that artists have some expectation of finding permanent homes for their work amongst the regional collections.

Volume & Form is one manifestation of the determination of Singapore to become the art capital of Asia - a goal which the city-state set itself as recently as 5 years ago. With the serious upgrading of art and history museums and more funding for the arts in general, (and the negative effects of the economic crisis hitting their closest competitor Taiwan very hard) it would be hard to dispute their claim that they are now across the line in that contest. Their latest ambit claim - to be a "Global City for the Arts" (paralleling Melbourne's recent declaration) is yet to be put to the test. With the Singapore Arts Festival on until 20 June, and with the cooperation of TIME which has pledged free advertising and editorial for Volume & Form, the expectation is that cultural tourism will increase, and also that the general run of international visitors to Singapore will have their eyes opened to the still little-recognised wealth of new Asia-Pacific art. Contact: 3D only Art Consultancy Tel 65 536 3662 Fax. 5367868 email: andrvolf@mbox5.singnet.com.sg