Synopsis:

Presented in conjunction with Singapore Art Week and the National Museum of Singapore's latest contemporary art exhibition What is Not Visible is Not Invisible, The Contemporary and Contemporary Art in Singapore: On the 1980s as a 'Period, is a lecture by Prof. C. J. Wee Wan-ling about the development of contemporary art in Singapore. The idea of contemporary art presupposes an idea of the contemporary not only as a structure of time, but also as a concept of how we live in society. What then is contemporary art in Singapore, and how does it relate to the socio-political context in which it functions – one where culture as a notion from the 1980s has become more prominent? This presentation will examine the state-driven modernisation and industrialisation processes in the city-state, and why culture in "pragmatic" Singapore seems to matter more from the 1980s. It will also consider how the emergence of what we now call contemporary art emerged in Singapore partially as a response to the modernisation drive in the late 1960s to 1970s.

About the speaker
C. J. W.-L. Wee is Professor of English at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has held Visiting Fellowships at, among other institutions, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, and the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University. Wee is the author of Culture, Empire, and the Question of Being Modern (2003) and The Asian Modern: Culture, Capitalist Development, Singapore (2007). He is also the editor of The Complete Works of Kuo Pao Kun, Vol. 4: Plays in English (2012).