Art and Lawn

The driveway at the entry to SAM—Singapore Art Museum—is split by two irregular circles of lawn, on the larger of which the blow-up beach Bunny was reintroduced about four months ago after some kind of Presidential scholar-artists' graduation show. This afternoon on the adjacent smaller patch three young Tamil men were found on their hands and knees, searching or fossicking it seemed. For a moment or two the thought crossed the mind that there was something going on here, some kind of sly artistic challenge. A few years ago in Singapore one of the bright advertising sparks had pulled off a stunt that is still talked about in the newspapers, where body-builder boys had been employed as dummies in a store-front for the launch of a new line. Here white over-sized blow-up beach-Bunny beside black foreign workers foraging for their supper? There was no sign. Were they going to brew up some of their harvest for a cheap meal while the ice-cream boys and girls snapped?... In Singapore?... How did this get past the government regulators and the construction tzars? The latter were on the Arts and Heritage Boards; they bought the art, built the galleries. Some bleeding-heart Art-fucks blowing off without having filled in all of the paperwork??.... All in a few short moments.    

The Bunny has been magnified something like thirty times, a sleek slightly off-white with ears disproportionately enlarged, pointy and long in rather phallic form. A good dozen or more art lover/urban explorers were arranging themselves left, right and centre, some choosing the cut-out stainless steel of the sign that could be caught on one side of the shot and head of Bunny the other by minor fiddling of the zoom. Smiling young women in their early twenties mainly, with a few soft boys in company. The Victory/Rabbit-ears sign seemed not in favour this afternoon; clouds were closing too. (Incidentally, not once during this extended stay have the clouds raced here on the equator. Question for a good meteorologist when one happens along.)
         Busy with their work, the three lads on the lawn took no notice of the photographers opposite. In fact their task was to pluck out the Cow grass that was spoiling the more fine Carpet grass here at SAM's entryway. The Carpet grass had thin string roots close under the surface; the other not exactly Cow, but of similar form, the lead Tamil gardener explained. This intrusive grass grew taller than the Carpet and in diffuse single clumps deeply rooted. A bugger of a job. Here a machine was utterly useless. On the paving near-by sat the idle lawn-mower and whipper-snipper. This work could only be performed laboriously by hand. The lads worked quietly bent at their task. The Carpet grass gave a smooth, even and delicate surface, almost an appetizing alfalfa in appearance. For a new-comer it was difficult to differentiate the two. Steadily the lads worked on like patient artists themselves, the front man with a small pile ready should the Super make an appearance.

Relating the leaf-polishing of the potted plants at the entry to the National Library a short distance off was no news to the front-man Tamil gardener. This man had not personally been assigned that task, but, Yes, word of that job had come down.

Late model Saabs, Hondas and Mazdas sat in the car-park at SAM. Top-class motors no doubt patronize the Singapore National Museum across the way a short distance. Real bunnies within some kind of gossamer-thin, barely visible enclosure on this SAM grass had never occurred to the curators here. Albino and pink-eyed perhaps; real one side and the Beach blow-up opposite before strewn carrots maybe. More minor imaginative play.

For men of a certain age caning is no longer part of the judicial discipline in Singapore, discontinued in the general softening of the culture that has included an encouragement of the Arts industry. Still, for public nuisance—the jab of a judiciously placed pin say, or rude marker penmanship—a chap would be liable for a fair stretch behind bars. CCTV cameras are ubiquitous on the island, let alone before iconic buildings and artwork.

Not long ago a young stencil artist was hauled before the courts for defacing public property, footpaths, traffic signals poles and the like without a permit. Many days the saga ran in the newspapers with photographs of the handiwork, then pictures of the pretty girl herself, of her accomplice, debate over free expression, rights and responsibilities, estimates of the cost of clean-up. More and more for over a week. Unlike the sex fiends pictured on the steps of the courts, this young woman eschewed newspapers and ski-masks to hide herself. And as always the dear old Straits Times in reporting particulars of judgment ended with mention of the penalties that might have been imposed had Sing’ not been an enlightened, gracious, considerate polis, loving of all its citizens, unthinking miscreants included.