Art and Judging Art

Three times in the last eight years here kids have won Singapore's richest art prize, The Singapore Painting Prize: in 2005 a sixteen year old student at National Junior College; 2010 an eighteen year old from toffy Raffles Institution "snagged the top prize" (signature Straits Times pizzazz in art, sport and general news columns alike); and most recently last year’s seventeen year old, in what was his first attempt at oils. Red faces among the judges, the Board of the local bank that sponsors the prize, among the art community generally. Rules have been modified for next year's competition, as they were two years earlier to exclude the usual cat-among-the-pigeons, photography, when "painting" was stipulated. One established artist who won a few years ago was quoted in the report today commenting "junior college students who have one solid piece of work".... will no longer be permitted to embarrass all the stakeholders in future, she meant. Judging art hazardous at the best of times. In the steamy heat of the dog-eat-dog (and man-eat-dog not so long ago) turbo-capitalist dynastic democracy of Singapore—recently seeking to get in on the soft-power gravy-train—much harder still alack the day!

NB. Disclosure: recently long-listed for an important Australian literary prize, the author fears the judges there concerned have hesitated at the final hurdle. The ABR Jolley Prize.

                                                                               (Straits Times Life section C2, 19 Sept. 2013)