Global ambitions: Positioning Singapore as a contemporary arts hub

• Main Author: HOE, Su Fern
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Arts hub; cultural policy; Singapore; art market; Arts and Humanities; Arts Management; Asian Studies; Public Policy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2791; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4048/viewcontent/Global_Ambitions_2018_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This chapter has two objectives. The first is to critically interrogate the state’s efforts in utilising the visual arts as a means to position Singapore as an international arts hub and marketplace. As Kwok Kian Woon and Low Kee-Hong have noted, “Singapore’s cultural policy has everything to do with staying on top as a focal node in the late-capitalist world system of the new millennium” (Kwok and Low, 2002, p. 154). This chapter offers an overview of the programmes and initiatives introduced by the state from the 1990s to the present in order to encourage the entry of international art galleries and major commercial platforms, and to position Singapore as a key player in the international art market. The second objective is to explore some of the tensions, if not contradictions, in this pursuit of global city status.