SINGAPORE - I got to the Asian Civilisations Museum front door 15 minutes before it opened last Friday . I was half hoping there would be people waiting to get into the museum. But realistically, I knew a stampede to the museum was highly unlikely.
I remember sneaking to the old National Museum after school when I was supposed to be studying in the library. I would often be the lone soul, other than the odd tourist, rattling around the empty husk of the building. Part of the growth has to be attributed to the expansion of infrastructure - the number of museums and heritage institutions doubled over the same period.
Much ink has already been spilled about the recent uproar over a survey published by this newspaper, in which"artist" topped a list of jobs deemed to be non-essential in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Given that the precarity of Singapore's arts companies has been brutally laid bare by the circuit breaker closure, it is no wonder that artists were upset and furious.
I would argue that this rocky relationship demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt how vital artists have been to this country's evolution. Kuo, who was finally awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1989, is the fount from which today's vibrant theatre scene sprang. Without him, there would be no multi-million-dollar arts sector since he personally mentored many of the artists who founded Singapore's best theatre companies.
Yet the lingering perception of the arts as frivolous and peripheral remains. Which brings me in a roundabout fashion, back to last Friday when I happily wandered through the ACM's new galleries, which I had yet to see in their fully formed glory before the circuit breaker, and the National Gallery Singapore's Latiff Mohidin show.