jani

Here's three things I thought I'd never see in Singapore:

1) A video clip flashing words like "HATE ME" and "KILL ME" over Lee Kuan Yew's face.2) A guy dressed in a Merlion suit partying at a rave and saying "Drugs are fun!"3) A family of faceless clones covered in corporate logos, including PAP, NTUC and Louis Vuitton. (Well, OK, I do see this one everyday, just not in an art exhibition.)

But today I did, at the Singapore Biennale's Tanglin Camp site. Like all modern art shows, you need to wade through a fair bit of incomprehensible dross to find the good bits, but it really was surprisingly edgy and no-holds-barred for Singapore. Both 1 & 3 above were from Brian Gothong Tan's "We live in a dangerous world", which also has a brilliant little video clip called "Imelda Goes to Singapore" -- at first glance, it seems to be Mrs. Marcos in a fancy evening gown, preening herself in front of a mirror and singing a love song, but soon enough you realize it's a Filipina maid wearing NTUC Fairprice bags on her sleeves and the song's words go "I owe everything I have to you / I will be your slave forever..."