Southeast Asia Forum Talks
The Forum’s talk series will bring together architects, urbanists, social scientists, men and women of letters and artists to examine, through their different perspectives, the challenges of urbanisation and how cities can be re-imagined through different ways of seeing, learning and cooperation. In creating encounters between observers, thinkers and planners in these different fields, the Forum seeks to bring about more inter-disciplinary understanding and collaboration in shaping the underpinnings of cities as they continue to evolve, parallel to shared global conditions.
Thursday, 21 January 2016 | 1.30pm – 3pm
Artist and Society in the Urban Age
Artists Sherman Ong, Piyarat Piyapongwiwat and Norberto Roldan, Mami Kataoka (Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), and moderator Enin Supriyanto (Curator and Project Officer, The EQUATOR International Symposium, Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation) discuss the artist’s role in urban society today.
Spaces are limited. Please visit www.artist- society-artstage2016.eventbrite.sg for more information and to pre-register.
Thursday, 21 January 2016 |
3.30pm – 5pm
Do museums make global citizens?
Can museums be global citizens? Can art be anchored in the civil society? How can an artist negotiate the geopolitical dynamics, and the economic and political forces tied to the institution and site of exhibition?
This session is jointly organised by Art Stage Singapore and the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University (SMU).
Speakers:
Jean de Loisy / President, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Peggy Levitt / Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College and Co-Director of the Transnational Studies Initiative at Harvard University
Tintin Wulia / Artist
Moderator:
Kwok Kian Chow
Thursday, 21 January 2016 |
6pm – 7.30pm
Global Opinion Leaders Series: Art World – Quo Vadis?
A conversation between Simon de Pury & Lorenzo Rudolf. Known as the Mick Jagger of art auctions, Simon de Pury is the man with a reputation for making salerooms around the world fizz with wild bids. Always the pioneer, he just launched an online auction platform devoted to single-owner sales.
Art Stage Singapore’s President Lorenzo Rudolf has earned a reputation as maverick of the art world and as the man having created an entirely new art fair concept and transformed Art Basel from a classical trade show to the flagship of the art world.
Simon de Pury and Lorenzo Rudolf will share their insights regarding where the art world is going, the future trends and the role of Asia.
Speakers:
Simon De Pury (Art Auctioneer and Collector)
, Lorenzo Rudolf (President, Art Stage Singapore)
Friday, 22 January 2016 | 1.30pm – 3pm
Artists and Cosmopolitanism
Nikos Papastergiadis (Director, Research Unit in Public Cultures and Professor, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne), artists Tiffany Chung and Navin Rawanchaikul and moderator Philip Ursprung (Professor, History of Art and Architecture, ETH Zürich) discuss the role of the artist in reclaiming the conditions of hospitality amid growing segregation and xenophobia in the wake of terrorism and migration waves. Can images and words by artists affect the way the public perceives the events? Will art follow the political trend towards isolation, separation and radicalization? Or will the crisis lead to a new aesthetics of cosmopolitanism?
Friday, 22 January 2016 | 3.30pm – 5pm
What Are The Challenges in Leading An Art Museum in The Psychogeography of The 21st Century?
Today the term ‘museum’ is a debatable misnomer. Leading international institution directors debate the role of leadership in conceiving ‘museums’ of the future – with Ann Demeester (Director, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands), Hou Hanru (Artistic Director of MAXXI – National Museum for 21st Century Art and National Museum of Architecture, Rome), and Lu Xun (Collector, Founder and Director, Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing). Moderated by Zoe Butt, Executive Director, Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City.
Saturday, 23 January 2016 | 11am – 12.30pm
The Great Creative City Race – Can Creativity Save the City?
Thought leader Andy C. Pratt (Professor of Cultural Economy at the Department of Culture and Creative Industries, City University London), Berlin’s Permanent Secretary for Cultural Affairs Tim Renner (formerly a music producer, writer and journalist), and moderator Lorenzo Rudolf (Founder and President of Art Stage Singapore and a former Director of Art Basel and Frankfurt Book Fair) discuss how creativity is faring as a ‘new economy’ and what lies ahead for the creative city.
Saturday, 23 January 2016 |
2pm – 3:30 pm
Who Owns The City?
Internationally-acclaimed global thinker Saskia Sassen poses this important question in her talk and discusses why this urban takeover should concern us all. Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. She was awarded the Principe de Asturias 2013 Prize in the Social Sciences and made a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Saturday, 23 January 2016
| 4:30pm – 6pm
The Present Cultural Revolution – Art, Space and Social Contract in the current urban condition, in Asia and beyond
A Conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Michael Schindhelm. After undergoing explosive economic growth, Asia has discovered contemporary culture. Asian cities are becoming sites of international and intercultural exchange, of the definition and re-discovery of diverse cultural identities, of a process of opening up to the world, and finally of experimentation with both the threat to and the potential of tradition.
The urban condition in both developed and developing countries experiences dramatic changes caused by gentrification, migration, tourism, spatial design or digitalisation. Many of these factors create a new setting for public communication and urban culture. Public spaces have become the centre stage for the re-negotiation of the social contract within the civic society. Inside and outside of institutions culture and art enable new forms of social design and participation.
Singapore is a city with an early quest for becoming a cultural hub. Given the current relevance of culture and art in emerging cities Singapore will have to prove its aspiration to be a role model for facilitating culture and art in both ways: as a creative force within and outside of organisations and as a driving force of social development. The talk will reflect on Singapore’s potential positioning as such a role model within the context of Asia and beyond.
Speakers:
Rem Koolhaas / Architect and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University
Michael Schindhelm / Writer
Sunday, 24 January 2016 | 1.30pm – 3pm
Interruption Patterns: Artists and Public Space in Southeast Asian Cities
Artists who care to think about public space are often interested in shifting patterns of perception and behaviour on varying scales. Thinking specific cities and contexts in Southeast Asia, this panel approaches divergent art, architectural and design practices in relation to the idea of interruption patterns. Which publics and spaces do the panelists care to interrupt, and what artistic legacies or patterns do they enact or embody to do so?
Sunday, 24 January 2016| 2pm – 3.30pm
The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age
A Conversation between Daniel A. Bell & Chua Beng Huat.
Cities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom.
In their book, “The Spirit of Cities”, co-authors Daniel A. Bell and Avner de-Shalit revive the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented military discipline. The authors explore how this classical idea can be applied to today’s cities, and explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities.
In this talk, Daniel A. Bell, co-author of “The Spirit of Cities”, and Chua Beng Huat discuss the book, which looks at nine modern cities and the prevailing ethos that distinguishes each one: Jerusalem (religion), Montreal (language), Singapore (nation building), Hong Kong (materialism), Beijing (political power), Oxford (learning), Berlin (tolerance and intolerance), Paris (romance), and New York (ambition). Drawing upon the richly varied histories of each city, as well as novels, poems, biographies, tourist guides, architectural landmarks, and the authors’ own personal reflections and insights, the book shows how the ethos of each city is expressed in political, cultural, and economic life, and also how pride in a city’s ethos can oppose the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and curb the excesses of nationalism.
